by Peter Jones
Study section
1. Write out and scan ll.593–8.
2. What picture of Arethusa emerges from this story? How is it different from e.g. that of Daphne (passage 2) and Io (passage 3), and why? (Bear in mind who the narrator is.)
3. Account for the changes Ovid has made to the two epic similes at 626–9.
4. Does Arethusa express any resentment at her treatment by Alpheus? Why not?
Vocabulary and grammar
572 exigō 3 ask
alm-us a um kindly
Cerēs Cerer-is 3f. Ceres
nātā: i.e. Proserpina
sēcūr-us a um free of care, relieved
573 tibi: in this part of Calliope’s reported song, Ceres is envisaged to be chatting away with Arethusa
causa fugae [sit]: in her earlier encounter with Arethusa (5.487–508), Ceres had learned that Arethusa, though born in Greece, now regarded Sicily as her home
574 conticeō 2 fall silent. The undae = the waters of Arethusa’s spring
575 siccō 1 remove excess moisture from, dry
capillōs: acc. of respect after siccāta
576 Ēlē-us a um of Elis (in Greece, through which the river Alpheus ran)
577 Achāis Achāid-is 3f. Achaea, the Peloponnese (southern Greece)
578 studiōs-us a um keen, eager (here a comp. adv.; note mē, abl., and the clever verbal balancing of 578–9)
salt-us ūs 4m. glade
579 cass-is is 3m. hunting-net
581 fōrmōs-us a um beautiful; (noun) a beauty. Note the word-play with fortis, fāma and fōrma in 580–1
582 iuuō 1 please
583 rūstic-us a um from the country
dōs dōt-is 3f. gift, dowry (of beauty). Here it is abl. expressing cause, RL108.2, WSuppl.syntax
584 ērubēscō 3 ērubuī blush, feel shame
crīmen: supply esse, ‘it to be a crime to . . .’
585 lass-us a um tired, exhausted
reuertor 3 dep. turn back from (+ abl.)
Stymphālis Stymphālid-is 3 of Stymphalus (in the Peloponnese)
586 geminō 1 double
587 uertex uertic-is 3m. eddy, swirl. The description of a locus amoenus begins (see Introduction, p. 8)
*murmur -is 3n. low noise, murmur
588 perspicu-us a um clear
numerābil-is e able to be counted
589 calcul-us ī 2m. pebble
īre: i.e. flow, move (aquās still subject)
putārēs: note conditional subj. and ‘apostrophe’. Do the spondees of quās tū uix īre putārēs imitate the sluggishness of the river?
590 cān-us a um white
salict-um ī 2n. willow
nūtriō 4 feed
pōpul-us ī 2f. poplar tree
591 sponte suā of its own accord
nātās . . . umbrās: object of dabant; nāt-us here means ‘natural’
rīpīs: dat. pl.
dēclīu-is e sloping
592 tingō 3 tīnxī dip
593 poples poplit-is 3m. knee
tenus + abl. up to, so far as
content-us a um satisfied
recingor 3 (pass.) strip
594 impōnō 3 place X (acc.) on Y (dat.). Nearly a golden line
salix salic-is 3f. willow
uēlāmen uēlāmin-is 3n. clothes
595 feriō 4 strike
596 excutiō 3/4 excussī excussum shake (out)
iactō 1 throw
597 gurges gurgit-is 3m. stream, flood, eddy. A sinister golden line
598 īnsistō 3 stand
propior -is nearer
599 Alphē-us ī 2m. god of the river Alpheus, who lives in its streams
600 rauc-us a um husky, hoarse
602 īnstō 1 press forward, be urgent
603 parāt-us a um ready, prepared
605 *accipiter accipitr-is 3m. hawk. Note the verbal balance and variety of 604–6
trepidō 1 tremble
*columb-a ae 1f. dove
606 trepid-us a um terrified
urgeō 2 chase
607 Orchomenon: Greek acc. of Orchomenos; the first of a list of six Greek locations, in the order three towns, two mountain areas and a region. The three towns of 607 are given their locations in the three areas of 608
Psōphīda: Greek acc. of Psophis
Cyllēnēn: Greek acc. of Cyllene (note the rare fifth-foot spondee)
608 Maenali-us a um of Maenalos
sin-us ūs 4m. hollow, gulf
Erymanthon: Greek acc. of Erymanthus
Ēlin: Greek acc. of Elis
610 tolerō 1 sustain
impār -is unequal in (+ abl.)
611 patiēns able to put up with (+ gen.)
[But even . . . I ran]: a later addition to the text
614 praecēdō 3 move ahead
615 nisi sī timor: ‘unless it was my fear that . . . ’
616 sonit-us ūs 4m. sound
617 crīnāl-is e in my hair
uitt-a ae 1f. band
adflō 1 breathe on
anhēlit-us ūs 4m. gasping
619 armiger -a -um armour-bearer
620 inclūs-us a um enclosed
621 spiss-us a um dense, thick
*nūb-ēs is 3f. cloud
ūnam: i.e. of the clouds
622 iniciō 3/4 iniēcī throw
lūstrō 1 survey, scan
cālīgō cālīgin-is 3f. mist
tēctam: supply mē
623 *amn-is is 3m. river (god)
cau-us a um hollow
nūbil-um ī 2n. cloud
624 *bis twice
īnsc-us a um ignorant
ambiō 4 go round, skirt
625 iō hey! Note the three hiatuses involving iō (see passage 1, 1.363)
626 quid animī: lit. ‘what [of] mind’, i.e. what thoughts (subject of fuit), RLL(d)2, W15
anne quod agnae est: lit. ‘whether [my animus is] what it is for a lamb’ (gen. of characteristic)
627 lup-us ī 2m. wolf
circum + acc., around
stabul-um ī 2n. sheepfold, pen
fremō 3 howl
628 lepus lepor-is 3m. hare
uepr-is is 3m. thorn-bush
hostīl-is e hostile
629 can-is is 3m./f. dog
mot-us ūs 4m. movement
630 abscēdō 3 leave (the god is the subject)
631 longius: i.e. further on
632 obsideō 2 obsessī obsessum besiege
sūdor -is 3m. sweat
frīgid-us a um cold
633 caerule-us a um blue-green (because she is a water-nymph)
gutt-a ae 1f. drop
634 mānō 1 drip
635 rōs rōr-is 3m. dew
citius more quickly
renārrō repeat, tell
636 latic-ēs um 3m. pl. water
637 quod: refers to ōre
638 propri-us a um own
misceō 2 mix X (acc.) into Y (dat.), i.e. have intercourse with
639 Dēli-a ae 1f. Delia (lit. ‘born on Delos’), i.e. Diana
rumpō 3 rūpī break, cleave
caec-us a um blind, dark
cauern-a ae 1f. cavern
640 aduehor 3 pass. be carried off
641 Ortygi-a ae 1f. Ortygia, an island at the entrance to the harbour of Syracuse. Arethusa was carried along an underground river from Greece to this island in Sicily, where she finally emerged into the upper air again and became a spring
cognōmine dīuae . . . meae: i.e. because it bore the name of my [patron] goddess. Ortygia (‘Quail island’) was the original name of the Greek island of Delos, where Diana (Artemis) and Apollo were born
Notes
572–84: Calliope reports how Ceres, relieved at the return of her daughter, asked Arethusa about her flight and transformation into a fōns (572–3). It will emerge that, as a young girl from the region of Elis in Greece, Arethusa had been pursued by the local river-god Alpheus and ended up in Sicily as a spring (goddess). It is interesting that Aret
husa describes Alpheus’ attempted rape as amōrēs (see Introduction, pp. 9–10). Arethusa/her spring falls silent as she rises from its waves, wrings the water out of her hair – a homely touch: no nymph can tell her story with wet hair – and prepares to tell the tale of what happened to her long ago (574–6).
Arethusa’s situation is typical of a number of Ovid’s heroines: a country (583) girl, part of a gang (577–8), with an enthusiasm for and skill in hunting (578–9, cf. fortis 581), known for her beauty but having no interest in it. Indeed, she thought it wrong to be attractive in this way – that was for others (580–4). She is, in other words, a simple, modest girl. We know what happens to such girls in Ovid.
585–98: She goes hunting; it is summer; she gets hot and tired (585–6) – no surprise, since Stymphalus, from which she is returning, is sixty miles from her home in the Elis region. Lo, she comes across a locus amoenus: clear, still, silent water (587–9 – note how she elicits the listener’s sympathy with putārēs, 589), and overhanging trees (willows and poplars, common beside rivers), fed by the stream, giving shade to the banks (590–1). She takes all her clothes off and plunges in, and Ovid lingers over the strip show – she dabbles the toes, goes in up to the knees, finds it all irresistible (neque eō contenta), then off with the clothes (carefully hanging them from a willow-tree, 594 – a nice touch) and in she glides (592–5). Then what happens? Enter a river-god. Ovid motivates his entrance by making Arethusa splash around a lot (595–6) – more horizontal drowning than swimming, but the ancients were not renowned for their interest in the activity – and in such a normally peaceful spot it is not surprising Alpheus notices. But Arethusa too senses something is wrong, and territa – this is such a quiet spot – immediately hops out onto the nearer bank (597–8). But are her clothes within reach . . . ? One’s thoughts race at the delightful vision, all the more agreeable for being left to the imagination. The answer is, of course, no (601–2).
599–617: Alpheus twice bellows the same question roughly at her (599–600: subtlety is not his strength), and that is enough to put Arethusa to flight (see 573), naked too, for reasons she explains, making Alpheus all the more enthusiastic, as she well understands (601–3). One cannot blame him (she certainly does not seem to). He is a pagan god. In his eyes, what are beautiful naked women in woods for? Especially ones who have been frolicking about in his river? The chase is accompanied by an image adapted from Homer: ‘As a mountain hawk, the fastest thing on wings, effortlessly swoops after a timid dove; under and away the dove dives off, and the hawk, shrieking close behind, strikes at it again and again . . . ’ (Iliad 22.139–42, Rieu–Jones). Arethusa sees the chase from both sides – the pursuer and the pursued, the terrifying and the terrified – and in language that closely mirrors the opposing points of view (604–6). The length of the chase is ludicrous: to interleave 607–8, Alpheus to Orchomenus (near the plain of Maenalus) is thirty-five miles; from there to Psophis (near Mount Erymanthus) is twenty-five miles; and from there to Cyllene (on the coast in Elis) is forty-five miles – a grand total of 105 miles. Fit girl, Arethusa, especially when you realise that her day’s hunting had already taken her to Stymphalus (sixty miles from home) and then back to the Alpheus (say, fifty miles) where she had (briefly) enjoyed her cooling dip. But this is what people in myth can do. Arethusa is going well, but the god’s stamina is superior and, whether she imagines seeing his shadow or not (a nice touch, 615), she hears his feet and feels his panting breath on her hair (609–17) – a vivid, Homeric touch. In the funeral games for Patroclus, Odysseus races against Ajax son of Oileus and keeps hard behind him: ‘So close was Odysseus behind Ajax, his feet falling in Ajax’s tracks before the dust had settled down again; and he kept up so well that his breath fanned Ajax’s head. He was desperate to win, and all the Greeks cheered him on, shouting encouragement to a man who was doing all he could already’ (Iliad 23.763–7, Rieu–Jones). In Homer, our eyes are on Odysseus, the pursuer: in Ovid, on the pursued. Arethusa does not, of course, see the terrifying, unseen predator: she has no time to look round.
618–41: As an enthusiastic huntress, Arethusa (we now learn) had served the virgin goddess Diana as her armour-bearer; to her, therefore, she calls for help (618–20). The goddess responds, hiding Arethusa in thick cloud. This leaves Alpheus baffled, and he stalks around this cloud, repeatedly calling out for her (622–5: after a 105-mile chase, one might have expected Alpheus to register that he was not wanted, but obviously not). Arethusa now turns the spotlight on her feelings which, in an unexpected way, will be the key to her fate. Two apt epic images occur to her: first, 627, sheep hearing wolves howling round a sheepfold (Turnus prowls round the Trojan camp ‘like a wolf in the dead of night, lying in wait in all the wind and rain by a pen full of sheep, and growling at the gaps in the fence, while the lambs keep up their bleating, safe beneath their mothers’, Virgil, Aeneid 9.59–63, West); second, 628–9, a hare cowering under a bush in sight of the hunting dogs’ jaws, terrified of moving (Menelaus leaves the battlefield, looking all round him ‘like an eagle, which is said to have the sharpest sight of any bird in the sky: however high in the air, it still spots the swift hare crouching under a leafy bush and swoops down, seizes it and takes its life’, Iliad 17.674–8, Rieu–Jones). But, dim and baffled (623, 624) as Alpheus is, he does not give up – after all, he sees no footprints leading away from the cloud, so she must still be in there – so he just keeps watching and waiting (630–1). Back to Arethusa, on whom the pressure is beginning to tell: she starts to sweat, drops fall, the ground under her feet gets soaked, it pours from her hair – and lo, she is gradually and almost naturalistically liquefying (632–6! – though we are not told that Diana brought this about). At this point Arethusa presumably starts trickling her way out of the cloud; at any rate, Alpheus, who may be dim in some respects but knows a thing or two about water, realises the stream must be her and immediately reverts to liquid form himself in order to mate with her (636–8). But Diana now intervenes to anticipate him. She splits the earth, Arethusa pours into it before Alpheus can do anything about it and, swept due west along an underground tunnel under the sea, surfaces about 250 miles away on Ortygia, an island off Syracuse in Sicily (639–41). Virtue triumphant! It is rare for a nymph in Metamorphōsēs to escape the attentions of a rampant god.
11 Minerva and Arachne, Metamorphōsēs 6.1–145
Background
The Arethusa story (passage 10) was one of the contributions made by the Muse Calliope (as reported by another Muse) in the singing contest to which the Muses had been challenged by the proud (mortal) daughters of Pierus. The Muses, naturally, won, and the Pierides were turned into chattering magpies. These stories were being told to Minerva; and in this story, Minerva (who thoroughly approved of the Muses’ revenge) remembered that she had been challenged to a weaving contest by the mortal Arachne. This leads Ovid to tell the story of Minerva’s action against her.
6.1–13: Minerva looks for revenge on the lowly but brilliant weaver Arachne
†praebuerat dictīs Trītōnia tālibus aurēs,
†carminaqueĀonidum iūstamque probāuerat īram.
tum sēcum: †‘laudāre parum est, laudēmur et ipsae,
nūmina^ nec †spernī sine poenā ^nostra sināmus.’
†Maeoniaeque animum fātīs intendit Arachnēs,
5
†quam sibi lānificae^ nōn cēdere laudibus ^artis
audierat. nōn †illa locō nec orīgine gentis
clāra, sed arte, fuit. pater hc †Colophōnius Idmōn
†Phōcaicō bibulās tingēbat mūrice lānās;
†occiderat māter, sed et haec dē plēbe suōque
10
aequa uirō fuerat. †Ldās tamen illa per urbēs
quaesierat studiō nōmen †memorābile quamuīs,
orta domō paruā, paruīs habitābat †Hypaepīs.
6.14–25: Everyone came to see Arachne’s work, which looked like Minerva’s
hus ut adspicerent opu
s †admīrābile, saepe
dēseruēre suī nymphae †uīnēta Timōlī,
15
dēseruēre suās nymphae †Pactōlides undās.
nec factās sōlum uestēs, †spectāre iuuābat
†tum quoque cum fierent: tantus decor adfuit artī.
†sīue rudem prīmōs lānam glomerābat in orbēs,
seu digitīs subigēbat opus, †repetītaque^ longō*
20
†^uellera mollībat nebulās ^aequantia *tractū,
sīue leuī †teretem uersābat pollice fūsum,
seu †pingēbat acū – scīrēs ā Pallade doctam.
†quod tamen ipsa negat, tantāque offēnsa magistrā
‘certet’ ait ‘mēcum: †nihil est quod uicta recūsem!’
25
Figure 2 Spinning on Ithaca.
6.26–33: Minerva, disguised as an old woman, tells Arachne to be humble
Pallas anum simulat, falsōsque in tempora †cānōs
addit et †īnfirmōs, baculō quōs sustinet, artūs.
tum sīc orsa loquī: ‘nōn omnia †grandior aetās,
†quae fugiāmus, habet; sērīs uenit ūsus ab annīs.
cōnsilium †nē sperne meum. tibi fāma^ petātur
30
inter mortālēs faciendae ^maxima lānae.
cēde deae, ueniamque tuīs, †temerāria, dictīs
†supplice uōce rogā: ueniam dabit illa rogantī.’
6.34–52: Arachne refuses and accepts Minerva’s challenge to a contest
†adspicit hanc toruīs, inceptaque fīla relinquit,
uixque manum retinēns, cōnfessaque uultibus īram,
35
tālibus obscūram †resecūta est Pallada dictīs:
‘mentis †inops longāque uenīs cōnfecta senectā,
