Metamorphoses

Ovid

Ovid. Metamorphoses. More, Brookes, translator. Boston: Cornhill Publishing Co., 1922.

Here lived a man, by birth a Samian.
He had fled from Samos and the ruling class,
a voluntary exile, for his hate
against all tyranny. He had the gift
of holding mental converse with the gods,
who live far distant in the highth of heaven;
and all that Nature has denied to man
and human vision, he reviewed with eyes
of his enlightened soul. And, when he had
examined all things in his careful mind
with watchful study, he released his thoughts
to knowledge of the public.
He would speak
to crowds of people, silent and amazed,
while he revealed to them the origin
of this vast universe, the cause of things,
what is nature, what a god, whence came the snow,
the cause of lightning—was it Jupiter
or did the winds, that thundered when the cloud
was rent asunder, cause the lightning flash?
What shook the earth, what laws controlled the stars
as they were moved—and every hidden thing
he was the first man to forbid the use
of any animal's flesh as human food,
he was the first to speak with learned lips,
though not believed in this, exhorting them.—
“No, mortals,” he would say, “Do not permit
pollution of your bodies with such food,
for there are grain and good fruits which bear down
the branches by their weight, and ripened grapes
upon the vines, and herbs—those sweet by nature
and those which will grow tender and mellow with
a fire, and flowing milk is not denied,
nor honey, redolent of blossoming thyme.
“The lavish Earth yields rich and healthful food
affording dainties without slaughter, death,
and bloodshed. Dull beasts delight to satisfy
their hunger with torn flesh; and yet not all:
horses and sheep and cattle live on grass.
But all the savage animals—the fierce
Armenian tigers and ferocious lions,
and bears, together with the roving wolves—
delight in viands reeking with warm blood.
“Oh, ponder a moment such a monstrous crime—
vitals in vitals gorged, one greedy body
fattening with plunder of another's flesh,
a living being fed on another's life!
In that abundance, which our Earth, the best
of mothers, will afford have you no joy,
unless your savage teeth can gnaw
the piteous flesh of some flayed animal
to reenact the Cyclopean crime?
And can you not appease the hungry void—
the perverted craving of a stomach's greed,
unless you first destroy another life?
“That age of old time which is given the name
of ‘Golden,’ was so blest in fruit of trees,
and in the good herbs which the earth produced
that it never would pollute the mouth with blood.
The birds then safely moved their wings in air,
the timid hares would wander in the fields
with no fear, and their own credulity
had not suspended fishes from the hook.
All life was safe from treacherous wiles,
fearing no injury, a peaceful world.
“After that time some one of ill advice
(it does not matter who it might have been)
envied the ways of lions and gulped into
his greedy paunch stuff from a carcass vile.
He opened the foul paths of wickedness.
It may be that in killing beasts of prey
our steel was for the first time warmed with blood.
And that could be defended, for I hold
that predatory creatures which attempt
destruction of mankind, are put to death
without evasion of the sacred laws:
but, though with justice they are put to death,
that cannot be a cause for eating them.
“This wickedness went further; and the sow
was thought to have deserved death as the first
of victims, for with her long turned-up snout
she spoiled the good hope of a harvest year.
The ravenous goat, that gnawed a sprouting vine,
was led for slaughter to the altar fires
of angry Bacchus. It was their own fault
that surely caused the ruin of those two.
“But why have sheep deserved sad destiny,
harmless and useful for the good of man
with nectar in full udders? Their soft wool
affords the warmest coverings for our use,
their life and not their death would help us more.
Why have the oxen of the field deserved
a sad end—innocent, without deceit,
and harmless, without guile, born to endure
hard labor? Without gratitude is he,
unworthy of the gift of harvest fields,
who, after he relieved his worker from
weight of the curving plow could butcher him,
could sever with an axe that toil worn neck,
by which so often with hard work the ground
had been turned up, so many harvests reared.
For some, even crimes like these are not enough,
they have imputed to the gods themselves
abomination—they believe a god
in heaven above, rejoices at the death
of a laborious ox.
“A victim free
of blemish and most beautiful in form
(perfection brings destruction) is adorned
with garlands and with gilded horns before
the altar. In his ignorance he hears
one praying, and he sees the very grain
he labored to produce, fixed on his head
between the horns, and felled, he stains with blood
the knife which just before he may have seen
reflected in clear water. Instantly
they snatch out entrails from his throbbing form,
and seek in them intentions of the gods.
Then, in your lust for a forbidden food
you will presume to batten on his flesh,
O race of mortals! Do not eat such food!
Give your attention to my serious words;
and, when you next present the slaughtered flesh
of oxen to your palates, know and feel
that you gnaw your fellow tillers of the soil.
“And, since a god impels me to speak out,
I will obey the god who urges me,
and will disclose to you the heavens above,
and I will even reveal the oracles
of the Divine Will. I will sing to you
of things most wonderful, which never were
investigated by the intellects
of ancient times and things which have been long
concealed from man. In fancy I delight
to float among the stars or take my stand
on mighty Atlas' shoulders, and to look
afar down on men wandering here and there—
afraid in life yet dreading unknown death,
and in these words exhort them and reveal
the sequence of events ordained by fate!

“O sad humanity! Why do you fear
alarms of icy death, afraid of Styx,
fearful of moving shadows and empty names—
of subjects harped on by the poets' tales,
the fabled perils of a fancied life?
Whether the funeral pile consumes your flesh
with hot flames, or old age dissolves it with
a gradual wasting power, be well assured
the body cannot meet with further ill.
And souls are all exempt from power of death.
When they have left their first corporeal home,
they always find and live in newer homes.
“I can declare, for I remember well,
that in the days of the great Trojan War,
I was Euphorbus, son of Panthous.
In my opposing breast was planted then
the heavy spear-point of the younger son
of Atreus. Not long past I recognised
the shield, once burden of my left arm, where
it hung in Juno's temple at ancient Argos,
the realm of Abas. Everything must change:
but nothing perishes. The moving soul
may wander, coming from that spot to this,
from this to that—in changed possession live
in any limbs whatever. It may pass
from beasts to human bodies, and again
to those of beasts. The soul will never die,
in the long lapse of time. As pliant wax
is moulded to new forms and does not stay
as it has been nor keep the self same form
yet is the selfsame wax, be well assured
the soul is always the same spirit, though
it passes into different forms. Therefore,
that natural love may not be vanquished by
unnatural craving of the appetite,
I warn you, stop expelling kindred souls
by deeds abhorrent as cold murder.—Let
not blood be nourished with its kindred blood!
“Since I am launched into the open sea
and I have given my full sails to the wind,
nothing in all the world remains unchanged.
All things are in a state of flux, all shapes
receive a changing nature. Time itself
glides on with constant motion, ever as
a flowing river. Neither river nor
the fleeting hour can stop its constant course.
But, as each wave drives on a wave, as each
is pressed by that which follows, and must press
on that before it, so the moments fly,
and others follow, so they are renewed.
The moment which moved on before is past,
and that which was not, now exists in Time,
and every one comes, goes, and is replaced.
“You see how night glides by and then proceeds
on to the dawn, then brilliant light of day
succeeds the dark night. There is not the same
appearance in the heavens,: when all things
for weariness are resting in vast night,
as when bright Lucifer rides his white steed.
And only think of that most glorious change,
when loved Aurora, Pallas' daughter, comes
before the day and tints the world, almost
delivered to bright Phoebus. Even the disk
of that god, rising from beneath the earth,
is of a ruddy color in the dawn
and ruddy when concealed beneath the world.
When highest, it is a most brilliant white,
for there the ether is quite purified,
and far away avoids infection from
impurities of earth. Diana's form
at night remains not equal nor the same!
'Tis less today than it will be tomorrow,
if she is waxing; greater, if she wanes.
“Yes, do you not see how the year moves through
four seasons, imitating human life:
in early Spring it has a nursling's ways
resembling infancy, for at that time
the blade is shooting and devoid of strength.
Its flaccid substance swelling gives delight,
to every watching husbandman, alive
in expectation. Then all things are rich
in blossom, and the genial meadow smiles
with tints of blooming flowers; but not as yet
is there a sign of vigor in the leaves.
“The year now waxing stronger, after Spring
it passes into Summer, and its youth
becomes robust. Indeed of all the year
the Summer is most vigorous and most
abounds with glowing and life-giving warmth.
“Autumn then follows, and, the vim of life
removed, that ripe and mellow time succeeds
between youth and old age, and a few white hairs
are sprinkled here and there upon his brow.
“Then aged Winter with his tremulous step
follows, repulsive, strips of graceful locks
or white with those he has retained so long.
“Our bodies also, always change unceasingly:
we are not now what we were yesterday
or we shall be tomorrow. And there was
a time when we were only seeds of man,
mere hopes that lived within a mother's womb.
But Nature changed us with her skilfull touch,
determined that our bodies should not be
held in such narrow room, below the entrails
in our distended parent; and in time
she brought us forth into the vacant air.
“Brought into light, the helpless infant lies.
Then on all fours he lifts his body up,
feeling his way, like any young wild beast,
and then by slow degrees he stands upright,
weak-kneed and trembling, steadied by support
of some convenient prop. And soon more strong
and swift he passes through the hours of youth,
and, when the years of middle age are past,
slides down the steep path of declining age.
“This undermines him and destroys the strength
of former years: and Milon, now grown old,
weeps, when he sees his arms, which once were firm
with muscles big as those of Hercules,
hang flabby at his side: and Helen weeps,
when in the glass she sees her wrinkled face,
and wonders why two heroes fell in love
and carried her away.—O Time,
devourer of all things, and envious Age,
together you destroy all that exists
and, slowly gnawing, bring on lingering death.
“Yes, even things which we call elements,
do not endure. Now listen well to me,
and I will show the ways in which they change.
“The everlasting universe contains
four elemental parts. And two of these
are heavy—earth and water—and are borne
downwards by weight. The other two devoid
of weight, are air and—even lighter—fire:
and, if these two are not constrained, they seek
the higher regions. These four elements,
though far apart in space, are all derived
from one another. Earth dissolves
as flowing water! Water, thinned still more,
departs as wind and air; and the light air,
still losing weight, sparkles on high as fire.
But they return, along their former way:
the fire, assuming weight, is changed to air;
and then, more dense, that air is changed again
to water; and that water, still more dense,
compacts itself again as primal earth.