Chapter XVIII: Book THE TENTH: Fable I. X.1-85 (4)

The story of Chione most probably took its rise from the difference
between the inclinations of the two children that she bore.
Autolycus, being cunning, and addicted to theft, he was styled the
son of Mercury; while Philammon being a lover of music, Apollo was
said to be his father. According to Pausanias, Autolycus was the son
of Dædalion, and not of Chione. The story of the wolf, the minister
of the vengeance of Psamathe, for the death of Phocus, is probably
built on historical grounds. Æacus had two wives, Ægina and
Psamathe, the sister of Thetis; by the first he had Peleus and
Telamon; by the second, Phocus. Lycomedes, the king of Scyros, the
brother of Psamathe, resolved to revenge the death of his nephew,
whom Peleus had killed: and declared war against Ceyx, for receiving
him into his dominions. The troops of Lycomedes ravaged the country,
and carried away the flocks of Peleus: on which prayers and
entreaties were resorted to, with the view of pacifying him; which
object having been effected, he withdrew his troops. On this, it was
rumoured that he was changed into a rock, after having ravaged the
country like a wild beast, which comparison was perhaps suggested by
the fact of his name being partly compounded of the word λυκὸς,
‘a wolf.’

FABLE VII. [XI.410-748]

Ceyx, going to Claros, to consult the oracle about his brother’s
fate, is shipwrecked on the voyage. Juno sends Iris to the God of
Sleep, who, at her request, dispatches Morpheus to Halcyone, in a
dream, to inform her of the death of her husband. She awakes in the
morning, full of solicitude, and goes to the shore where she finds
the body of Ceyx thrown up by the waves. She is about to cast
herself into the sea in despair, when the Gods transform them both
into king-fishers.

In the mean time, Ceyx being disturbed in mind, both on account of the strange fate of his brother, and {the wonders} that had succeeded his brother, prepares to go to the Clarian God, that he may consult the sacred oracle, the consolation of mortals: for the profane Phorbas,[33] with his Phlegyans, renders the {oracle} of Delphi inaccessible. Yet he first makes thee acquainted with his design, most faithful Halcyone, whose bones receive a chill, and a paleness, much resembling boxwood, comes over her face, and her cheeks are wet with tears gushing forth. Three times attempting to speak, three times she moistens her face with tears, and, sobs interrupting her affectionate complaints, she says:--

“What fault of mine, my dearest, has changed thy mind? Where is that care of me, which once used to exist? Canst thou now be absent without anxiety, thy Halcyone being left behind? Now, is a long journey pleasing to thee? Now, am I dearer to thee when at a distance? But I suppose thy journey is by land, and I shall only grieve, and shall not fear as well, and my anxiety will be free from apprehension. The seas and the aspect of the stormy ocean affright me. And lately I beheld broken planks on the sea shore; and often have I read the names upon tombs,[34] without bodies {there buried}. And let not any deceitful assurance influence thy mind, that the grandson of Hippotas[35] is thy father-in-law; who confines the strong winds in prison, and assuages the seas when he pleases. When, once let loose, the winds have taken possession of the deep, nothing is forbidden to them; every land and every sea is disregarded by them. Even the clouds of heaven do they insult, and by their bold onsets strike forth the brilliant fires.[36] The more I know them, (for I do know them, and, when little, have often seen them in my father’s abode,) the more I think they are to be dreaded. But if thy resolution, my dear husband, cannot be altered by my entreaties, and if thou art {but} too determined to go; take me, too, as well. At least, we shall be tossed together; nor shall I fear anything, but what I shall be {then} suffering; and together we shall endure whatever shall happen; together we shall be carried over the wide seas.”

By such words and the tears of the daughter of Æolus, is her husband, son of the {Morning} Star, {much} affected; for the flame {of love} exists no less in him. But he neither wishes to abandon his proposed voyage, nor to admit Halcyone to a share in the danger; and he says, in answer, many things to console her timorous breast. And yet she does not, on that account, approve of his reasons. To them he adds this alleviation, with which alone he influences his affectionate {wife}: “All delay will, indeed, be tedious to me; but I swear to thee by the fire of my sire, (if only the fates allow me to return,) that I will come back before the moon has twice completed her orb.” When, by these promises, a hope has been given her of his {speedy} return, he forthwith orders a ship, drawn out of the dock, to be launched in the sea, and to be supplied with its {proper} equipments. On seeing this, Halcyone again shuddered, as though presaging the future, and shed her flowing tears, and gave him embraces; and at last, in extreme misery, she said, with a sad voice, “Farewell!” and then she sank with all her body {to the ground}.

But the youths, while Ceyx is {still} seeking pretexts for delay, in double rows,[37] draw the oars towards their hardy breasts, and cleave the main with equal strokes. She raises her weeping eyes, and sees her husband standing on the crooked stern, and by waving his hand making the first signs to her; and she returns the signals. When the land has receded further, and her eyes are unable to distinguish his countenance: {still}, while she can, she follows the retreating ship with her sight. When this too, borne onward, cannot be distinguished from the distance; still she looks at the sails waving from the top of the mast. When she no {longer} sees the sails; she anxiously seeks her deserted bed, and lays herself on the couch. The bed, and the spot, renew the tears of Halcyone, and remind her what part {of herself} is wanting.

They have {now} gone out of harbour, and the breeze shakes the rigging; the sailor urges the pendent oars towards their sides;[38] and fixes the sailyards[39] on the top of the mast, and spreads the canvass full from the mast, and catches the coming breezes. Either the smaller part, or, at least, not more than half her course, had {now} been cut by the ship, and both lands were at a great distance, when, towards night, the sea began to grow white with swelling waves, and the boisterous East wind to blow with greater violence. Presently the master cries, “At once, lower the top sails, and furl the whole of the sail to the yards!” He orders, {but} the adverse storm impedes the execution; and the roaring of the sea does not allow any voice to be heard.

Yet, of their own accord, some hasten to draw in the oars, some to secure the sides, some to withdraw the sails from the winds. This one pumps up the waves, and pours back the sea into the sea; another takes off the yards. While these things are being done without any order, the raging storm is increasing, and the fierce winds wage war on every side, and stir up the furious main. The master of the ship is himself alarmed, and himself confesses that he does not know what is their {present} condition, nor what to order or forbid; so great is the amount of their misfortunes, and more powerful than all his skill. For the men are making a noise with their shouts, the cordage with its rattling, the heavy waves with the dashing of {other} waves, the skies with the thunder. The sea is upturned with billows, and appears to reach the heavens, and to sprinkle the surrounding clouds with its foam. And one while, when it turns up the yellow sands from the bottom, it is of the same colour with them; at another time {it is} blacker than the Stygian waves. Sometimes it is level, and is white with resounding foam. The Trachinian ship too, is influenced by these vicissitudes; and now aloft, as though from the summit of a mountain, it seems to look down upon the vallies and the depths of Acheron; at another moment, when the engulphing sea has surrounded it, sunk below, it seems to be looking at heaven above from the infernal waters. Struck on its side by the waves, it often sends forth a low crashing sound, and beaten against, it sounds with no less noise, than on an occasion when the iron battering ram, or the balista, is shaking the shattered towers. And as fierce lions are wont, gaining strength in their career, to rush with their breasts upon the weapons, and arms extended {against them}; so the water, when upon the rising of the winds it had rushed onwards, advanced against the rigging of the ship, and was much higher than it.

And now the bolts shrink, and despoiled of their covering of wax,[40] the seams open wide, and afford a passage to the fatal waves. Behold! vast showers fall from the dissolving clouds, and you would believe that the whole of the heavens is descending into the deep, and that the swelling sea is ascending to the tracts of heaven. The sails are wet with the rain, and the waves of the ocean are mingled with the waters of the skies. The firmament is without its fires; {and} the gloomy night is oppressed both with its own darkness and that of the storm. Yet the lightnings disperse these, and give light as they flash; the waters are on fire with the flames of the thunder-bolts. And now, too, the waves make an inroad into the hollow texture of the ship; and as a soldier, superior to all the rest of the number, after he has often sprung forward against the fortifications of a defended city, at length gains his desires; and, inflamed with the desire of glory, {though but} one among a thousand more, he still mounts the wall, so, when the violent waves have beaten against the lofty sides, the fury of the tenth wave,[41] rising more impetuously {than the rest}, rushes onward; and it ceases not to attack the wearied ship, before it descends within the walls, as it were, of the captured bark. Part, then, of the sea is still attempting to get into the ship, part is within it. All are now in alarm, with no less intensity than a city is wont to be alarmed, while some are undermining the walls without, and others within have possession of the walls. {All} art fails them, and their courage sinks; and as many {shapes of} death seem to rush and to break in {upon them}, as the waves that approach. One does not refrain from tears; another is stupefied; another calls those happy[42] whom funeral rites await; another, in his prayers, addresses the Gods, and lifting up his hands in vain to that heaven which he sees not, implores their aid. His brothers and his parent recur to the mind of another; to another, his home, with his pledges {of affection}, and {so} what has been left behind by each.

{The remembrance of} Halcyone affects Ceyx; on the lips of Ceyx there is nothing but Halcyone; and though her alone he regrets, still he rejoices that she is absent. {Gladly}, too, would he look back to the shore of his native land, and turn his last glance towards his home; but he knows not where it is. The sea is raging in a hurricane[43] so vast, and all the sky is concealed beneath the shade brought on by the clouds of pitchy darkness, and the face of the night is redoubled {in gloom}. The mast is broken by the violence of the drenching tempest; the helm, too, is broken; and the undaunted wave, standing over its spoil, looks down like a conqueror, upon the waves as they encircle {below}. Nor, when precipitated, does it rush down less violently, than if any {God} were to hurl Athos or Pindus, torn up from its foundations, into the open sea; and with its weight and its violence together, it sinks the ship to the bottom. With her, a great part of the crew overwhelmed in the deep water, and not rising again to the air, meet their fate. Some seize hold of portions and broken pieces of the ship. Ceyx himself seizes a fragment of the wreck, with that hand with which he was wont {to wield} the sceptre, and in vain, alas! he invokes his father, and his father-in-law. But chiefly on his lips, as he swims, is his wife Halcyone. Her he thinks of, and {her name} he repeats: he prays the waves to impel his body before her eyes; and that when dead he may be entombed by the hands of his friends. While he {still} swims, he calls upon Halcyone far away, as often as the billows allow[44] him to open his mouth, and in the very waves he murmurs {her name}. {When}, lo! a darkening arch[45] of waters breaks over the middle of the waves, and buries his head sinking beneath the bursting billow. Lucifer was obscured that night, and such that you could not have recognized him; and since he was not allowed to depart from the heavens,[46] he concealed his face beneath thick clouds.

In the meantime, the daughter of Æolus, ignorant of so great misfortunes, reckons the nights; and now she hastens {to prepare} the garments[47] for him to put on, and now, those which, when he comes, she herself may wear, and vainly promises herself his return. She, indeed, piously offers frankincense to all the Gods above; but, before all, she pays her adorations at the temple of Juno, and comes to the altars on behalf of her husband, who is not in existence. And she prays that her husband may be safe, and that he may return, and may prefer no woman before her. But this {last} alone can be her lot, out of so many of her wishes. But the Goddess endures not any longer to be supplicated on behalf of one who is dead; and, that she may repel her polluted hands[48] from the altars,--she says, “Iris, most faithful messenger of my words, hasten quickly to the soporiferous court of Sleep, and command him, under the form of Ceyx who is dead, to send a vision to Halcyone, to relate her real misfortune.” {Thus} she says. Iris assumes garment of a thousand colours, and, marking the heavens with her curving arch, she repairs to the abode of the king, {Sleep}, as bidden, concealed beneath a rock.

There is near the Cimmerians[49] a cave with a long recess, a hollowed mountain, the home and the habitation of slothful Sleep, into which the Sun, {whether} rising, or in his mid course, or setting, can never come. Fogs mingled with darkness are exhaled from the ground, and {it is} a twilight with a dubious light. No wakeful bird, with the notes of his crested features, there calls forth the morn; nor do the watchful dogs, or the geese more sagacious[50] than the dogs, break the silence with their voices. No wild beasts, no cattle, no boughs waving with the breeze, no {loud} outbursts of the human voice, {there} make any sound; mute Rest has there her abode. But from the bottom of the rock runs a stream, the waters of Lethe,[51] through which the rivulet, trickling with a murmuring noise amid the sounding pebbles, invites sleep. Before the doors of the cavern, poppies bloom in abundance, and innumerable herbs, from the juice of which the humid night gathers sleep, and spreads it over the darkened Earth. There is no door in the whole dwelling, to make a noise by the turning of the hinges; no porter at the entrance. But in the middle is a couch, raised high upon black ebony, stuffed with feathers, of a dark colour, concealed by a dark coverlet; on which the God himself lies, his limbs dissolved in sloth. Around him lie, in every direction, imitating divers shapes, unsubstantial dreams as many as the harvest bears ears of corn, the wood green leaves, the shore the sands thrown up. Into this, soon as the maiden had entered, and had put aside with her hands the visions that were in her way, the sacred house shone with the splendour of her garment, and the God, with difficulty lifting up his eyes sunk in languid sloth, again and again relapsing, and striking the upper part of his breast with his nodding chin, at last aroused himself from his {dozing}; and, raised on his elbow, he inquired why she had come; for he knew {who she was}.

But she {replied}, “Sleep, thou repose of all things; Sleep, thou gentlest of the Deities; thou peace of the mind, from which care flies, who dost soothe the hearts {of men}, wearied with the toils of the day, and refittest them for labour, command a vision, that resembles in similitude the real shape, to go to Halcyone, in Herculean Trachyn, in the form of the king, and to assume the form of one that has suffered shipwreck. Juno commands this.” After Iris had executed her commission, she departed; for she could no longer endure the effects of the vapour; and, as soon as she perceived sleep creeping over her limbs, she took to flight,[52] and departed along the bow by which she had come just before.

But Father {Sleep}, out of the multitude of his thousand sons, raises Morpheus,[53] a {skilful} artist, and an imitator of {any human} shape. No one more dexterously than he mimics the gait, and the countenance, and the mode of speaking; he adds the dress, too, and the words most commonly used by any one. But he imitates men only; for another one becomes a wild beast, becomes a bird, {or} becomes a serpent, with its lengthened body: this one, the Gods above call Icelos; the tribe of mortals, Phobetor. There is likewise a third, {master} of a different art, {called} Phantasos: he cleverly changes {himself} into earth, and stone, and water, and a tree, and all those things which are destitute of life. These are wont, by night, to show their features to kings and to generals, {while} others wander amid the people and the commonalty. These, Sleep, the aged {God}, passes by, and selects Morpheus alone from all his brothers, to execute the commands of the daughter of Thaumas; and again he both drops his head, sunk in languid drowsiness, and shrinks back within the lofty couch.

{Morpheus} flies through the dark with wings that make no noise, and in a short space of intervening time arrives at the Hæmonian city; and, laying aside his wings from off his body, he assumes the form of Ceyx; and in that form, wan, and like one without blood, without garments, he stands before the bed of his wretched wife. The beard of the hero appears to be dripping, and the water to be falling thickly from his soaking hair. Then leaning on the bed, with tears running down his face, he says these words: “My most wretched wife, dost thou recognise {thy} Ceyx, or are my looks {so} changed with death? Observe me; thou wilt {surely} know me: and, instead of thy husband, thou wilt find the ghost of thy husband. Thy prayers, Halcyone, have availed me nothing; I have perished. Do not promise thyself, {thus} deceived, my {return}. The cloudy South wind caught my ship in the Ægean Sea,[54] and dashed it to pieces, tossed by the mighty blasts; and the waves choked my utterance, in vain calling upon thy name. It is no untruthful messenger that tells thee this: thou dost not hear these things through vague rumours. I, myself, shipwrecked, in person, am telling thee my fate. Come, arise then, shed tears, and put on mourning; and do not send me unlamented to the phantom {realms of} Tartarus.”

To these words Morpheus adds a voice, which she may believe to be that of her husband. He seems, too, to be shedding real tears, and his hands have the gesture of Ceyx. As she weeps, Halcyone groans aloud, and moves her arms in her sleep, and catching at his body, grasps the air; and she cries aloud, “Stay, whither dost thou hurry? We will go together.” Disturbed by her own voice, and by the appearance of her husband, she shakes off sleep; and first she looks about there, to see if he, who has been so lately seen, is there; for the servants, roused by her voice, have brought in lights. After she has found him nowhere, she smites her face with her hands, and tears her garments from off her breast, and beats her breast itself. Nor cares she to loosen her hair; she tears it, and says to her nurse, as she inquires what is the occasion of her sorrow: “Halcyone is no more! no more! with her own Ceyx is she dead. Away with words of comfort. He has perished by shipwreck. I have seen him, and I knew him; and as he departed, desirous to detain him, I extended my hands towards him. The ghost fled: but, yet it was the undoubted and the real ghost of my husband. It had not, indeed, if thou askest me {that}, his wonted features; nor was he looking cheerful with his former countenance. Hapless, I beheld him, pale, and naked, and with his hair still dripping. Lo! ill-fated {man}, he stood on this very spot;” and she seeks the prints of his footsteps, if any are left. “This it was, this is what I dreaded in my ill-boding mind, and I entreated that thou wouldst not, deserting me, follow the winds. But, I could have wished, since thou didst depart to perish, that, at least, thou hadst taken me as well. To have gone with thee, {yes}, with thee, would have been an advantage to me; for then neither should I have spent any part of my life otherwise than together with thee, nor would my death have been divided {from thee}. Now, absent {from thee}, I perish; now, absent, I am tossed on the waves; and the sea has thee without me.

“My heart were more cruel than the sea itself, were I to strive to protract my life any further; and, were I to struggle to survive so great a misfortune. But I will not struggle, nor, hapless one, will I abandon thee; and, at least, I will {now} come to be thy companion. And, in the tomb, if the urn {does} not, yet the inscription[55] shall unite us: if {I touch} not thy bones with my bones, still will I unite thy name with my name.” Grief forbids her saying more, and wailings come between each word, and groans are heaved from her sorrow-stricken breast.

It is {now} morning: she goes forth from her abode to the sea-shore, and, wretched, repairs to that place from which she had seen him go, and says, “While he lingered, and while he was loosening the cables, at his departure, he gave me kisses upon this sea-shore;” and while she calls to recollection the incidents which she had observed with her eyes, and looks out upon the sea, she observes on the flowing wave, I know not what {object}, like a body, within a distant space: and at first she is doubtful what it is. After the water has brought it a little nearer, and, although it is {still} distant, it is plain that it is a corpse. Ignorant who it may be, because it is ship-wrecked, she is moved at the omen, and, though unknown, would fain give it a tear. “Alas! thou wretched one!” she says, “whoever thou art; and if thou hast any wife!” Driven by the waves, the body approaches nearer. The more she looks at it, the less and the less is she mistress of her senses. And now she sees it brought close to the land, that now she can well distinguish it: it is her husband. “’Tis he!” she exclaims, and, on the instant, she tears her face, her hair, {and} her garments; and, extending her trembling hands towards Ceyx, she says, “And is it thus, Oh dearest husband! is it thus, Oh ill-fated one! that thou dost return to me?”

A mole, made by the hand of man, adjoins the waves, which breaks the first fury of the ocean, and weakens the first shock of its waters. Upon that she leaped, and ’tis wondrous that she could. She flew, and beating the light air with her wings newly formed, she, a wretched bird, skimmed the surface of the water. And, while she flew, her croaking mouth, with its slender bill, uttered a sound like that of one in sadness, and full of complaining. But when she touched the body, dumb, and without blood, embracing the beloved limbs with her new-made wings, in vain she gave him cold kisses with her hardened bill. The people were in doubt whether Ceyx was sensible of this, or whether, by the motion of the wave, he seemed to raise his countenance; but {really} he was sensible of it; and, at length, through the pity of the Gods above, both were changed into birds. Meeting with the same fate, even then their love remained. Nor, when {now} birds, is the conjugal tie dissolved: they couple, and they become parents; and for seven calm days,[56] in the winter-time, does Halcyone brood upon her nest floating on the sea.[57] Then the passage of the deep is safe; Æolus keeps the winds in, and restrains them from sallying forth, and secures a {smooth} sea for his descendants.

[Footnote 33: _The profane Phorbas._--Ver. 414. The temple at
Delphi was much nearer and more convenient for Ceyx to resort to;
but at that period it was in the hands of the Phlegyans, a people
of Thessaly, of predatory and lawless habits, who had plundered
the Delphic shrine. They were destroyed by thunderbolts and
pestilence, or, according to some authors, by Neptune, who swept
them away in a flood. Phorbas, here mentioned, was one of the
Lapithæ, a savage robber, who forced strangers to box with him,
and then slew them. Having the presumption to challenge the Gods,
he was slain by Apollo.]

[Footnote 34: _Names upon tombs._--Ver. 429. Cenotaphs, or
honorary tombs, were erected in honour of those, who having been
drowned, their bodies could not be found. One great reason for
erecting these memorials was the notion, that the souls of those
who had received no funeral honours, wandered in agony on the
banks of the Styx for the space of one hundred years.]

[Footnote 35: _Hippotas._--Ver. 431. Æolus was the grandson of
Hippotas, through his daughter Sergesta, who bore Æolus to
Jupiter. Ovid says that he was the father of Halcyone; but,
according to Lucian, she was the daughter of Æolus the Hellenian,
the grandson of Deucalion.]

[Footnote 36: _Brilliant fires._--Ver. 436. Ovid probably here had
in view the description given by Lucretius, commencing Book i.
line 272.]

[Footnote 37: _In double rows._--Ver. 462. By this it is implied
that the ship of Ceyx was a ‘biremis,’ or one with two ranks of
rowers; one rank being placed above the other. Pliny the Elder
attributes the invention of the ‘biremis’ to the Erythræans. Those
with three ranks of rowers were introduced by the Corinthians;
while Dionysius, the first king of Sicily, was the inventor of the
Quadriremis, or ship with four ranks of rowers. Quinqueremes, or
those with five ranks, are said to have been the invention of the
Salaminians. The first use of those with six ranks has been
ascribed to the Syracusans. Ships were sometimes built with
twelve, twenty, and even forty ranks of rowers, but they appear to
have been intended rather for curiosity than for use. As, of
course, the labour of each ascending rank increased, through the
necessity of the higher ranks using longer oars, the pay of the
lowest rank was the lowest, their work being the easiest. Where
there were twenty ranks or more, the upper oars required more than
one man to manage them. Ptolemy Philopater had a vessel built as a
curiosity, which had no less than four thousand rowers.]

[Footnote 38: _Towards their sides._--Ver. 475. ‘Obvertere lateri
remos’ most probably means ‘To feather the oars,’ which it is
especially necessary to do in a gale, to avoid the retarding power
of the wind against the surface of the blade of the oar.]

[Footnote 39: _Fixes the sail-yards._--Ver. 476. ‘Cornua’ means,
literally, ‘The ends or points of the sail-yards,’ or ‘Antennæ:’
but here the word is used to signify the sail-yards themselves.]

[Footnote 40: _Covering of wax._--Ver. 514. The ‘Cera’ with which
the seams of the ships were stopped, was most probably a
composition of wax and pitch, or other bituminous and resinous
substances.]

[Footnote 41: _The tenth wave._--Ver. 530. This is said in
allusion to the belief that every tenth wave exceeded the others
in violence.]

[Footnote 42: _Calls those happy._--Ver. 540. Those who died on
shore would obtain funeral rites; while those who perished by
shipwreck might become food for the fishes, a fate which was
regarded by the ancients with peculiar horror. Another reason for
thus regarding death by shipwreck, was the general belief among
the ancients, that the soul was an emanation from æther, or fire,
and that it was contrary to the laws of nature for it to be
extinguished by water. Ovid says in his Tristia, or Lament (Book
I. El. 2, l. 51-57), ‘I fear not death: ’tis the dreadful kind of
death; Take away the shipwreck: then death will be a gain to me.
’Tis something for one, either dying a natural death, or by the
sword, to lay his breathless corpse in the firm ground, and to
impart his wishes to his kindred, and to hope for a sepulchre, and
not to be food for the fishes of the sea.’]

[Footnote 43: _A hurricane._--Ver. 548-9. ‘Tanta vertigine pontus
Fervet’ is transcribed by Clarke, ‘The sea is confounded with so
great a vertigo.’]

[Footnote 44: _The billows allow._--Ver. 566. ‘Quoties sinit
hiscere fluctus’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘As oft as the waves
suffer him to gape.’]

[Footnote 45: _A darkening arch._--Ver. 568. Possibly ‘niger
arcus’ means a sweeping wave, black with the sand which it has
swept from the depths of the ocean; or else with the reflection of
the dark clouds.]

[Footnote 46: _From the heavens._--Ver. 571. The word Olympus is
frequently used by the poets to signify ‘the heavens;’ as the
mountain of that name in Thessaly, from its extreme height, was
supposed to be the abode of the Gods.]

[Footnote 47: _Prepare the garments._--Ver. 575. Horace tells us
that their clients wove garments for the Roman patricians; and the
females of noble family did the same for their husbands, children,
and brothers. Ovid, in the Fasti, describes Lucretia as making a
‘lacerna,’ or cloak, for her husband Collatinus. She says to her
hand-maidens, ‘With all speed there must be sent to your master a
cloak made with our hands.’ (Book ii. l. 746.) Suetonius tells us
that Augustus would wear no clothes but those made by his wife,
sister, or daughter.]

[Footnote 48: _Polluted hands._--Ver. 584. All persons who had
been engaged in the burial of the dead were considered to be
polluted, and were not allowed to enter the temples of the Gods
till they had been purified. Among the Greeks, persons who had
been supposed to have died in foreign countries, and whose funeral
rites had been performed in an honorary manner by their own
relatives, if it turned out that they were not dead, and they
returned to their own country, were considered impure, and were
only purified by being dressed in swaddling clothes, and treated
like new-born infants. We shall, then, be hardly surprised at Juno
considering Halcyone to be polluted by the death of her husband
Ceyx, although at a distance, and as yet unknown to her.]

[Footnote 49: _The Cimmerians._--Ver. 592. Ovid appropriately
places the abode of the drowsy God in the cold, damp, and foggy
regions of the Cimmerians, who are supposed, by some authors, to
have been a people of Sarmatia, or Scythia, near the Palus Mæotis,
or sea of Azof. Other writers suppose that a fabulous race of
people, said to live near Baiæ in Italy, and to inhabit dark caves
throughout the day, while they sallied forth to plunder at night,
are here referred to. This description of the abode of Sleep, and
of his appearance and attendants, is supposed to have been
borrowed by Ovid from one of the Greek poets.]

[Footnote 50: _Geese more sagacious._--Ver. 599. This is said in
compliment to the geese, for the service they rendered, in giving
the alarm, and saving the Capitol, when in danger of being taken
by the Gauls.]

[Footnote 51: _Waters of Lethe._--Ver. 603. After the dead had
tasted the waters of Lethe, one of the rivers of Hell, it was
supposed that they lost all recollection of the events of their
former life.]

[Footnote 52: _Took to flight._--Ver. 632. Clarke translates this
line, ‘Away she scours, and returns through the bow through which
she had come.’]

[Footnote 53: _Morpheus._--Ver. 635. Morpheus was so called from
the Greek μορφὴ, ‘shape,’ or ‘figure,’ because he assumed various
shapes. Icelos has his name from the Greek ἴκελος, ‘like,’ for a
similar reason. Phobetor is from the Greek φοβὸς, ‘fear,’ because
it was his office to terrify mortals. Lucian appears to mean the
same Deity, under the name of Taraxion. Phantasos is from the
Greek φάντασις, ‘fancy.’]

[Footnote 54: _In the Ægean Sea._--Ver. 663. The Ægean Sea lay
between the city of Trachyn and the coast of Ionia, whither Ceyx
had gone.]

[Footnote 55: _The inscription._--Ver. 706. The epitaphs on the
tombs of the ancients usually contained the name of the person,
his age, and (with the Greeks) some account of the principal
events of his life. Halcyone, in her affectionate grief, promises
her husband, at least, an honorary funeral, and a share in her own
epitaph.]

[Footnote 56: _Seven calm days._--Ver. 745. Simonides mentions
eleven as being the number of the days; Philochorus, nine; but
Demagoras says seven, the number here adopted by Ovid.]

[Footnote 57: _Floating on the sea._--Ver. 746. The male of the
kingfisher was said by the ancients to be so constant to his mate,
that on her death he refused to couple with any other, for which
reason the poets considered that bird as the emblem of conjugal
affection. The sea was supposed to be always calm when the female
was sitting; from which time of serenity, our proverb, which
speaks of ‘Halcyon days,’ takes its rise.]

EXPLANATION.

According to the testimony of several of the ancient writers, Ceyx
was the king of Trachyn, and was a prince of great knowledge and
experience; and many had recourse to him to atone for the murders
which they had committed, whether through imprudence or otherwise.
Pausanias says that Eurystheus having summoned Ceyx to deliver up to
him the children of Hercules, that prince, who was not able to
maintain a war against so powerful a king, sent the youths to
Theseus, who took them into his protection.

To recover from the melancholy consequent upon the death of his
brother Dædalion and his niece Chione, he went to Claros to consult
the oracle of Apollo, and was shipwrecked on his return; on which,
his wife, Halcyone, was so afflicted, that she died of grief, or
else threw herself into the sea, as Hyginus informs us. It was said
that they were changed into the birds which we call kingfishers,
a story which, probably, has no other foundation than the name of
Halcyone, which signifies that bird; which by the ancients was
considered to be the symbol of conjugal affection.

Apollodorus, however, does not give us so favourable an idea of the
virtue of these persons as Ovid has done. According to him, it was
their pride which proved the cause of their destruction. Jupiter
enraged at Ceyx, because he had assumed his name as Halcyone had
done that of Juno, changed them both into birds, he becoming a
cormorant, and she a kingfisher. This story is remarkable for the
beautiful and affecting manner in which it is told.

FABLE VIII. [XI.749-795]

The Nymph Hesperia flying from Æsacus, who is enamoured of her,
is bitten by a serpent, and instantly dies from the effects of the
wound. He is so afflicted at her death, that he throws himself into
the sea, and is transformed into a didapper.

Some old man[58] observes them as they fly over the widely extended seas, and commends their love, preserved to the end {of their existence}. One, close by, or the same, if chance so orders it, says, “This one, too, which you see, as it cuts through the sea, and having its legs drawn up,” pointing at a didapper, with its wide throat, “was the son of a king. And, if you want to come down to him in one lengthened series, his ancestors are Ilus, and Assaracus, and Ganymede,[59] snatched away by Jupiter, and the aged Laomedon, and Priam, to whom were allotted the last days of Troy. He himself was the brother of Hector, and had he not experienced a strange fate in his early youth, perhaps he would have had a name not inferior to {that} of Hector; although the daughter of Dymas bore this {last}. Alexirhoë, the daughter of the two-horned Granicus,[60] is said secretly to have brought forth Æsacus, under shady Ida.

“He loathed the cities, and distant from the splendid court, frequented the lonely mountains, and the unambitious fields; nor went but rarely among the throngs of Ilium. Yet, not having a breast either churlish, or impregnable to love, he espies Hesperie, the daughter of Cebrenus,[61] on the banks of her sire, who has been often sought by him throughout all the woods, drying her locks, thrown over her shoulders, in the sun. The Nymph, {thus} seen, takes to flight, just as the frightened hind from the tawny wolf; and {as} the water-duck, surprised at a distance, having left her {wonted} stream, from the hawk. Her the Trojan hero pursues, and, swift with love, closely follows her, made swift by fear. Behold! a snake, lurking in the grass, with its barbed sting, wounds her foot as she flies, and leaves its venom in her body. With her flight is her life cut short. Frantic, he embraces her breathless, and cries aloud,-- “I grieve, I grieve that {ever} I pursued {thee}. But I did not apprehend this; nor was it of so much value to me to conquer. We two have proved the destruction of wretched thee. The wound was given by the serpent; by me was the occasion given. I should be more guilty than he, did I not give the consolation for thy fate by my own death.” {Thus} he said; and from a rock which the hoarse waves had undermined, he hurled himself into the sea. Tethys, pitying him as he fell, received him softly, and covered him with feathers as he swam through the sea; and the power of obtaining the death he sought was not granted to him. The lover is vexed that, against his will, he is obliged to live on, and that opposition is made to his spirit, desirous to depart from its wretched abode. And, as he has assumed newformed wings on his shoulders, he flies aloft, and again he throws his body in the waves: his feathers break the fall. Æsacus is enraged; and headlong he plunges into the deep,[62] and incessantly tries the way of destruction. Love caused his leanness; the spaces between the joints of his legs are long; his neck remains long, {and} his head is far away from his body. He loves the sea, and has his name because he plunges[63] in it.

[Footnote 58: _Some old man._--Ver. 749-50. ‘Hos aliquis
senior--spectat;’ these words are translated by Clarke, ‘Some old
blade spies them.’]

[Footnote 59: _Ganymede._--Ver. 756. Ovid need not have inserted
Assaracus and Ganymede, as they were only the brothers of Ilus,
and the three were the sons of Tros. Ilus was the father of
Laomedon, whose son was Priam, the father of Æsacus.]

[Footnote 60: _Granicus._--Ver. 763. The Granicus was a river of
Mysia, near which Alexander the Great defeated Darius with immense
slaughter.]

[Footnote 61: _Cebrenus._--Ver. 769. The Cebrenus was a little
stream of Phrygia, not far from Troy.]

[Footnote 62: _Plunges into the deep._--Ver. 791-2. ‘Inque
profundum Pronus abit,’ Clarke renders, ‘Goes plumb down into the
deep.’ Certainly this is nearer to its French origin, ‘a plomb,’
than the present form, ‘plump down;’ but, like many other
instances in his translation, it decidedly does not help us, as he
professes to do, to ‘the attainment of the elegancy of this great
Poet.’]

[Footnote 63: _Because he plunges._--Ver. 795. He accounts for the
Latin name of the diver, or didapper, ‘mergus,’ by saying that it
was so called, ‘a mergendo,’ from its diving, which doubtless was
the origin of the name, though not taking its rise in the fiction
here related by the Poet.]

EXPLANATION.

Ovid and Apollodorus agree that Æsacus was the son of Priam, and
that he was changed into a didapper, or diver, but they differ in
the other circumstances of his life. Instead of being the son of
Alexirhoë, Apollodorus says that he was the son of Priam and Arisbe
the daughter of Merope, his first wife; that his father made him
marry Sterope, who dying very young, he was so afflicted at her
death, that he threw himself into the sea. He also says that Priam
having repudiated Arisbe to marry Hecuba, the daughter of Cisseus,
Æsacus seeing his mother-in-law pregnant of her second son, foretold
his father that her progeny would be the cause of a bloody war,
which would end in the destruction of the kingdom of Troy; and that
upon this prediction, the infant, when born, was exposed on Mount
Ida.

Tzetzes adds, that Æsacus told his father that it was absolutely
necessary to put to death both the mother and the infant which was
born on that same day; on which Priam being informed that Cilla, the
wife of Thymætes, being delivered on that day of a son, he ordered
them both to be killed; thinking thereby to escape the realization
of the prediction. Servius, on the authority of Euphorion, relates
the story in much the same manner; but a poet quoted by Cicero in
his first book on Divination, says that it was the oracle of Zelia,
a little town at the foot of Mount Ida, which gave that answer as an
interpretation of the dream of Hecuba. Pausanias says it was the
sibyl Herophila who interpreted the dream, while other ancient
writers state that it was Cassandra. Apollodorus says that Æsacus
learned from his grandfather Merops the art of foretelling things to
come.

BOOK THE TWELFTH.

FABLES I. AND II. [XII.1-145]

The Greeks assemble their troops at Aulis, to proceed against the
city of Troy, and revenge the rape of Helen; but the fleet is
detained in port by contrary winds. Calchas, the priest, after a
prediction concerning the success of the expedition, declares that
the weather will never be favourable till Agamemnon shall have
sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia. She is immediately led to the
altar for that purpose; but Diana, appeased by this act of
obedience, carries away the maiden, and substitutes a hind in her
place, on which a fair wind arises. Upon the Greeks landing at Troy,
a battle is fought, in which Protesilaüs is killed by Hector, and
Achilles kills Cygnus, a Trojan, on which his father Neptune
transforms him into a swan.

His father Priam mourned him, not knowing that Æsacus, having assumed wings, was {still} living; Hector, too, with his brothers, made unavailing offerings[1] at a tomb, that bore his name {on it}. The presence of Paris was wanting, at this mournful office: who, soon after, brought into his country a lengthened war, together with a ravished wife;[2] and a thousand ships[3] uniting together, followed him, and, together {with them}, the whole body[4] of the Pelasgian nation. Nor would vengeance have been delayed, had not the raging winds made the seas impassable, and the Bœotian land detained in fishy Aulis the ships ready to depart. Here, when they had prepared a sacrifice to Jupiter, after the manner of their country, as the ancient altar was heated with kindled fires, the Greeks beheld an azure-coloured serpent creep into a plane tree, which was standing near the sacrifice they had begun. There was on the top of the tree a nest of twice four birds, which the serpent seized[5] together, and the dam as she fluttered around {the scene of} her loss, and he buried them in his greedy maw. All stood amazed. But {Calchas}, the son of Thestor, a soothsayer, foreseeing the truth, says, “Rejoice, Pelasgians, we shall conquer. Troy will fall, but the continuance of our toil will be long;” and he allots the nine birds to the years of the war. {The serpent}, just as he is, coiling around the green branches in the tree, becomes a stone, and, under the form of a serpent, retains that stone {form}.

Nereus continued boisterous in the Ionian waves, and did not impel the sails onwards; and there are some who think that Neptune favoured Troy, because he made the walls of the city. But not {so} the son of Thestor. For neither was he ignorant, nor did he conceal, that the wrath of the virgin Goddess must be appeased by the blood of a virgin. After the public good had prevailed over affection, and the king over the father, and Iphigenia, ready to offer her chaste blood, stood before the altar, while the priests were weeping; the Goddess was appeased, and cast a mist before their eyes, and, amid the service and the hurry of the rites, and the voices of the suppliants, is said to have changed Iphigenia, the Mycenian maiden, for a substituted hind. Wherefore, when the Goddess was appeased by a death which was {more} fitting, and at the same moment the wrath of Phœbe, and of the sea was past, the thousand ships received the winds astern, and having suffered much, they gained the Phrygian shore.

There is a spot in the middle of the world, between the land and the sea, and the regions of heaven, the confines of the threefold universe, whence is beheld whatever anywhere exists, although it may be in far {distant} regions, and every sound pierces the hollow ears. {Of this place} Fame is possessed, and chooses for herself a habitation on the top[6] of a tower, and has added innumerable avenues, and a thousand openings to her house, and has closed the entrances with no gates. Night and day are they open. It is all of sounding brass; it is all resounding, and it reechoes the voice, and repeats what it hears. Within there is no rest, and silence in no part. Nor yet is there a clamour, but the murmur of a low voice, such as is wont to arise from the waves of the sea, if one listens at a distance, or like the sound which the end of the thundering {makes} when Jupiter has clashed the black clouds together. A crowd occupies the hall; the fickle vulgar come and go; and a thousand rumours, false mixed with true, wander up and down, and circulate confused words. Of these, some fill the empty ears with conversation; some are carrying elsewhere what is told them; the measure of the fiction is ever on the increase, and each fresh narrator adds something to what he has heard. There, is Credulity, there, rash Mistake, and empty Joy, and alarmed Fears, and sudden Sedition, and Whispers of doubtful origin. She sees what things are done in heaven and on the sea, and on the earth; and she pries into the whole universe.

She has made it known that Grecian ships are on their way, with valiant troops: nor does the enemy appear in arms unlooked for. The Trojans oppose their landing, and defend the shore, and thou, Protesilaüs,[7] art, by the decrees of fate, the first to fall by the spear of Hector;[8] and the battles {now} commenced, and the courageous spirits of {the Trojans}, and Hector, {till then} unknown, cost the Greeks dear. Nor do the Phrygians experience at small expense of blood what the Grecian right hand can do. And now the Sigæan shores are red {with blood}: now Cygnus, the son of Neptune, has slain a thousand men. Now is Achilles pressing on in his chariot, and levelling the Trojan ranks, with the blow of his Peleian spear; and seeking through the lines either Cygnus or Hector, he engages with Cygnus: Hector is reserved for the tenth year. Then animating the horses, having their white necks pressed with the yoke, he directed his chariot against the enemy, and brandishing his quivering spear with his arm, he said, “O youth, whoever thou art, take this consolation in thy death, that thou art slain by the Hæmonian Achilles.”

Thus far the grandson of Æacus. His heavy lance followed his words. But, although there was no missing in the unerring lance, yet it availed nothing, by the sharpness of its point, {thus} discharged; and as it only bruised his breast with a blunt stroke, {the other} said, “Thou son of a Goddess, (for by report have we known of thee beforehand) why art thou surprised that wounds are warded off from me? (for {Achilles} was surprised); not this helmet that thou seest tawny with the horse’s mane, nor the hollowed shield, the burden of my left arm, are assistant to me; from them ornament {alone} is sought; for this cause, too, Mars is wont to take up arms. All the assistance of defensive armour shall be removed, {and} yet I shall come off unhurt. It is something to be born, not of a Nereid,[9] but {of one} who rules both Nereus and his daughter, and the whole ocean.”

{Thus} he spoke; and he hurled against the descendant of Æacus his dart, destined to stick in the rim of his shield; it broke through both the brass and the next nine folds of bull’s hide; but stopping in the tenth circle {of the hide}, the hero wrenched it out, and again hurled the quivering weapon with a strong hand; again his body was without a wound, and unharmed, nor was a third spear able {even} to graze Cygnus, unprotected, and exposing himself. Achilles raged no otherwise than as a bull,[10] in the open Circus,[11] when with his dreadful horns he butts against the purple-coloured garments, used as the means of provoking him, and perceives that his wounds are evaded. Still, he examines whether the point has chanced to fall from off the spear. It is {still} adhering to the shaft. “My hand then is weak,” says he, “and it has spent {all} the strength it had before, upon one man. For decidedly it was strong enough, both when at first I overthrew the walls of Lyrnessus, or when I filled both Tenedos and Eëtionian[12] Thebes with their own blood. Or when Caÿcus[13] flowed empurpled with the slaughter of its people: and Telephus[14] was twice sensible of the virtue of my spear. Here, too, where so many have been slain, heaps of whom I both have made along this shore, and I {now} behold, my right hand has proved mighty, and is mighty.”

{Thus} he spoke; and as if he distrusted what he had done before, he hurled his spear against Menœtes, one of the Lycian multitude,[15] who {was} standing opposite, and he tore asunder both his coat of mail, and his breast beneath it. He beating the solid earth with his dying head, he drew the same weapon from out of the reeking wound, and said, “This is the hand, this the lance, with which I conquered but now. The same will I use against him; in his {case}, I pray that the event may prove the same.” Thus he said, and he hurled it at Cygnus, nor did the ashen lance miss him; and, not escaped {by him}, it resounded on his left shoulder: thence it was repelled, as though by a wall, or a solid rock. Yet Achilles saw Cygnus marked with blood, where he had been struck, and he rejoiced, {but in} vain. There was no wound; that was the blood of Menœtes.