O superi; totoque libens mihi pectore grator, quod memoris populi dicor rectorque paterque, et mea progenies vestro quoque tuta favore est. nam quamquam ipsius datur hoc immanibus actis, obligor ipse tamen. Sed enim, ne pectora vano fida mètu paveant, Oetaeas spernite flammas. omnia qui vicit, vincet, quos cernitis, ignes; nec nisi materna vulcanum parte potentem sentiet. Aeternum est a me quod traxit, et expers atque immune necis, nullaque domabile flamma : idque ego defunctum terra caelestibus oris accipiam, cunctisque meum laetabile factum dis fore confido. Siquis tamen Hercule, siquis forte deo doliturus erit, data praemia nolet: sed meruisse dari sciet, invitusque probabit.' Assensere dei; conjunx quoque regia visa est cetera non duro, duro tamen ultima vultu dicta tulisse Jovis, seque indoluisse notatam. Interea quodcumque fuit populabile flammae, Mulciber abstulerat; nec cognoscenda remansit Herculis effigies, nec quicquam ab imagine ductum matris habet, tantumque Jovis vestigia servat. utque novus serpens posita cum pelle senecta luxuriare solet, squamaque virere recenti : sic ubi mortales Tirynthius exuit artus, parte sui meliore viget, majorque videri coepit, et augusta fieri gravitate verendus. quem pater omnipotens inter cava nubila raptum quadrijugo curru radiantibus intulit astris. 245 250 255 260 265 270 X. 7.] Orpheus and Eurydice. 97 XIV. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. [Book X.-1-77.] [ALCMENE, mother of Hercules, to entertain Iole (who had married his son Hyllus), relates the tale of Hercules' birth, which was long delayed, but at last brought about by the artifice of Galanthis, a waiting maid; who, for the falsehood she told, was turned into a weasel by Ilithyia, whom she had deceived (IX. 273-323). Iole relates in turn of her sister Dryope, changed to a lotus (324-339). The restoring of Iolaus to youth, and the miraculous manhood bestowed on the children of Callirhoë, having moved the displeasure of some of the gods, Jupiter reminds them of the painful old age of his own son Minos (400-442). The tale is told of Byblis, daughter of Miletus (who had migrated from Crete to Asia): she, filled with a guilty love for her brother Cannus, became a foun⚫tain in Caria (443-665). Iphis, daughter of Ligdus of Crete, having been brought up as a youth to avoid her father's displeasure that a daughter was born to him, was at length changed to a young man by Isis, and so became the husband of Ianthe (666–797).] Hymen, proceeding to Thrace, after the marriage of Iphis, unites Orpheus to Eurydice, but not happily, for she died from the bite of a serpent. To recover her, Orpheus penetrated the shadows of the Lower World, where even the Furies are moved to tears at his song, the pains of hell are stayed, and Proserpine is won to yield him back his wife, only on condition that he shall not look behind him till again in the upper world. Turning about too soon, in his eagerness to see her, he loses her again, and is not suffered a second time to enter Hades (X. 1–77). INDE per immensum croceo velatus amictu aethera digreditur, Ciconumque Hymenaeus ad oras tendit, et Orphea nequiquam voce vocatur. adfuit ille quidem; sed nec sollemnia verba, nec laetos vultus, nec felix attulit omen. fax quoque, quam tenuit, lacrimoso stridula fumo usque fuit, nullosque invenit motibus ignes. 5 exitus auspicio gravior; nam nupta, per herbas dum nova naïadum turba comitata vagatur, occidit, in talum serpentis dente recepto. ΙΟ 15 Quam satis ad superas postquam Rhodopeïus auras deflevit vates, ne non temptaret et umbras, ad Styga Taenaria est ausus descendere porta ; perque leves populos simulacraque functa sepulcro Persephonen adiit, inamoenaque regna tenentem umbrarum dominum. Pulsisque ad carmina nervis sic ait: O positi sub terra numina mundi, in quem recidimus, quicquid mortale creamur; si licet, et falsi positis ambagibus oris vera loqui sinitis, non huc, ut opaca viderem Tartara, descendi, nec uti villosa colubris terna Medusaei vincirem guttura monstri. causa viae conjunx, in quam calcata venenum vipera diffudit, crescentesque abstulit annos. posse pati volui, nec me temptasse negabo: vicit Amor. Supera deus hic bene notus in ora est : an sit et hic, dubito, sed et hic tamen auguror esse. famaque si veteris non est mentita rapinae, 20 25 vos quoque junxit Amor. Per ego haec loca plena timoris, per Chaos hoc ingens, vastique silentia regni, Eurydices, oro, properata retexite fata. omnia debemur vobis, paulumque morati serius aut citius sedem properamus ad unam./ tendimus huc omnes, haec est domus ultima; vosque humani generis longissima regna tenetis. haec quoque, cum justos matura peregerit annos, juris erit vestri. Pro munere poscimus usum. quod si fata negant veniam pro conjuge, certum est nolle redire mihi: leto gaudete duorum.' Talia dicentem nervosque ad verba moventem 30 35 40 X. 74.] Half-won, but lost again. exsangues flebant animae; nec Tantalus undam 99 Carpitur acclivis per muta silentia trames, arduus, obscurus, caligine densus opaca. nec procul afuerunt telluris margine summae: hic, ne deficeret metuens, avidusque videndi, flexit amans oculos; et protinus illa relapsa est, bracchiaque intendens prendique et prendere captans nil nisi cedentes infelix arripit auras. jamque iterum moriens non est de conjuge quicquam questa suo quid enim nisi se quereretur amatam? supremumque Vale! quod jam vix auribus ille acciperet, dixit, revolutaque rursus eodem est. Non aliter stupuit gemina nece conjugis Orpheus, quam tria qui timidus, medio portante catenas, colla canis vidit; quem non pavor ante reliquit, quam natura prior, saxo per corpus oborto: quique in se crimen traxit voluitque videri Olenos esse nocens, tuque O confisa figurae, infelix Lethaea, tuae, junctissima quondam pectora, nunc lapides, quos humida sustinet Ide. Orantem frustraque iterum transire volentem portitor arcuerat. Septem tamen ille diebus squalidus in ripa Cereris sine munere sedit; 45 50 55 65 70 cura dolorque animi lacrimaeque alimenta fuere. esse deos Erebi crudeles questus, in altam 75 se recipit Rhodopen pulsumque aquilonibus Haemum. XV. THE SONG OF ORPHEUS. [BOOK X.-86-219.] WITHDRAWN apart from the love of women, and having gathered by his song a grove of forest trees [among them the pine which was once the youth Attis, and Cyparissus changed by Apollo into a Cypress], Orpheus sings of the loves of the gods for mortal And first of Ganymede of Troy, borne to heaven by Jupiter in the form of an eagle (143–161); and of Hyacinthus, a beautiful youth of Sparta, beloved by Apollo, but accidentally killed by him with a discus (or quoit) that he had hurled into the air; from whose blood sprang the flower that bears his name (162–219). men. [He further sings of certain people of Cyprus, cruel to strangers, who by Venus were changed to oxen (220-237); of the statue wrought by Pygmalion, which became a living maiden, and his bride (243-297); of Myrrha, who because of her incestuous love of her father became a tree weeping fragrant gum (298–502); of her child Adonis, loved by Venus (503-559); of Atalanta, fleet of foot, who was won in the race by craft of Hippomenes with three golden apples, but both were afterwards changed into lions (560-707); and of the death of Adonis, slain by a wild boar, and by Venus converted into the flower Anemone, as Menthe had aforetime been by Proserpine into the herb Mint (708-739).] COLLIS erat, collemque super planissima campi area, quam viridem faciebant graminis herbae. umbra loco deërat: qua postquam parte resedit dis genitus vates, et fila sonantia movit, umbra loco venit. Non Chaonis afuit arbor, non nemus Heliadum, non frondibus aesculus altis, 90 |