FABLE XII. [II.708-764]

Mercury, falling in love with Herse, the daughter of Cecrops, endeavors to engage Aglauros in his interest, and by her means, to obtain access to her sister. She refuses to a.s.sist him, unless he promises to present her with a large sum of money.

Hence, the bearer of the caduceus raised himself upon equal wings; and as he flew, he looked down upon the fields of Munychia,[83] and the land pleasing to Minerva, and the groves of the well-planted Lycaeus. On that day, by chance, the chaste virgins were, in their purity, carrying the sacred offerings in baskets crowned with flowers, upon their heads to the joyful citadel of Pallas. The winged G.o.d beholds them returning thence; and he does not shape his course directly forward, but wheels round in the {same} circle. As that bird swiftest in speed, the kite, on espying the entrails, while he is afraid, and the priests stand in numbers around the sacrifice, wings his flight in circles, and yet ventures not to go far away, and greedily hovers around {the object of} his hopes with waving wings, so does the active Cyllenian {G.o.d} bend his course over the Actaean towers, and circles round in the same air. As much as Lucifer shines more brightly than the other stars, and as much as the golden Phbe {shines more brightly} than thee, O Lucifer, so much superior was Herse, as she went, to all the {other} virgins, and was the ornament of the solemnity and of her companions. The son of Jupiter was astonished at her beauty; and as he hung in the air, he burned no otherwise than as when the Balearic[84] sling throws forth the plummet of lead; it flies and becomes red hot in its course, and finds beneath the clouds the fires which it had not {before}.

He alters his course, and, having left heaven, goes a different way; nor does he disguise himself; so great is his confidence in his beauty.

This, though it is {every way} complete, still he improves by care, and smooths his hair and {adjusts} his mantle,[85] that it may hang properly, so that the fringe and all the gold may be seen; {and minds} that his long smooth wand, with which he induces and drives away sleep, is in his right hand, and that his wings[86] shine upon his beauteous feet.

A private part of the house had three bed-chambers, adorned with ivory and with tortoisesh.e.l.l, of which thou, Pandrosos, hadst the right-hand one, Aglauros the left-hand, and Herse had the one in the middle. She that occupied the left-hand one was the first to remark Mercury approaching, and she ventured to ask the name of the G.o.d, and the occasion of his coming. To her thus answered the grandson of Atlas and of Pleione: "I am he who carries the commands of my father through the air. Jupiter himself is my father. Nor will I invent pretences; do thou only be willing to be attached to thy sister, and to be called the aunt of my offspring. Herse is the cause of my coming; I pray thee to favor one in love." Aglauros looks upon him with the same eyes with which she had lately looked upon the hidden mysteries of the yellow-haired Minerva, and demands for her agency gold of great weight; {and}, in the meantime, obliges him to go out of the house. The warlike G.o.ddess turned upon her the orbs of her stern eyes, and drew a sigh from the bottom {of her heart}, with so great a motion, that she heaved both her breast and the aegis placed before her valiant breast. It occurred {to her} that she had laid open her secrets with a profane hand, at the time when she beheld progeny created for {the G.o.d} who inhabits Lemnos,[87] without a mother, {and} contrary to the a.s.signed laws; and that she could now be agreeable both to the G.o.d and to the sister {of Aglauros}, and that she would be enriched by taking the gold, which she, in her avarice, had demanded. Forthwith she repairs to the abode of Envy, hideous with black gore. Her abode is concealed in the lowest recesses of a cave, wanting sun, {and} not pervious to any wind, dismal and filled with benumbing cold; and which is ever without fire, and ever abounding with darkness.

[Footnote 83: _Munychia._--Ver. 709. Munychia was the name of a promontory and harbor of Attica, between the Piraeus and the promontory of 'Sunium.' The spot was so called from Munychius, who there built a temple in honor of Diana.]

[Footnote 84: _Balearic._--Ver. 727. The Baleares were the islands of Majorca, Minorca, and Iviza, in the Mediterranean, near the coast of Spain. The natives of these islands were famous for their skill in the use of the sling. That weapon does not appear to have been used in the earliest times among the Greeks, as Homer does not mention it; it had, however, been introduced by the time of the war with Xerxes, though even then the sling was, perhaps, rarely used as a weapon. The Acarnanians and the Achaeans of Agium, Patrae, and Dymae were very expert in the use of the sling. That used by the Achaeans was made of three thongs of leather, and not of one only, like those of other nations. The natives of the Balearic isles are said to have attained their skill from the circ.u.mstance of their mothers, when they were children, obliging them to obtain their food by striking it, from a tree, with a sling. While other slings were made of leather, theirs were made of rushes. Besides stones, plummets of lead, called 'glandes,'

(as in the present instance), and ???d?de?, of a form between acorns and almonds, were cast in moulds, to be thrown from slings.

They have been frequently dug up in various parts of Greece, and particularly on the plains of Marathon. Some have the device of a thunderbolt; while others are inscribed with d??a?, 'take this.'

It was a prevalent idea with the ancients that the stone discharged from the sling became red hot in its course, from the swiftness of its motion.]

[Footnote 85: _Adjusts his mantle._--Ver. 733. 'Chlamydemque ut pendeat apte, Collocat,' etc., is translated by Clarke--'And he places his coat that it might hang agreeably, that the border and all its gold might appear.']

[Footnote 86: _That his wings._--Ver. 736. Clarke renders 'ut tersis niteant talaria plantis,' 'that his wings shine upon his spruce feet.']

[Footnote 87: _G.o.d who inhabits Lemnos._--Ver. 757. Being precipitated from heaven for his deformity, Vulcan fell upon the Isle of Lemnos, in the aegean Sea, where he exercised the craft of a blacksmith, according to the mythologists. The birth of Ericthonius, by the aid of Minerva, is here referred to.]

EXPLANATION.

Cicero tells us, that there were several persons in ancient times named Mercury. The probability is, that one of them fell in love with Herse, one of the daughters of Cecrops, king of Athens; and that Aglauros becoming jealous of her, this tradition was built upon facts of so ordinary a nature.

FABLE XIII. [II.765-832]

Pallas commands Envy to make Aglauros jealous of her sister Herse.

Envy obeys the request of the G.o.ddess; and Aglauros, stung with that pa.s.sion, continues obstinate in opposing Mercury's pa.s.sage to her sister's apartment, for which the G.o.d changes her into a statue.

When the female warrior, to be dreaded in battle, came hither, she stood before the abode (for she did not consider it lawful to go under the roof), and she struck the door-posts with the end of the spear. The doors, being shaken, flew open; she sees Envy within, eating the flesh of vipers, the nutriment of her own bad propensities; and when she sees her, she turns away her eyes. But the other rises sluggishly from the ground, and leaves the bodies of the serpents half devoured, and stalks along with sullen pace. And when she sees the G.o.ddess graced with beauty and with {splendid} arms, she groans, and fetches a deep sigh at her appearance. A paleness rests on her face, {and} leanness in all her body; she never looks direct on you; her teeth are black with rust; her breast is green with gall; her tongue is dripping with venom. Smiles there are none, except such as the sight of grief has excited. Nor does she enjoy sleep, being kept awake with watchful cares; but sees with sorrow the successes of men, and pines away at seeing them. She both torments and is tormented at the same moment, and is {ever} her own punishment. Yet, though Tritonia[88] hated her, she spoke to her briefly in such words as these: "Infect one of the daughters of Cecrops with thy poison; there is occasion so {to do}; Aglauros is she."

Saying no more, she departed, and spurned the ground with her spear impressed on it. She, beholding the G.o.ddess as she departed, with a look askance, uttered a few murmurs, and grieved at the success of Minerva; and took her staff, which wreaths of thorns entirely surrounded; and veiled in black clouds, wherever she goes she tramples down the blooming fields, and burns up the gra.s.s, and crops the tops {of the flowers}.

With her breath, too, she pollutes both nations and cities, and houses; and at last she descries the Tritonian[89] citadel, flourishing in arts and riches, and cheerful peace. Hardly does she restrain her tears, because she sees nothing to weep at. But after she has entered the chamber of the daughter of Cecrops, she executes her orders; and touches her breast with her hand stained with rust, and fills her heart with jagged thorns. She breathes into her as well the noxious venom, and spreads the poison black as pitch throughout her bones, and lodges it in the midst of her lungs.

And that these causes of mischief may not wander through too wide a s.p.a.ce, she places her sister before her eyes, and the fortunate marriage of {that} sister, and the G.o.d under his beauteous appearance, and aggravates each particular. By this, the daughter of Cecrops being irritated, is gnawed by a secret grief, and groans, tormented by night, tormented by day, and wastes away in extreme wretchedness, with a slow consumption, as ice smitten upon by a sun often clouded. She burns at the good fortune of the happy Herse, no otherwise than as when fire is placed beneath th.o.r.n.y reeds, which do not send forth flames, and burn with a gentle heat. Often does she wish to die, that she may not be a witness to any such thing; often, to tell the matters, as criminal, to her severe father. At last, she sat herself down in the front of the threshold, in order to exclude the G.o.d when he came; to whom, as he proffered blandishments and entreaties, and words of extreme kindness, she said, "Cease {all this}; I shall not remove myself hence, until thou art repulsed." "Let us stand to that agreement," says the active Cyllenian {G.o.d}; and he opens the carved door with his wand. But in her, as she endeavors to arise, the parts which we bend in sitting cannot be moved, through their numbing weight. She, indeed, struggles to raise herself, with her body, upright; but the joints of her knees are stiff, and a chill runs through her nails, and her veins are pallid, through the loss of blood.

And as the disease {of} an incurable cancer is wont to spread in all directions, and to add the uninjured parts to the tainted; so, by degrees, did a deadly chill enter her breast, and stop the pa.s.sages of life, and her respiration. She did not endeavor to speak; but if she had endeavored, she had no pa.s.sage for her voice. Stone had now possession of her neck; her face was grown hard, and she sat, a bloodless statue.

Nor was the stone white; her mind had stained it.

[Footnote 88: _Tritonia._--Ver. 783. Minerva is said to have been called Tritonia, either from the Cretan word t??t?, signifying 'a head,' as she sprang from the head of Jupiter; or from Trito, a lake of Libya, near which she was said to have been born.]

[Footnote 89: _Tritonian._--Ver. 794. Athens, namely, which was sacred to Pallas, or Minerva, its tutelary divinity.]

EXPLANATION.

Pausanias, in his Attica, somewhat varies this story, and says that the daughters of Cecrops, running mad, threw themselves from the top of a tower. It is very probable that on the introduction of the worship of Pallas, or Minerva, into Attica, these daughters of Cecrops may have hesitated to encourage the innovation, and the story was promulgated that the G.o.ddess had in that manner punished their impiety. This seems the more likely, from the fact mentioned by Pausanias that Pandrosos, the third daughter of Cecrops, had, after her death, a temple built in honor of her, near that of Minerva, because she had continued faithful to that G.o.ddess, and had not disobeyed her, as her sisters had done. The reputation and good fame of Herse and Aglauros had, however, been restored by the time of Herodotus, since he informs us that they both had their temples at Athens.

FABLE XIV. [II.833-875]

Jupiter a.s.sumes the shape of a Bull, and carrying off Europa, swims with her on his back to the isle of Crete.

When the grandson of Atlas had inflicted this punishment upon her words and her profane disposition, he left the lands named after Pallas, and entered the skies with his waving wings. His father calls him on one side; and, not owning the cause of his love, he says, "My son, the trusty minister of my commands, banish delay, and swiftly descend with thy usual speed, and repair to the region which looks towards thy {Constellation} mother on the left side, (the natives call it Sidonis[90] by name) and drive towards the sea-sh.o.r.e, the herd belonging to the king, which thou seest feeding afar upon the gra.s.s of the mountain."

{Thus} he spoke; and already were the bullocks, driven from the mountain, making for the sh.o.r.e named, where the daughter of the great king, attended by Tyrian virgins, was wont to amuse herself. Majesty and love but ill accord, nor can they continue in the same abode. The father and the ruler of the G.o.ds, whose right hand is armed with the three-forked flames, who shakes the world with his nod, laying aside the dignity of empire, a.s.sumes the appearance of a bull; and mixing with the oxen, he lows, and, in all his beauty, walks about upon the shooting gra.s.s. For his color is that of snow, which neither the soles of hard feet have trodden upon, nor the watery South wind melted. His neck swells with muscles; dewlaps hang from {between} his shoulders. His horns are small indeed, but such as you might maintain were made with the hand, and more transparent than a bright gem. There is nothing threatening in his forehead; nor is his eye formidable; his countenance expresses peace.

The daughter of Agenor is surprised that he is so beautiful, and that he threatens no attack; but although so gentle, she is at first afraid to touch him. By and by she approaches him, and holds out flowers to his white mouth. The lover rejoices, and till his hoped-for pleasure comes, he gives kisses to her hands; scarcely, oh, scarcely, does he defer the rest. And now he plays with her, and skips upon the green gra.s.s; {and} now he lays his snow-white side upon the yellow sand. And, her fear {now} removed by degrees, at one moment he gives his breast to be patted by the hand of the virgin; at another, his horns to be wreathed with new-made garlands. The virgin of royal birth even ventured to sit down upon the back of the bull, not knowing upon whom she was pressing. Then the G.o.d, by degrees {moving} from the land, and from the dry sh.o.r.e, places the fict.i.tious hoofs of his feet in the waves near the brink.

Then he goes still further, and carries his prize over the expanse of the midst of the ocean. She is affrighted, and, borne off, looks back on the sh.o.r.e she has left; and with her right hand she grasps his horn, {while} the other is placed on his back; her waving garments are ruffled by the breeze.

[Footnote 90: _Sidonis._--Ver. 840. Sidon, or Sidonis, was a maritime city of Phnicia, near Tyre, of whose greatness it was not an unworthy rival.]

EXPLANATION.

This Fable depicts one of the most famous events in the ancient Mythology. As we have already remarked, it is supposed that there were several persons of the name of Zeus, or Jupiter; though there is great difficulty in a.s.signing to each individual his own peculiar adventures. Vossius refers the adventure of Niobe, the daughter of Phoroneus, to Jupiter Apis, the king of Argos, who reigned about B.C.

1770; and that of Danae to Jupiter Prtus, who lived about 1350 years before the Christian era. It was Jupiter Tantalus, according to him, that carried off Ganymede; and it was Jupiter, the father of Hercules, that deceived Leda. He says that the subject of the present Fable was Jupiter Asterius, who reigned about B.C. 1400. Diodorus Siculus tells us that he was the son of Teutamus, who, having married the daughter of Creteus, went with some Pelasgians to settle in the island of Crete, of which he was the first king. We may then conclude, that Jupiter Asterius, having heard of the beauty of Europa, the daughter of Agenor, King of Tyre, fitted out a ship, for the purpose of carrying her off by force. This is the less improbable, as we learn from Herodotus, that the custom of carrying those away by force, who could not be obtained by fair means, was very common in these rude ages.

The ship in which Asterius made his voyage, had, very probably, the form of a bull for its figure-head; which, in time, occasioned those who related the adventure, to say, that Jupiter concealed himself under the shape of that animal, to carry off his mistress. Palaephatus and Tzetzes suggest, that the story took its rise from the name of the general of Asterius, who was called Taurus, which is also the Greek name for a bull. Bochart has an ingenious suggestion, based upon etymological grounds. He thinks that the twofold meaning of the word 'Alpha,' or 'Ilpha,' which, in the Phnician dialect, meant either a ship or a bull, gave occasion to the fable; and that the Greeks, on reading the annals of the Phnicians, by mistake, took the word in the latter sense.

Europa was honored as a Divinity after her death, and a festival was inst.i.tuted in her memory, which Hesychius calls 'h.e.l.lotia,' from ????t??, the name she received after her death.

BOOK THE THIRD.

FABLE I. [III.1-34]

Jupiter, having carried away Europa, her father, Agenor, commands his son Cadmus to go immediately in search of her, and either to bring back his sister with him, or never to return to Phnicia. Cadmus, wearied with his toils and fruitless inquiries, goes to consult the oracle at Delphi, which bids him observe the spot where he should see a cow lie down, and build a city there, and give the name of Botia to the country.

And now the G.o.d, having laid aside the shape of the deceiving Bull, had discovered himself, and reached the Dictaean land; when her father, ignorant {of her fate}, commands Cadmus to seek her {thus} ravished, and adds exile as the punishment, if he does not find her; being {both} affectionate and unnatural in the self-same act. The son of Agenor, having wandered over the whole world,[1] as an exile flies from his country and the wrath of his father, for who is there that can discover the intrigues of Jupiter? A suppliant, he consults the oracle of Phbus, and inquires in what land he must dwell. "A heifer," Phbus says, "will meet thee in the lonely fields, one that has never borne the yoke, and free from the crooked plough. Under her guidance, go on thy way; and where she shall lie down on the gra.s.s, there cause a city to be built, and call it the Botian[2] {city}."

Scarcely had Cadmus well got down from the Castalian cave,[3] {when} he saw a heifer, without a keeper, slowly going along, bearing no mark of servitude upon her neck. He follows, and pursues her steps with leisurely pace, and silently adores Phbus, the adviser of his way.

{And} now he had pa.s.sed the fords of the Cephisus, and the fields of Panope, {when} the cow stood still and raising her forehead, expansive with lofty horns, towards heaven, she made the air reverberate with her lowings. And so, looking back on her companions that followed behind, she lay down, and reposed her side upon the tender gra.s.s. Cadmus returned thanks, and imprinted kisses upon the stranger land, and saluted the unknown mountains and fields. He was {now} going to offer sacrifice to Jupiter, and commanded his servants to go and fetch some water for the libation from the running springs. An ancient grove was standing {there, as yet} profaned by no axe. There was a cavern in the middle {of it}, thick covered with twigs and osiers, forming a low arch by the junction of the rocks; abounding with plenty of water. Hid in this cavern, there was a dragon sacred to Mars,[4] adorned with crests and a golden {color}. His eyes sparkle with fire, {and} all his body is puffed out with poison; three tongues, {too}, are brandished, and his teeth stand in a triple row.

[Footnote 1: _Over the whole world._--Ver. 6. Apollodorus tells us that Cadmus lived in Thrace until the death of his mother, Telepha.s.sa, who accompanied him; and that, after her decease, he proceeded to Delphi to make inquiries of the oracle.]

[Footnote 2: _Botian._--Ver. 13. He implies here that Botia received its name from the Greek word ???, 'an ox' or 'cow.'

Other writers say that it was so called from Botus, the son of Neptune and Arne. Some authors also say that Thebes received its name from the Syrian word 'Thebe,' which signified 'an ox.']