Metamorphoses
Page 54
and Herculaneum, conceived (along
with Stabia and Parthenope, too)
as charming playgrounds for the idle rich,
and after to the Sybil’s shrine at Cumae,
and then to Baeae (where the hot springs flow)
and then Liternum, rich in mastic trees,
and the mouth of the Volturnus, clogged with sand,
and Sinuessa, famed for snowy doves;
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Minturna, famous for its illnesses,
and the land named for someone’s foster nurse;
the palace of Antiphates, the town
of Trachin, situated in a marsh,
and Circe’s territory, and the shore
of Antium, a sweep of polished sand.
They put in here, because the seas were rough;
the god unfolded himself from the ship,
great rolls of serpent gliding down the beach
to slip into the temple of his father
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there on the sands.
When the sea was calm again,
the god from Epidaurus left the shrine
where he had been hospitably received
by a kindred deity, and went back aboard,
dragging his scaly body through the sands;
and after winding himself round the rudder,
he placed his head upon the ship’s high stern,
where he reposed until the ship reached Castrum
and the sacred city of Lavinium
and the mouth of the Tiber.
Here everyone
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came pouring out to greet the deity,
the fathers and the mothers of the city
and the virgins who attend the shrine of Vesta,
saluting the new god with a joyful clamor.
And as the ship sailed swiftly up the Tiber,
from altars set in rows along both banks
came clouds of fragrant incense, and the blood
of victims warmed the sacrificial knives;
he enters Rome now, the world’s capital,
and gliding to the topmost of the mast,
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inclines his head now this way and now that,
in search of an appropriate abode.
And where the Tiber separates to flow
in two parts equally around that place
known as the Island, the serpent-shaped son
of Phoebus left the ship, and, once again
assuming the form that he displays in heaven,
brought an end to the bereavement of
the city by restoring it to health.
The apotheosis of Julius Caesar
That one approached our altars as a stranger,
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but Caesar is a god in his own city,
raised up to heaven, changed into a star
blazing so brilliantly, not by his own
remarkable success in war and peace,
not by the battles that were crowned in triumph,
nor by his service to the commonwealth,
nor yet by glory that hastened to his side;
but rather by his offspring, for no deed
has Caesar done that stands out more than this:
he is the father of our own Augustus!
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For truly, it was less significant
to subjugate the Britons on their isle,
or lead his vessels up the reedy Nile
to victory; and less to have subdued
Iuba, the king of the Numidians,
and Pontus, boasting yet of Mithridates;
and less indeed to have been granted some
of the many triumphs that he merited;
all these are far, far less significant
than to have begotten such a man!
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And you, O gods, by placing him in charge,
have showered blessings on the human race!
That such a man might not be born a mortal,
his father must be made into a god;
the golden mother of Aeneas saw this
as clearly as she saw the sordid plotting
of armed conspirators, bent on the destruction
of her own high priest. Venus grew quite pale,
and told the gods, as she encountered each,
“Just look at all the plots arrayed against me,
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the many treacheries that seek to slay
the last descendent of my Trojan Julus!
“Am I the only god to be forever
vexed by such justified anxieties?
For even now the Calydonian spear
of Diomedes wounds me, and the walls
of ill-defended Troy come crashing down,
and I can see my son’s long wandering
in exile and his struggle with the sea,
his journey to the silent underworld
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and war with Turnus, or, to speak the truth,
with Juno, rather. But why do I recall
these ancient injuries against my people?
This new fear drives all former fears from mind!
“Behold where sinful blades are being sharpened!
Prohibit this, I pray, prevent this crime,
or else the blood of Vesta’s sacred priest
will soon put out the fires on her hearth!”
Care-ridden Venus cried out all these woes
through heaven, and although the gods were moved,
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they could not break the stern decree of Fate,
though they were able to provide at least
unambiguous signs of approaching grief:
they say that wars broke out high in the heavens
where storm clouds clashed, and horns and trumpets sounded
alarms that brought terror to the hearts of men
and warned them of the evils soon to come;
a dismal sun now shed its lurid light
upon the agitated lands below,
and torches seemed to blaze among the stars;
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often great drops of blood fell from the clouds,
the morning star turned dark, and its complexion
was stained as though by flakes of iron rust;
now Luna’s chariot seemed smeared with blood;
and the Stygian owl hooted mournful omens
in a thousand places; in a thousand places,
ivory statues wept; in sacred groves
they say that threats and cries of woe were heard.
There were no victims found acceptable,
and livers warned of tumult soon to come;
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and in the forum and around men’s homes,
and in the temples, dogs would howl at night;
the silent dead would wander, it is said,
and earthquakes shook the city with their tremors.
Nor could those premonitions from the gods
overcome fate or human treachery,
and unsheathed swords were brought into the senate,
for there was nowhere else in all the city
for such a dreadful murder to take place.
Then Venus struck her breast with both her hands,
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and made to gather Caesar in a cloud,
as Paris once was borne from Menelaüs,
and as Aeneas from Diomedes.
Her father said, “My dear, are you preparing
to alter his inevitable fate
all by yourself? It is permitted you
to enter the Hall of Records kept by the Fates;
there you will find the labor of the ages,
the universal script, in bronze and iron,
which does not fear that clashes in the sky
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or lightning’s rage will bring it down to ruin,
for it will be eternally secure.
“Here you will find, inscribed on adamant
that will not perish ever, your son’s fate:
and I myself have read and noted it,
and I will now expound on it to you,
so you may understand what is to come.
The one that you are mourning has accomplished
the time he was allotted here on earth;
the debt that he has owed to life is paid.
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“So that he may set out on his career
as a god in heaven, worshiped here on earth,
you will assist him, working with his son,
who as the heir to Caesar’s name and title
will bear alone the burden this imposes,
and as the chief avenger of his murder
will have our full support in all his wars:
under his leadership, the vanquished walls
of Mutina, besieged, will sue for peace;
Pharsalia will suffer from his blows,
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and Philippi once more be drenched in gore;
the one called ‘great’ will drown off Sicily;
a Roman general’s Egyptian wife
will rue that poor connection, and will fall,
her threat that our Capitol would kneel
to her Canopus having proven false.
“But why should I enumerate to you
the foreign lands and people situated
on either ocean—when whatever land
is habitable will belong to him?
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The sea as well will be his very own.
“And having given universal peace
to humankind, his fresh attentions turn
to Roman laws, where justly legislating,
himself a model for all citizens,
he guides their actions; and looking to a time
ahead and future generations, he
will bid the son born of his blameless wife
to carry his own name and burdens too;
but not until his years and services
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are equal in number, not until old age,
will he at last reach his divine abode
and join the stars he is related to.
“Meanwhile, do as I tell you; go, take up
the spirit from his father’s murdered body,
so that forevermore the deified
Julius will look down upon the forum
and Capitol from his own lofty temple.”
No sooner had he spoken when the goddess
slipped back into the senate house unseen
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and took the still-fresh soul from Caesar’s body,
which she would not let vanish in the air,
and carried it up to the stars in heaven;
and as she did so, she could see it glowing
and feel it start to kindle in her bosom:
she let it go; and as it flew through space
trailing fire, it flickered like a star.
Observing now the good deeds of his son,
Caesar admits that he has been surpassed,
and is delighted to have lost to him.
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And though the son will not allow his deeds
to be regarded as above his father’s,
Fame (which obeys no will except its own)
raises him up, despite his own desire;
in this, and this alone, defying him:
so Atreus gave way to Agamemnon,
Aegeus to Theseus, Peleus to Achilles,
and finally, as no inapt example,
so Saturn, in the later light of Jove:
for Jupiter rules kingdoms up above
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as well as air and sea and earth below;
on earth Augustus rules, and like great Jove
he is our father and our governor.
O gods, I pray you, comrades of Aeneas,
before whom sword and fire both yielded sway,
and O you local gods of Italy,
Indigetes, and noble Quirinus,
Father of Rome, and Gravidus,
the father of invincible Quirinus,
and Vesta (to whom Caesar was devoted),
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and you Apollo, worshiped beside Vesta,
and Jove whose temple rises high upon
Tarpeia’s rock, and all the other gods
a poet ought to call on in his prayer,
late be that day and not in our time
when he, Augustus, ruler of the world,
departs from it, and rises to the stars,
and absent, is attentive to our prayers.
The poet of the future
My work is finished now: no wrath of Jove
nor sword nor fire nor futurity
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is capable of laying waste to it.
Let that day come then, when it wishes to,
which only has my body in its power,
and put an end to my uncertain years;
no matter, for in spirit I will be
borne up to soar beyond the distant stars,
immortal in the name I leave behind;
wherever Roman governance extends
over the subject nations of the world,
my words will be upon the people’s lips,
and if there is truth in poets’ prophesies,
then in my fame forever I will live.
NOTES
Book I: The Shaping of Changes
The creation: Ovid’s universe is not created from nothing; it begins with Chaos, which consists of formless matter. Something happens, by intervention of a nameless god or by Nature, and Chaos begins to assume form. Creation for Ovid is a process of increasing definition, the shaping of changes. What causes lay behind this process are not of great interest to him in his poem. Similarly, the psychological motivations of his characters (which we might expect to see explored or at least hinted at) are of less interest to him than the turnings of their stories.
fluid aether from the denser air: The atmosphere was believed to be divided into two parts: the air we breathe, which was heavy and dense in comparison to the aether, which rose to float above it and fill the upper regions of space, or the heavens.
The four ages: In his poem Works and Days, the Greek poet Hesiod described five generations of progressively degenerating mankind. In Ovid’s scheme, there are four ages: golden, silver, bronze, and iron, at which point Jove is persuaded by the corrupt state of mankind to destroy it and start over again. The rest of the Metamorphoses takes place in the time after Jove’s flood.
penalties/engraved on bronze: In the ancient world, laws were commonly inscribed on stone or bronze tablets.
When Saturn was dispatched to Tartarus: The ancient Italian god Saturn was identified with Greek Chronos, who devoured all his children but Zeus (identified with Jove), who in turn overthrew Chronos and confined him to the underworld. Saturn presided over the golden age; Jove, over the silver and subsequent ages.
Stygian gloom: the darkness associated with the river Styx, which ran through the underworld.
War with the Giants: Perhaps because it does not occur in Hesiod or Homer, the story of the struggle between Jove and the Giants was regarded in Ovid’s time as too crude for sophisticated artistic treatment. The race of Giants was related to the gods and strove with them for domination; Jove and the Olympians (with the help of Hercules) overwhelmed them.
a council of the gods: a traditional epic scene, but lacking in the traditional celestial dignity. Ovid presents the council session as a meeting of the Roman senate, with Augustus as an outraged and indignant Jove and the other gods as impotent and sycophantic senators. Its setting is the Palatine Hill, where Augustus had his home.
plebeian gods: Ovid’s celestial society mirrors that of Rome, with its division between the nobility and those of lower rank, the plebeians. Just as Roman families had shrines for their household gods, so do Ovid’s Olympians.
shedding / the blood of
Caesar’s heir: Ovid is either referring to the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.E., or to an attempt on the life of Augustus; since the episode to which it is compared (Lycaon/Jove) was unsuccessful, the latter possibility seems more likely.
Pythian: A Greek national festival, second in importance to the Olympics, the Pythian Games were celebrated once every four years from 586 B.C.E. to about 394 C.E. at a venue near Delphi, in honor of Apollo’s victory over the Python.
along the route up to the Capitol: The victory parades awarded to successful Roman generals wound their way from the forum up to the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, situated on the highest point of the capitolium, the southern summit of Rome’s Capitoline Hill.
protect the portals of Augustus / guarding…his crown of oak: At the time when the senate gave Octavian the title Augustus, it awarded him a crown of oak (to symbolize his preservation of the lives of Roman citizens by his victory in the civil war) that, surrounded by protective laurels, was mounted over the door of his house on the Palatine Hill.
his son, born of the Pleiades: Mercury, the messenger of the gods.
took the girl’s name: Syrinx is another name for the shepherds’ pipes, or pipes of Pan.
Book II: Of Mortal Children and Immortal Lusts
Phaëthon: Ovid delights in having his tales break the boundaries normally imposed by the idea of division implied in a “book” and, as here, flow over into the next, equally permeable container.
the marshy Styx, / which all of the immortals swear upon—/ a site which I, of course, have never seen: An oath made upon the Styx was the most dread and sacred one for the gods; it could not be broken or withdrawn; even the immortals seem to have had some apprehension of mortality’s terrors (see Book III, “Juno, Jove, and Semele”). Phoebus, the sun god, has never seen this river, since his daily journey across the sky from the eastern to the western ocean stops short of the underworld.
Tethys: sea goddess and mother of Clymene, hence Phaëthon’s grandmother; as the wife of Oceanus, she attends the Sun as he rises out of the water in the morning and returns to it in the evening.
Avoid the coiled-up Serpent on your right / and the low-lying Altar on your left: Having cautioned Phaëthon to avoid extremes, Phoebus illustrates what he has in mind with two constellations: the Serpent is at the highest point in the heavens, the Altar is just above the horizon.
the Great and Little Bears knew the sun’s heat: Ovid’s point is that these two constellations are so far north that this is the first time they have experienced heat; since the two bears are the constellated figures of Callisto and Arcas, he is also anticipating his next major tale.
Boötes…hampered by your oxcart: Boötes, the plowman, is pictured as trying madly to flee from the catastrophe, hindered by his slow-moving oxen.