[Footnote 25: _Inhabited by the smooth fishes._--Ver. 74.

'Cesserunt nitidis habitandae piscibus;' Clarke translates 'fell to the neat fishes to inhabit.']

[Footnote 26: _Could rule over the rest._--Ver. 77. This strongly brings to mind the words of the Creator, described in the first chapter of Genesis, ver. 28. 'And G.o.d said unto them--_have dominion_ over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.']

[Footnote 27: _Framed him from divine elements._--Ver. 78. We have here strong grounds for contending that the ancient philosophers, and after them the poets, in their account of the creation of the world followed a tradition that had been copied from the Books of Moses. The formation of man, in Ovid, as well as in the Book of Genesis, is the last work of the Creator, and was, for the same purpose, that man might have dominion over the other animated works of the creation.]

EXPLANATION.

According to Ovid, as in the book of Genesis, man is the last work of the Creator. The information derived from Holy Writ is here presented to us, in a disfigured form. Prometheus, who tempers the earth, and Minerva, who animates his workmanship, is G.o.d, who formed man, and 'breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.'

Some writers have labored to prove that this Prometheus, of the heathen Mythology, was a Scriptural character. Bochart believes him to have been the same with Magog, mentioned in the book of Genesis.

Prometheus was the son of Iapetus, and Magog was the son of j.a.phet, who, according to that learned writer, was identical with Iapetus. He says, that as Magog went to settle in Scythia, so did Prometheus; as Magog either invented, or improved, the art of founding metals, and forging iron, so, according to the heathen poets, did Prometheus.

Diodorus Siculus a.s.serts that Prometheus was the first to teach mankind how to produce fire from the flint and steel.

The fable of Prometheus being devoured by an eagle, according to some, is founded on the name of Magog, which signifies 'a man devoured by sorrow.' Le Clerc, in his notes on Hesiod, says, that Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus, was the same with the Gog of Scripture, the brother of Magog. Some writers, again, have exerted their ingenuity to prove that Prometheus is identical with the patriarch Noah.

FABLE III. [I.89-112]

The formation of man is followed by a succession of the four ages of the world. The first is the Golden Age, during which Innocence and Justice alone govern the world.

The Golden Age was first founded, which, without any avenger, of its own accord, without laws, practised both faith and rect.i.tude. Punishment, and the fear {of it}, did not exist, and threatening decrees were not read upon the brazen {tables},[28] fixed up {to view}, nor {yet} did the suppliant mult.i.tude dread the countenance of its judge; but {all} were in safety without any avenger. The pine-tree, cut from its {native} mountains, had not yet descended to the flowing waves, that it might visit a foreign region; and mortals were acquainted with no sh.o.r.es beyond their own. Not as yet did deep ditches surround the towns; no trumpets of straightened, or clarions of crooked bra.s.s,[29] no helmets, no swords {then} existed. Without occasion for soldiers, the minds {of men}, free from care, enjoyed an easy tranquillity.

The Earth itself, too, in freedom, untouched by the harrow, and wounded by no ploughshares, of its own accord produced everything; and men, contented with the food created under no compulsion, gathered the fruit of the arbute-tree, and the strawberries of the mountain, and cornels, and blackberries adhering to the p.r.i.c.kly bramble-bushes, and acorns which had fallen from the wide-spreading tree of Jove. {Then} it was an eternal spring; and the gentle Zephyrs, with their soothing breezes, cherished the flowers produced without any seed. Soon, too, the Earth unploughed yielded crops of grain, and the land, without being renewed, was whitened with the heavy ears of corn. Then, rivers of milk, then, rivers of nectar were flowing, and the yellow honey was distilled from the green holm oak.

[Footnote 28: _Read upon the brazen tables._--Ver. 91. It was the custom among the Romans to engrave their laws on tables of bra.s.s, and fix them in the Capitol, or some other conspicuous place, that they might be open to the view of all.]

[Footnote 29: _Clarions of crooked bra.s.s._--Ver. 98. 'Cornu' seems to have been a general name for the horn or trumpet; whereas the "tuba" was a straight trumpet, while the 'lituus' was bent into a spiral shape. Lydus says that the 'lituus' was the sacerdotal trumpet, and that it was employed by Romulus when he proclaimed the t.i.tle of his newly-founded city. Acro says that it was peculiar to the cavalry, while the 'tuba' belonged to the infantry. The notes of the 'lituus' are usually described as harsh and shrill.]

EXPLANATION.

The heathen poets had learned, most probably from tradition, that our first parents lived for some time in peaceful innocence; that, without tillage, the garden of Eden furnished them with fruit and food in abundance; and that the animals were submissive to their commands: that after the fall the ground became unfruitful, and yielded nothing without labor; and that nature no longer spontaneously acknowledged man for its master. The more happy days of our first parents they seem to have styled the Golden Age, each writer being desirous to make his own country the scene of those times of innocence. The Latin writers, for instance, have placed in Italy, and under the reign of Saturn and Ja.n.u.s, events, which, as they really happened, the Scriptures relate in the histories of Adam and of Noah.

FABLE IV. [I.113-150]

In the Silver Age, men begin not to be so just, nor, consequently, so happy, as in the Golden Age. In the Brazen Age, which succeeds, they become yet less virtuous; but their wickedness does not rise to its highest pitch until the Iron Age, when it makes its appearance in all its deformity.

Afterwards (Saturn being driven into the shady realms of Tartarus), the world was under the sway of Jupiter; {then} the Silver Age succeeded, inferior to {that of} gold, but more precious than {that of} yellow bra.s.s. Jupiter shortened the duration of the former spring, and divided the year into four periods by means of winters, and summers, and unsteady autumns, and short springs. Then, for the first time, did the parched air glow with sultry heat, and the ice, bound up by the winds, was pendant. Then, for the first time, did men enter houses; {those} houses were caverns, and thick shrubs, and twigs fastened together with bark. Then, for the first time, were the seeds of Ceres buried in long furrows, and the oxen groaned, pressed by the yoke {of the ploughshare}.

The Age of Bra.s.s succeeded, as the third {in order}, after these; fiercer in disposition, and more p.r.o.ne to horrible warfare, but yet free from impiety. The last {Age} was of hard iron. Immediately every species of crime burst forth, in this age of degenerated tendencies;[30]

modesty, truth, and honor took flight; in their place succeeded fraud, deceit, treachery, violence, and the cursed hankering for acquisition.

The sailor now spread his sails to the winds, and with these, as yet, he was but little acquainted; and {the trees}, which had long stood on the lofty mountains, now, {as} ships bounded[31] through the unknown waves.

The ground, too, hitherto common as the light of the sun and the breezes, the cautious measurer marked out with his lengthened boundary.

And not only was the rich soil required to furnish corn and due sustenance, but men even descended into the entrails of the Earth; and riches were dug up, the incentives to vice, which the Earth had hidden, and had removed to the Stygian shades.[32] Then destructive iron came forth, and gold, more destructive than iron; then War came forth, that fights through the means of both,[33] and that brandishes in his blood-stained hands the clattering arms. Men live by rapine; the guest is not safe from his entertainer, nor the father-in-law from the son-in-law; good feeling, too, between brothers is a rarity. The husband is eager for the death of the wife, she {for that} of her husband.

Horrible stepmothers {then} mingle the ghastly wolfsbane; the son prematurely makes inquiry[34] into the years of his father. Piety lies vanquished, and the virgin Astraea[35] is the last of the heavenly {Deities} to abandon the Earth, {now} drenched in slaughter.

[Footnote 30: _Age of degenerated tendencies._--Ver. 128. 'Vena'

signifies among other things, a vein or track of metal as it lies in the mine. Literally, 'venae pejoris' signifies 'of inferior metal.']

[Footnote 31: _Now as ships bounded._--Ver. 134. 'Insultavere carinae.' This line is translated by Clarke, 'The keel-pieces bounced over unknown waves.']

[Footnote 32: _To the Stygian shades._--Ver. 139. That is, in deep caverns, and towards the centre of the earth; for Styx was feigned to be a river of the Infernal Regions, situate in the depths of the earth.]

[Footnote 33: _Through the means of both._--Ver. 142. Gold forms, perhaps, more properly the sinews of war than iron. The history of Philip of Macedon gives a proof of this, as he conquered Greece more by bribes than the sword, and used to say, that he deemed no fortress impregnable, where there was a gate large enough to admit a camel laden with gold.]

[Footnote 34: _Prematurely makes inquiry._--Ver. 148. Namely, by inquiring of the magicians and astrologers, that by their skill in casting nativities, they might inform them the time when their parents were likely to die, and to leave them their property.]

[Footnote 35: _Astraea._--Ver. 150. She was the daughter of Astraeus and Aurora, or of Jupiter and Themis, and was the G.o.ddess of Justice. On leaving the earth, she was supposed to have taken her place among the stars as the Constellation of the Virgin.]

EXPLANATION.

The Poet here informs us, that during the Golden Age, a perpetual spring reigned on the earth, and that the division of the year into seasons was not known until the Silver Age. This allusion to Eden is very generally to be found in the works of the heathen poets. The Silver Age is succeeded by the Brazen, and that is followed by the Iron Age, which still continues. The meaning is, that man gradually degenerated from his primeval innocence, and arrived at that state of wickedness and impiety, of which the history of all ages, ancient and modern, presents us with so many lamentable examples.

The limited nature of their views, and the fact that their exuberant fancy was the source from which they derived many of their alleged events, naturally betrayed the ancient writers into great inconsistencies. For in the Golden Age of Saturn, we find wars waged, and crimes committed. Saturn expelled his father, and seized his throne; Jupiter, his son, treated Saturn as he had done his father Ura.n.u.s; and Jupiter, in his turn, had to wage war against the Giants, in their attempt to dispossess him of the heavens.

FABLE V. [I.151-162]

The Giants having attempted to render themselves masters of heaven, Jupiter buries them under the mountains which they have heaped together to facilitate their a.s.sault; and the Earth, animating their blood, forms out of it a cruel and fierce generation of men.

And that the lofty {realms of} aether might not be more safe than the Earth, they say that the Giants aspired to the sovereignty of Heaven, and piled the mountains, heaped together, even to the lofty stars. Then the omnipotent Father, hurling his lightnings, broke through Olympus,[36] and struck Ossa away from Pelion, that lay beneath it.

While the dreadful carca.s.ses lay overwhelmed beneath their own structure, they say that the Earth was wet, drenched with the plenteous blood of her sons, and that she gave life to the warm gore; and that, lest no memorial of this ruthless race should be surviving, she shaped them into the form of men. But that generation, too, was a despiser of the G.o.ds above, and most greedy of ruthless slaughter, and full of violence: you might see that they derived their origin from blood.

[Footnote 36: _Olympus._--Ver. 154. Olympus was a mountain between Thessaly and Macedonia. Pelion was a mountain of Thessaly, towards the Pelasgic gulf; and Ossa was a mountain between Olympus and Pelion. These the Giants are said to have heaped one on another, in order to scale heaven.]

EXPLANATION.

The war of the giants, which is here mentioned, is not to be confounded with that between Jupiter and the t.i.tans, who were inhabitants of heaven. The fall of the angels, as conveyed by tradition, probably gave rise to the story of the t.i.tans; while, perhaps, the building of the tower of Babel may have laid the foundation of that of the attempt by the giants to reach heaven.

Perhaps, too, the descendants of Cain, who are probably the persons mentioned in Scripture as the children 'of men' and 'giants,' were the race depicted under the form of the Giants, and the generation that sprung from their blood. See Genesis, ch. vi. ver. 2, 4.

FABLE VI. [I.163-215]

Jupiter, having seen the crimes of this impious race of men, calls a council of the G.o.ds, and determines to destroy the world.

When the Father {of the G.o.ds}, the son of Saturn, beheld this from his loftiest height, he groaned aloud; and recalling to memory the polluted banquet on the table of Lycaon, not yet publicly known, from the crime being but lately committed, he conceives in his mind vast wrath, and such as is worthy of Jove, and calls together a council; no delay detains them, thus summoned.

There is a way on high,[37] easily seen in a clear sky, and which, remarkable for its very whiteness, receives the name of the Milky {Way}.

Along this is the way for the G.o.ds above to the abode of the great Thunderer and his royal palace. On the right and on the left side the courts of the enn.o.bled Deities[38] are thronged, with open gates. The {G.o.ds of} lower rank[39] inhabit various places; in front {of the Way}, the powerful and ill.u.s.trious inhabitants of Heaven have established their residence. This is the place which, if boldness may be allowed to my expression, I should not hesitate to style the palatial residence of Heaven. When, therefore, the G.o.ds above had taken their seats in the marble hall of a.s.sembly; he himself, elevated on his seat, and leaning on his sceptre of ivory, three or four times shook the awful locks[40]

of his head, with which he makes the Earth, the Seas, and the Stars to tremble. Then, after such manner as this, did he open his indignant lips:--

"Not {even} at that time was I more concerned for the empire of the universe, when each of the snake-footed monsters was endeavoring to lay his hundred arms on the captured skies. For although that was a dangerous enemy, yet that war was with but one stock, and sprang from a single origin. Now must the race of mortals be cut off by me, wherever Nereus[41] roars on all sides of the earth; {this} I swear by the Rivers of h.e.l.l, that glide in the Stygian grove beneath the earth. All methods have been already tried; but a wound that admits of no cure, must be cut away with the knife, that the sound parts may not be corrupted. I have {as subjects}, DemiG.o.ds, and I have the rustic Deities, the Nymphs,[42]

and the Fauns, and the Satyrs, and the Sylvans, the inhabitants of the mountains; these, though as yet, we have not thought them worthy of the honor of Heaven, let us, at least, permit to inhabit the earth which we have granted them. And do you, ye G.o.ds of Heaven, believe that they will be in proper safety, when Lycaon remarkable for his cruelty, has formed a plot against {even} me, who own and hold sway over the thunder and yourselves?"