Metamorphoses

Ovid

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

He sees horrific wonders scattered round,
and images of hideous animals.—
and there's a spot where Scorpion bends his claws
in double circles, and with tail and arms
on either side, stretches his limbs throughout
the space of two Celestial Signs; and when
the lad beheld him, steeped in oozing slime
of venom, swart, and threatening to strike
grim wounds with jagged spear-points, he was lost;
and, fixed in chills of horror, dropped the reins.
When these they felt upon their rising backs,
the startled steeds sprang forthwith; and, unchecked,
through atmospheres of regions unexplored,
thence goaded by their unchecked violence,
broke through the lawful bounds, and rushed upon
the high fixed stars. They dragged the chariot
through devious ways, and soared amid the heights;
dashed down deep pathways, far, precipitous,
and gained a level near the scorching earth.
Phoebe is wondering that her brother's steeds
run lower than her own, and sees the smoke
of scorching clouds. The highest altitudes
are caught in flames, and as their moistures dry
they crack in chasms. The grass is blighted; trees
are burnt up with their leaves; the ripe brown crops
give fuel for self destruction—Oh what small
complaints! Great cities perish with their walls,
and peopled nations are consumed to dust—
the forests and the mountains are destroyed.
Cilician Taurus, Athos and Tmolus,
and Oeta are burning; and the far-famed Ida
and all her cooling rills are dry and burning,
and virgin Helicon, and Hoemos—later
Oeagrius called—and Aetna with tremendous,
redoubled flames, and double-peaked Parnassus,
Sicilian Eryx, Cynthus—Othrys, pine-clad,
and Rhodope, deprived his snowy mantle,
and Dindyma and Mycale and Mimas,
and Mount Cithaeron, famed for sacred rites:
and Scythia, though a land of frost, is burning,
and Caucasus,—and Ossa burns with Pindus,—
and greater than those two Olympus burns—
the lofty Alps, the cloud-topped Apennines.
And Phaethon, as he inhaled the air,
burning and scorching as a furnace blast,
and saw destruction on the flaming world,
and his great chariot wreathed in quenchless fires,
was suddenly unable to endure the heat,
the smoke and cinders, and he swooned away.—
if he had known the way, those winged steeds
would rush as wild unguided.—
then the skin
of Ethiopians took a swarthy hue,
the hot blood tingling to the surface: then
the heat dried up the land of Libya;
dishevelled, the lorn Nymphs, lamenting, sought
for all their emptied springs and lakes in vain;
Boeotia wailed for Dirce's cooling wave,
and Argos wailed for Amymone's stream—
and even Corinth for the clear Pyrene.
Not safer from the flames were distant streams;—
the Tanais in middle stream was steaming
and old Peneus and Teuthrantian Caicus,
Ismenus, rapid and Arcadian Erymanthus;
and even Xanthus destined for a second burning,
and tawny-waved Lycormas, and Meander,
turning and twisting, and Thracian Melas burns,
and the Laconian Eurotas burns,
the mighty Babylonian Euphrates,
Orontes and the Ganges, swift Thermodon,
Ister and Phasis and Alpheus boil.
The banks of Spercheus burn, the gold of Tagus
is melting in the flames. The swans whose songs
enhanced the beauties of Maeonian banks
are scalded in the Cayster's middle wave.
The Nile affrighted fled to parts remote,
and hid his head forever from the world:
now empty are his seven mouths, and dry
without or wave or stream; and also dry
Ismenian Hebrus, Strymon and the streams
of Hesper-Land, the rivers Rhine and Rhone,
and Po, and Tiber, ruler of the world.
And even as the ground asunder burst,
the light amazed in gloomy Tartarus
the King Infernal and his Spouse. The sea
contracted and his level waste became
a sandy desert. The huge mountain tops,
once covered by the ocean's waves, reared up,
by which the scattered Cyclades increased.
Even the fishes sought for deeper pools;—
the crooked dolphins dared not skip the waves;
the lifeless sea-calves floated on the top;
and it is even famed that Nereus hid
with Doris and her daughters, deep below
in seething caverns. With a dauntless mien
thrice Neptune tried to thrust his arms above
the waters;—thrice the heated air overcame
his courage.
Then the genial Earth, although
surrounded by the waters of the sea,
was parched and dry; for all her streams had hid
deep in the darkness of her winding caves.—
she lifted her productive countenance,
up to her rounded neck, and held her palms
on her sad brows; and as the mountains huge
trembled and tottered, beneath her wonted plane
declined she for a space—and thus began,
with parched voice;
“If this is thy decree,
O, Highest of the Gods,—if I have sinned
why do thy lightnings linger? For if doomed
by fires consuming I to perish must,
let me now die in thy celestial flames—
hurled by thine arm—and thus alleviate,
by thine omnipotence, this agony.
“How difficult to open my parched mouth,
and speak these words! (the vapours choking her),
behold my scorching hair, and see the clouds
of ashes falling on my blinded eyes,
and on my features! What a recompense
for my fertility! How often I
have suffered from the wounds of crooked plows
and rending harrows—tortured year by year!
For this I give to cattle juicy leaves
and fruits to man and frankincense to thee!
“Suppose destruction is my just award
what have the waters and thy brother done?
Why should thy brother's cooling waves decrease
and thus recede so distant from the skies?
If not thy brother's good nor mine may touch
thy mercy, let the pity of thy Heaven,
for lo, the smoking poles on either side
attest, if flames consume them or destroy,
the ruin of thy palace. Atlas, huge,
with restive shoulders hardly can support
the burning heavens. If the seas and lands
together perish and thy palace fall,
the universe confused will plunge once more
to ancient Chaos. Save it from this wreck—
if anything survive the fury of the flames.”

So made the tortured Earth an end of speech;
and she was fain to hide her countenance
in caves that border on the nether night.
But now the Almighty Father, having called
to witness all the Gods of Heaven, and him
who gave the car, that, else his power be shown,
must perish all in dire confusion, high
he mounted to the altitude from which
he spreads the mantling clouds, and fulminates
his dreadful thunders and swift lightning-bolts
terrific.—Clouds were none to find on the earth,
and the surrounding skies were void of rain.—
Jove, having reached that summit, stood and poised
in his almighty hand a flashing dart,
and, hurling it, deprived of life and seat
the youthful charioteer, and struck with fire
the raging flames— and by the same great force
those flames enveloping the earth were quenched,
and he who caused their fury lost his life.
Frantic in their affright the horses sprang
across the bounded way and cast their yokes,
and through the tangled harness lightly leaped.
And here the scattered harness lay, and there
the shattered axle, wrenched from off the pole,
and various portions of the broken car;
spokes of the broken Wheel were scattered round.
And far fell Phaethon with flaming hair;
as haply from the summer sky appears
a falling star, although it never drops
to startled earth.—Far distant from his home
the deep Eridanus received the lad
and bathed his foaming face. His body charred
by triple flames Hesperian Naiads bore,
still smoking, to a tomb, and this engraved
upon the stone; “Here Phaethon's remains
lie buried. He who drove his father's car
and fell, although he made a great attempt.”
Filled with consuming woe, his father hid
his countenance which grief had overcast.
And now, surpassing our belief, they say
a day passed over with no glowing sun;—
but light-affording flames appeared to change
disaster to the cause of good.
Amazed,
the woeful Clymene, when she had moaned
in grief, amid her lamentations tore
her bosom, as across the world she roamed,
at first to seek his lifeless corpse, and then
his bones. She wandered to that distant land
and found at last his bones ensepulchred.
There, clinging to the grave she fell and bathed
with many tears his name on marble carved,
and with her bosom warmed the freezing
stone.
And all the daughters of the Sun went there
giving their tears, alas a useless gift;—
they wept and beat their breasts, and day and night
called, “Phaethon,” who heard not any sound
of their complaint:—and there they lay foredone,
all scattered round the tomb.
The silent moon
had four times joined her horns and filled her disk,
while they, according to an ancient rite,
made lamentation. Prone upon the ground,
the eldest, Phaethusa, would arise
from there, but found her feet were growing stiff;
and uttered moan. Lampetia wished to aid
her sister but was hindered by new roots;
a third when she would tear her hair, plucked forth
but leaves: another wailed to find her legs
were fastened in a tree; another moaned
to find her arms to branches had been changed.
And while they wondered, bark enclosed their thighs,
and covered their smooth bellies, and their breasts,
and shoulders and their hands, but left untouched
their lips that called upon their mother's name.
What can she do for them? Hither she runs
and thither runs, wherever frenzy leads.
She kisses them, alas, while yet she may!
But not content with this, she tried to hale
their bodies from the trees; and she would tear
the tender branches with her hands, but lo!
The blood oozed out as from a bleeding wound;
and as she wounded them they shrieked aloud,
“Spare me! O mother spare me; in the tree
my flesh is torn! farewell! farewell! farewell!”
And as they spoke the bark enclosed their lips.
Their tears flow forth, and from the new-formed
boughs
amber distils and slowly hardens in the sun;
and far from there upon the waves is borne
to deck the Latin women.
Cycnus, son
of Sthenelus, by his maternal house
akin to Phaethon, and thrice by love
allied, beheld this wonderful event.—
he left his kingdom of Liguria,
and all its peopled cities, to lament
where the sad sisters had increased the woods,
beside the green banks of Eridanus.
There, as he made complaint, his manly voice
began to pipe a treble, shrill; and long
gray plumes concealed his hair. A slender neck
extended from his breast, and reddening toes
were joined together by a membrane. Wings
grew from his sides, and from his mouth was made
a blunted beak. Now Cycnus is a swan,
and yet he fears to trust the skies and Jove,
for he remembers fires, unjustly sent,
and therefore shuns the heat that he abhors,
and haunts the spacious lakes and pools and streams
that quench the fires.
In squalid garb, meanwhile,
and destitute of all his rays, the sire
of Phaethon, as dark as when eclipse bedims
his Wheel, abhors himself and hates the light,
shuns the bright day, gives up his mind to grief,
adds passion to his woe, denies the earth
his countenance, and thus laments; “My lot
was ever restless from the dawn of time,
and I am weary of this labour, void
and endless. Therefore, let who will urge forth
my car, light-bearing, and if none may dare,
when all the Gods of Heaven acknowledge it,
let Jove himself essay the task. Perchance,
when he takes up the reins, he may forget
his dreadful lightning that bereaves of child
a father's love; and as he tries the strength
of those flame-footed steeds will know, in truth,
the lad who failed to guide my chariot
deserved not death.”
But all the Deities
encircle Phoebus as he makes complaint,
and with their supplications they entreat
him not to plunge the world in darkness. Jove
would find excuses for the lightning-bolt,
hurled from his hand, and adds imperious threats
to his entreaties. Phoebus calls his steeds,
frenzied with their maddening fires, and
breaks
their fury, as he vents with stinging lash
his rage upon them, and in passion lays
on them the death of Phaethon his son.

Now after Phaethon had suffered death
for the vast ruin wrought by scorching flames,
all the great walls of Heaven's circumference,
unmeasured, views the Father of the Gods,
with searching care, that none impaired by heat
may fall in ruins. Well assured they stand
in self-sustaining strength, his view, at last,
on all the mundane works of man is turned;—
his loving gaze long resting on his own
Arcadia. And he starts the streams and springs
that long have feared to flow; paints the wide earth
with verdant fields; covers the trees with leaves,
and clothes the injured forests in their green.
While wandering in the world, he stopped amazed,
when he beheld the lovely Nymph, Calisto,
and fires of love were kindled in his breast.
Calisto was not clothed in sumptuous robes,
nor did she deck her hair in artful coils;
but with a buckle she would gird her robe,
and bind her long hair with a fillet white.
She bore a slender javelin in her hand,
or held the curving bow; and thus in arms
as chaste Diana, none of Maenalus
was loved by that fair goddess more than she.
But everything must change. When bright the sun
rolled down the sky, beyond his middle course,
she pierced a secret thicket, known to her,
and having slipped the quiver from her arm,
she loosed the bended bow, and softly down
upon the velvet turf reclining, pressed
her white neck on the quiver while she slept.
When Jupiter beheld her, negligent
and beautiful, he argued thus, “How can
my consort, Juno, learn of this? And yet,
if chance should give her knowledge, what care I?
Let gain offset the scolding of her tongue!”
This said, the god transformed himself and took
Diana's form—assumed Diana's dress
and imitating her awoke the maid,
and spoke in gentle tones, “What mountain slope,
O virgin of my train, hath been thy chase?”
Which, having heard, Calisto, rose and said,
“Hail, goddess! greater than celestial Jove!
I would declare it though he heard the words.”
Jove heard and smiled, well pleased to be preferred
above himself, and kissed her many times,
and strained her in his arms, while she began
to tell the varied fortunes of her hunt.—
but when his ardent love was known to her,
she struggled to escape from his embrace:
ah, how could she, a tender maid, resist
almighty Jove?—Be sure, Saturnia
if thou hadst only witnessed her thy heart
had shown more pity!—
Jupiter on wings,
transcendent, sought his glorious heights;
but she, in haste departing from that grove,
almost forgot her quiver and her bow.
Behold, Diana, with her virgin train,
when hunting on the slopes of Maenalus,
amidst the pleasures of exciting sport,
espied the Nymph and called her, who, afraid
that Jove apparelled in disguise deceived,
drew backward for a moment, till appeared
to her the lovely Nymphs that followed: thus,
assured deceit was none, she ventured near.
Alas, how difficult to hide disgrace!
She could not raise her vision from the ground,
nor as the leader of the hunting Nymphs,
as was her wont, walk by the goddess' side.
Her silence and her blushes were the signs
of injured honour. Ah Diana, thou,
if thou wert not a virgin, wouldst perceive
and pity her unfortunate distress.
The Moon's bent horns were rising from their ninth
sojourn, when, fainting from Apollo's flames,
the goddess of the Chase observed a cool
umbrageous grove, from which a murmuring stream
ran babbling gently over golden sands.
When she approved the spot, lightly she struck
her foot against the ripples of the stream,
and praising it began; “Far from the gaze
of all the curious we may bathe our limbs,
and sport in this clear water.” Quickly they
undid their garments,—but Calisto hid
behind the others, till they knew her state.—
Diana in a rage exclaimed, “Away!
Thou must not desecrate our sacred springs!”
And she was driven thence.