The Metamorphoses of Ovid: With the Etchings of Pablo Picasso

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1954.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Nov 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520334519

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THE METAMORPHOSES OF OVID • AN ENGLISH VERSION BY A. E. WATTS WITH THE ETCHINGS OF PABLO PICASSO MCMLIV • UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY • LOS ANGELES

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON, ENGLAND COPYRIGHT, 1954, BY

THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

ILLUSTRATIONS REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION

EDITIONS D’ART ALBERT SKIRA, GENEVA LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 54-7425

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DESIGNED BY JOHN B. GOETZ

TO ALICE

PREFACE

OVID’S MASTERPIECE has found, in proportion to its fame and influence, few translators in English. Arthur Golding’s version (1565-1567), because of its vogue among the Elizabethans and the signs of its influence in the works of Shakespeare, will always hold a place in our literary history. It is written in long ballad metre: lines of fourteen syllables rhyming in couplets. On its intrinsic merits opinions differ widely. George Sandys followed in 1626 with a version in heroic couplets, which also enjoyed a considerable success. Dryden, toward the end of his life, translated those parts of the work that most attracted him, amounting to about a third of the whole, and including the account of the philosophy of Pythagoras, which he declared to be the Masterpiece of the whole Metamorphoses. Seventeen years after Dryden’s death his versions were incorporated in a composite production by the most Eminent Hands. This was the work of eighteen translators. Dryden’s share was the largest: Addison contributed two books, and Pope a hundred lines. It was published in 1717, and went into many editions. Nothing new appeared until 1807, when a rendering in blank verse by J. J. Howard was published. Two more couplet versions were to come: one by Thomas Orger in 1811, and one by J. B. Rose in 1866. The syndicated version held its own well into the century, and was the boyhood reading of Henry King, my immediate predecessor, who published his graceful blank verse in 1871. Whatever the merits or demerits of these later versions, it is fashion, rather than impartial estimation, that has consigned them to oblivion. With the advent of Romanticism Ovid’s popularity sharply declined.

One of the writers I have mentioned may claim here a more extended reference. George Sandys, apart from the merit of his work, has a peculiar place in literary history. Professor W. H. Alexander has communicated to me a notice of Sandys from the Cyclopaedia of American Literature, by E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck (1856), which sets him in a remarkable light. The first English literary production penned in America—so the first sentence runs—"at least which has any rank or name in the general history of literature, is the translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses by George Sandys, printed in folio in London in 1626." I find this claim endorsed by later compilations, notably by the Dictionary of American Biography (1935). The account in the Cyclopaedia continues: The writer was the distinguished traveller, whose book on the countries of the Mediterranean and the Holy Land is still perused with interest by curious readers. It was some time after his return from the East, that he was employed in the government of the Colony of Virginia, where he held the post of treasurer of the company. There, on the banks of the James River, he translated Ovid, under circumstances of which he has left a memorial in his dedication of the work to King Charles I. The dedication refers to the poem as "being limn’d by that unperfect light which was snatcht from the howers of night and repose. For the day was not mine, but dedicated to the service of your Great Father, and your Selfe: which, had it proved as fortunate, as faithfull, in me, and others more worthy; we had hoped, ere many yeares had turned about, to have presented You with a rich and wel-peopled Kingdome; from whence now, with my seife, I only bring this composure. … It needeth more than a single denization, being a double Stranger; sprung from the Stocke of the ancient Romanes; but bred in the New-world, of the rudenesse whereof it cannot but participate; especially having Warres and Tumultes to bring it to fight in stead of the Muses… In George Sandys’ version of the Metamorphoses, written in America and published in England, the Old World and the New were brought into singular conjunction; and it is felt to be a favorable omen that the present work, written in England and published in America, should now, after so many years and across so many miles, renew the ancient association.

My version, which I naturally hope may not be inopportune, has not been made as the result of calculation. In 19421 was reading with a class in the eighth book of Ovid’s work. One day it came home to me with more than usual force that my young pupils, who could with difficulty piece together the prose content of the passage they were studying, were receiving no effective impression of its stylistic and rhythmical quality. That evening I tried to put a few lines of our task into English verse, in order to suggest, if possible, the impact of the original. My translation, when presented to them a little later, made some impression, I was led to believe, upon them in the sense desired, and had proved itself as well a not ungrateful task in the performance.

I was aiming, for the occasion, at a rendering that should elucidate for the student everything in the Latin, including even the grammar. It is true, I think, in theory, that translation should reproduce, if possible, every minutest shade of idiom in some way, provided it is an English way. But it is clear that the qualifications tend to smother the proposition; and in the course of my long labor—thus accidentally begun—I have learned to treat the Latin less obsequiously, though I trust with no loss of essential fidelity. I hope now to appeal to the general reader as well as to the student. The use of meter implies the aim of giving something more than the prose content of the narrative. Ovid’s work, which in substance is a store of legend and a panorama of the Graeco-Roman world, is also, in respect of its form, a compendium of literary technique, the most complete exploration in verse of the resources of rhetoric that has ever been made. While striving to render the words accurately, I have also tried to take account of their arrangement; to give an impression of Ovid’s art, or artifice; to reflect the pace of his meter and the tension of his style; to keep his antitheses sharp, his witticisms pointed, and his paradoxes startling. Such are the dreams of the translator, who may too easily mistake love of his author for ability to do him justice.

As the medium for my experiments, the heroic couplet was an instinctive choice. We have no other verse form that can suggest so well the authority of the Latin hexameter, and it is the traditional vehicle in English for the art that does not seek concealment. Even its tendency to seem mannered and conventional is not an unmixed disadvantage, since Ovid himself is an exploiter of literary conventions. While I acknowledge of course the mastery of Pope and Dryden, I have tried to avoid mere imitation, and to make the verse respond anew to the form and pressure of Ovid’s work. In respect of diction and vocabulary, I have endeavored, conformably to the theme and meter, to write as a contemporary, enjoying, in common with the reader, the freedom of the language from Shakespeare to the present day. Sometimes, where a choice has offered, I have swayed the balance to the side of the vernacular; but I have not, as a rule, admitted colloquialisms or words of very recent coinage, and I hope to pass as up-to-date by speaking in a straightforward way, with as much force and clarity as possible, especially as these are, to my sense, the most definable qualities of Ovid’s own style. Except where obscurity is part of the intention, as in certain oracular passages, I have striven to be immediately intelligible, since the reader of Ovid should not have to reflect in order to understand.

My grateful thanks are due to my friends Morley Dainow and Anthony Trott, who in different ways have given me generous and valued help. I owe an especial debt to the kindness and scholarship of Professor W. H. Alexander, of the University of California Press. He has read the whole manuscript, and by many acute criticisms and suggestions has enabled me to improve the finish and accuracy of the work. The final responsibility is mine.

A. E. W.

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

BOOK THREE

BOOK FOUR

BOOK FIVE

BOOK SIX

BOOK SEVEN

BOOK EIGHT

BOOK NINE

BOOK TEN

BOOK ELEVEN

BOOK TWELVE

BOOK THIRTEEN

BOOK FOURTEEN

BOOK FIFTEEN

INDEX AND GLOSSARY

BOOK ONE

OF the formation of the Universe — the emergence of life — the birth of mankind — the depravity of man from age to age — the revolt of the Giants — the suppression of the revolt by Jupiter — the birth of a wanton race — the deluge — the tale of Deucalion and Pyrrha — of Apollo and Daphne — of Jupiter and Jo — the parentage of Phaëthon

Change is my theme. You gods, whose power has wrought

All transformations, aid the poet’s thought, And make my song’s unbroken sequence flow From earth’s beginnings to the days we know.

An age there was, before the land and sea And sky, that covers all, began to be, When nature’s face was blank, and what they call Chaos, a crude unsorted mass, was all — A mere dead-weight, whose atoms, which could keep No conformation, huddled in a heap. As yet no Titan, lord of day, gave light To heaven and earth, no Phoebe, queen of night, Renewed her orb, no earth as yet was there, Self-poised and pendent in the main of air; Nor yet did Amphitrite’s arms expand To clasp the farthest fringes of the land. The stuff of earth was there, but in a state To bear no creature’s tread or object’s weight; Water there was, but nothing then could swim; And air, but light was quenched in air so dim; And all, in constant change and ceaseless jar, In the one mass waged elemental war,

The hot at odds with cold, the moist with dry, Softness with hardness, weight with levity.

A god (perhaps with evolution’s aid) Parted the combatants, and peace was made; Sea drew apart from land, and land from sky, Earth’s thicker air from Heaven’s transparency. Unraveled from the blind confusion, these, Sundered in place, were joined in bonds of peace. The fire that formed the arch of Heaven on high, Flashed up, a weightless essence, to the sky To reach the vault and take its station there; And next in lightness and in place was air. Large atoms formed the denser earth, and so Depressed by its own weight, it stayed below, While on its verge the liquid element Ran circling round, and kept the solid pent. Thus order reigned, and he whose wise control Severed the parts and made the parts a whole, First massed the land, some symmetry to bring, And molded it to form a mighty ring;

Then bade the seas be spread and circling lie Round shores of earth, and swell when winds are high. Then springs he adds, and lakes, and boundless fens, And running streams ‘twixt winding banks he pens, Each in its place, and as they separate flow, Some sink, absorbed by earth, some seaward go, And finding freedom, lash with waves the shore Of ocean’s plain, and beat ’gainst banks no more. He bade the woods be green, the plains expand, The valleys sink, the stony hills upstand.

And as two zones to left, and two to right, Were marked in heaven, with one that burned more bright, So the land-mass beneath, by care divine, Was marked to match, and parceled line for line. Of earth’s five tracts, the midmost was the seat Of burning uninhabitable heat;

Snow covered two, and two between were set Where flame and frost in temperate mixture met.

Air hangs above, less dense than earth and sea, Denser than fire, differing in like degree.

He bade the mists and clouds be stationed here, Thunder, that shakes the hearts of men with fear, And winds that drive the clouds, and cause alike The summer lightning and the bolts that strike. Each wind was giv’n its quarter, ruling there But not allowed full empire of the air; And, even so, they would like brothers fight, And tear the world to pieces, if they might. Eurus went east where rose-red Petra lay And Persia’s hills beneath the morning ray; And Zephyr where cool shores of sunset are, While Boreas rushed to seize the sevenfold star And shuddering Scythia; south lie Auster’s plains, Dim with unfailing clouds and dank with rains. Above, he set the subtle ether, free From clogging weight and earth’s impurity.

All frontiers fixed, the time had come to give To every part its share of things that live; And constellations that for long had been Merged in the mass, their godlike forms unseen, To heavenly habitations soon were gone, And stars, like brilliant bubbles, rose and shone; Birds beat the air, the beasts had earth to roam, And flickering fish in water found a home.

There wanted yet, to dominate the whole, A more capacious mind, a loftier soul;

So man was formed, of elements conveyed Direct from heaven, some think, by him who made Order prevail in chaos, him I call The cosmic architect, who fashioned all. Or did the stuff of earth, so close akin To heaven above, that shared its origin, And fresh from recent contact, still retain Some molecules of fine ethereal grain? Such earth, with water mixed, so some declare, Prometheus shaped the form of gods to wear, In attitude of rule, that while the race Of creatures else looks down, man lifts his face (For so his maker willed) and turns his eye To starry heights above, and sweeps the sky.

Thus clothed with shapes of life unknown till then, Earth’s formless clay was molded into men.

First flowered the age of gold, which, while it knew No judge nor law, was freely just and true. No penalties were fixed; no threats appeared Graven on bronze to make stem edicts feared; No judge’s words dismayed the suppliant throng; Without protectors all were safe from wrong; None lusted then for travel: no tall tree, Felled on its native hills, then sailed the sea;

No breakneck trenches ringed the cities round; No trumpet straight, no twisted horn gave sound; No swords were forged, no soldier plied his trade; Men lived at peace, carefree and unafraid; Unscarred by plows, and by no contract tied, Earth, of her bounty, every need supplied;

Content with nature’s gifts, men plucked the fruit Of mountain strawberry and wild arbute;

Cornels for them and prickly brambles bred. For them from Jove’s broad tree were acorns shed; Spring was eternal, earth a garden, blessed With blooms unsown, which temperate winds caressed; In fields untilled the bursting ears were seen, And yellowing harvests where no plows had been; And streams of milk and nectar flowing free;

And gold in green, the honey in the tree.

When Saturn passed below, and Jove had won The rule of earth, the silver age came on — Men valued like their metal, which we hold Dearer than tawny bronze, more cheap than gold. Jove clipped the spring, which filled the year before, And made the circuit pass through phases four: Through winter’s frost and summer’s heat it ran, Autumn’s unrest and spring’s contracted span. Then first came parching heat and blinding glare, And ice held pendent in the freezing air;

Then houses rose: men left their caverns dark, And thickets dense, and branches bound with bark; Then first the furrows took the seeds of grain, And the yoked steers went groaning o’er the plain.

The race of bronze came next, the third in time, More fierce and warlike, yet unstained by crime. The last was iron; and sin in every form, With that base metal, took the world by storm. All simple faith, all truth and honor fled, And force and fraud and treachery came instead, — With sinful greed of gain. Men set their sails, And mastered (unfamiliar lore) the gales. Long, long the timbers on the hills had grown, That insolently leaped o’er waves unknown. The land, once common like the light and air, Was parceled with proprietary care. Not only must the bounteous soil bestow The food it owed: men probed the depths below; And raked the buried treasures, that impel To evil, from their hiding-place near hell.

So iron came, and gold, more hurtful far; And armed with iron, armed with gold, came war. (In war’s red hand when rattling weapons shake, Men plunder men, and live by what they take. In the fierce strife all loyalties expire: Who weds the daughter, plots against the sire; Fierce stepdames mix the ghastly aconite; And wedded love converts to murderous spite; And friend doubts friend, and brother brother fears; And sons, impatient, count their father’s years.) Conscience lay crushed; and as the slaughter spread, Last of the gods, the maiden Justice fled.

Heaven too must quake: aspiring giants rose To seize its scepter — so the story goes.

With mountain piled on mountain up they went To reach the stars, till Jove’s dread bolts were sent, And struck Olympus first, then Pelion, down, Uplifted as it was on Ossa’s crown.

The giant brood, whose blood in streams was shed, In all their formidable bulk lay dead;

And earth, their dam, was deluged, and before The warmth was out, bred life within the gore, And gave this too the form of humankind, For fear her former breed should pass from mind.

So runs the tale. Her second race no less Was steeped in lust for strife and lawlessness, Contemptuous of the gods, untamed in mood: The race, it could be seen, was born in blood.

Jove, from his watchtower, saw the crimes of men: One (known to him alone) was recent then: Lycaon’s loathsome feast: the thought of this Moved him to wrath — and where is wrath like his? He called the gods: the gods obeyed his call, And quickly gathered in the council hall.

High in the firmament with lustrous ray, Shines heaven’s bright thoroughfare, the Milky Way; And there the palace lies: on either hand The crowded doors of courted nobles stand.

Elsewhere (to speak so bold) the suburbs lie, Where dwell the common people of the sky; But here, where powers and princes make their home, Heaven has its social summit, much like Rome.

Now when the gods of rank were seated all Within the marble rondure of the hall, And Jove, in high authority of place, Presided, leaning on his ivory mace, Three times he shook his locks, and caused to quake The land and sea and sky, and then he spake. Time was (his lips thus gave his wrath release) "When giants probed our power and shook our peace; Each snake-foot monster’s hundred-handed clasp Reached out in greed the captive sky to grasp; Yet lesser then my care: though fierce the blow, It had one source: we fought one corporate foe; Now every mortal, wheresoe’er the sea Roars round the earth, must die by my decree. By Styx’s streams, in nether gloom that glide, All remedies, I swear, in vain are tried: The knife must prune what treatment cannot cure, For fear the infected part should taint the pure. I have my half-gods, powers of field and flood, Satyrs and fauns and nymphs of hill and wood; And if no place in heaven rewards their worth, At least we owe them what we gave — the earth.

I rule the lightnings with almighty hand, And hold the gods in absolute command; Think you the lesser gods will safer be, When fierce Lycaon lays his plots for me?" His hearers shuddered, and the council room

Rang loud with clamor for the sinner’s doom. So, when a lawless hand took frenzied aim To drown in Caesar’s blood the Roman name, The race of men was struck with quick alarm, And all earth shuddered, fearing mortal harm; And not less dear thy people’s loyal love To thee, Augustus, than the gods’ to Jove.

He stilled the murmurous throng with voice and hand, And spoke again, in tones of stem command: "Give no more thought to him: his debt is paid; But learn his crime, and what return we made. When evil-speaking rumor reached my ears, I wished it false, and sought to end my fears.

I left my throne, descended from the skies, And walked the world, a god in mortal guise. The sins I found would take too long to name: Go where I would, the fact outran the fame. Past Maenalus I went, the wild beasts’ haunt, Cyllene, and Lycaeus’ pinewoods gaunt, And reached, when night in wake of dusk came on, Lycaon’s frowning doors and friendless throne. My signs announcing that a god was there, Convinced the common sort, who fell to prayer. Lycaon scoffed: ‘By test that cannot lie If this be god or mortal will I try.’

His test was this, to wait till night, and creep Under my guard, and kill me in my sleep. To give full measure, first he made the life Of one he held as hostage feel the knife; And cooked for food, in saucepan or on spit, The still warm flesh — but ere he offered it, My vengeful fires brought down in ruin grim His house upon his impious gods and him. He fled in fear, and howling as he tried To speak, he scared the silent countryside.

He turned on flocks, for blood was still his joy, And foamed with rage, still thirsting to destroy; His clothes were hairs, and on four legs he ran, But in the wolf you still could read the man: The same gray hair, the brutish face the same, The same incarnate rage, and eyes of flame. — One house of sin is down, but what is one? Through earth’s wide borders evil sets its throne. Sentence is passed, and justice in good time Shall punish their conspiracy of crime."

So Jove held forth: his audience gave assent By silent nod or loud encouragement;

Yet felt their loss, and asked with sorrowing mind What earth would be without the human kind; And who would pay their altar dues, whose hand Bring incense, if wild beasts laid waste the land? Jove bade their ferment cease: his royal care Should guide the sequel to an issue fair;

And, so he promised them, a brave new breed Should spring from unimaginable seed.

Now when about to strike, Jove stayed his hand, Lest, while his lightnings kindled every land, Some sparks, by this vast conflagration sent, Should fire the sacred far-spread firmament. Mindful, moreover, how in fate’s decree A time was doomed to come when land and sea And heaven’s imperial seat, with all the frame Of the fixed universe, should fall in flame, The god replaced his fierce incendiaries, The lightning bolts (the Cyclops’ work were these), And planned to send the rain, fire’s opposite, From all the sky, and drown the race with it. Within the wind king’s cavern shutting fast The north and every cloud-dispelling blast, He let the south wind loose; the wind-god flew Wet-winged and dread, with veil of pitchy hue. From sodden beard, white hair, and cloud-capped head, From streaming breast and wing the rain was shed; And, as he squeezed the clouds with giant hand, They poured their loads, with thunder, on the land.

Iris, great Juno’s envoy, many-hued, Gathering the waters, plied the clouds with food. The fanner’s crops were leveled with the soil; He mourned his shattered hopes and wasted toil.

To supplement the skies, Jove’s anger bade His sea-blue brother bring his floods to aid. The streams, convoked, to Neptune’s palace throng. No time, said he, for exhortation long. Throw wide your doors, pour out your strength amain; Remove your dams and give your floods the rein. They went their way, and let their founts run free, And rolled with course unbridled to the sea.

Then, struck by Neptune’s trident, earth was rent, And by new fissures gave its waters vent.

The rivers rolled unchecked, and cleared the plain Of men and dwellings, cattle, woods, and grain. The temples, with their gods, were all laid low, And not a house withstood the crushing blow; Or if it did, it foundered where it stood, Drowned to the rooftops in the rising flood.

The sea and land are now distinct no more:

Sea everywhere, and sea without a shore! Some find a footing on a mountain’s brow; Some steer a boat where once they steered a plow; O’er farmhouse roofs and fields of com they pass, And, like enough, drop anchor in the grass; Or brush with keels the vines beneath the seas, And catch the fishes in the tops of trees.

Where grazed the shapely goat, now sprawls the seal; And sea-nymphs stare at what the depths reveal: Cities and homes and groves beneath the tide, Where swimming dolphins with great oaks collide. Upon the surface tawny lions swam, And tigers, and the wolf beside the lamb.

His lightning lunge was useless to the boar, And, swept from land, the stag was swift no more. Exploring long, where land no footing gave, The homeless bird dropped wearied in the wave. Above the hills o'erweening waters rise, And beating waves the mountain peaks surprise;

And what few creatures from the deluge fly For lack of food in lingering famine die.

Between Aonian and Oetaean ground

A fertile land — when land it was — was found; But now in Phocis stretched a watery plain, Won by the swift encroachment of the main. There Mount Parnassus, with twin peaks that go Near to the stars, stared down on clouds below. Deucalion and his wife, when else no space Of land was left, found there a clinging-place. Than he none better lived and kept the law; Than she none held the gods in greater awe. Their tiny craft touched land, and on their knees They blessed Parnassus’ nymphs and deities, Themis not least, whose oracles divine Inspired the prophet’s utterance in the shrine. When Jove beheld, among the thousands slain, In all the world awash, one man remain, And of all women one surviving still, Who both had served the gods, and done no ill, He loosed north winds, and, routing clouds and rain, Showed earth to sky and sky to earth again.

The seas too calm their rage: the sea-king rests His three-tined spear, and smooths the curling crests. He bids his bugler, sea-blue Triton, come In living mail of murex from the foam, And summon seas and rivers, winding well With signal of recall his hollow shell, Which broadens outward, in a spiral curled, And, sounded in mid-ocean, fills the world.

So when his bearded lips, bedewed with spray, Sent east and west the call required that day, All waters heard the call, and all that rolled On land or sea were by the call controlled. Down from the hills the sinking waters go, And brimming streams within their channels flow; The ground thrusts up, and gives the seas their shore; The floods are less, the landmarks more and more; And leaves bemired, long merged beneath the main, On treetops show, and earth is earth again.

Now when the voiceless realms, untenanted, Before his eyes in desolation spread, Deucalion thus in tears to Pyrrha spoke: O wife, O cousin, last of womenfolk, I found a sister first, then wife in you, And now in danger find a comrade true. Nought but us two is salvaged from the sea: The population of the world are we. Uncertain is our trust in life as yet, And still we tremble at the stormcloud’s threat. Had’st thou been saved alone, bereft of me, What, hapless one, would now thy feelings be? What strength were thine, to bear thy lonely fear? To share thy lonely grief, what comrade dear? For I — the greedy waves, I tell thee true, If they had thee, should have thy husband too. Oh had I but my father’s skill to give A form to clay, and breath to make it live! But now we two (such seems the heavenly plan) Preserve our race, and show the mold of man.

They wept, and then resolved to see what aid Might come by divination, if they prayed. Together to Cephisus’ stream they sped, Which flowed, still turbid, in its native bed; And sprinkling ritual drops on clothes and face, They cleansed themselves, and sought the holy place, Great Themis’ shrine. The altar fires were cold, And all the gables gray with leprous mold. Then first upon the stairway falling prone, In holy awe they kissed the ice-cold stone, And said: If righteous prayers have power to bend The gods above, and if their wrath can end, Great Themis, grant the flooded world thy grace, And teach us to restore our vanished race. The goddess, moved to hear such suppliants pray, With fateful speech made answer: Go your way; And walk with covered heads and loosened zones, And throw behind your backs your mother’s bones.

This speech amazed them: silent long were they; Then Pyrrha spoke, refusing to obey;

And prayed for pardon, fearing, as she said, Themis, but fearing more to wrong the dead. Again, together or apart, they tried To think what sense the riddling words could hide; And then Prometheus’ son with words of cheer Bade Epimetheus’ daughter calm her fear; Saying: "Unless fallacious proves my skill, The holy oracles enjoin no ill.

Earth is our mighty mother, and the stones Within her frame are called, I think, her bones. These must we throw behind us." Pyrrha, moved By this interpretation, half approved;

But still their hopes in doubtful balance lie, So dim their faith — and yet what harm to try? They went with girdle loosed and covered head, And threw the stones behind, as Themis said.

The stones — and here belief would surely fail, But that antiquity attests the tale — Were hard no more: some tempering touch they knew, And seasoned soft, they slowly changed and grew; Until some faint resemblance, ill-defined, Recalled the lineaments of humankind;

Like statues, when beneath the sculptor’s hand In roughhewn blocks unfinished marbles stand; And where within the stony substance lay Some moist ingredient or some softer clay, It took the form of flesh; the parts that own A hard unyielding nature turned to bone;

The veins persisted, and were called so still; And soon, as power celestial worked its will, The stones the man had thrown to manhood grew, And from the woman’s woman sprang anew. And still the dour resistant race of man, Rockhard, bears witness whence his breed began.

All creatures else the unaided act of earth In various form and fashion brought to birth. The miry marshlands, where the floods lie spent, Seethe in the sunbeams, and the fens ferment; And spores, enwombed within that matrix warm, There grew, till slow gestation fixed their form.

So tillers, when the seven-streamed Nile again Channels his floods, receding from the plain, Find living forms beneath the furrowed clay, Where on the siltland beats the solar ray. Some at their zero hour of life they see, Caught in the moment of nativity;

While others, half emerging from the mire, Not yet possess their tale of parts entire;

And compounds strange are seen, where lifeless clay And flesh within one body meet halfway.

Birth comes by opposition: mist and heat (When fire and water, foes inveterate, meet) Embrace and breed, and all the life we see Springs from that union in antipathy.

So warmed by fostering suns the mud then teemed With countless species, as the floodlands steamed; And some were preëxistent types, new-grown, And some were shapes grotesque, till then unknown.

One novel beast earth had no mind to bear, Her new-created race to scourge and scare; Yet bear she did, a strange unheard-of ill, The python huge, that covered half a hill. On him the heavenly archer turned his bow Unpracticed, save on wild-foot goat and doe; He shot a thousand shafts, his quiver’s store; And black-mouthed wounds shed venom, life, and gore. He founded, lest the story fade, the games Called Pythian, which the slaughtered serpent names — High contest, where the gods should honored be, And strength and skill should draw the world to see; Where youth with youth in ring and racecourse vied, And oak-leaf chaplets were the victor’s pride; For Phoebus then, when earth no laurels knew, Wreathed his fair locks from any tree that grew.

With love for Daphne first was Phoebus fired, By Cupid’s anger, not by chance inspired. The Delian, having laid the serpent low, Saw with disdain the boy-god bend his bow. Is this, said he, "a playful boy’s affair?

Such deadly weapons are for me to wear.

When I with aim unerring shoot my dart, What foe, what fearsome beast, but feels the smart? By shafts of mine the snake that pressed the plain, Acre on acre, like a blight, was slain.

You, with your torch, set hearts on fire, and be Content with that, and leave my fame to me. Then Venus’ son replied: With aim as true As your bow strikes all else, shall mine strike you. As all that breathes is small to power divine, So small your fame, O Phoebus, matched with mine." With whirring wings he buffeted the breeze, And reached Parnassus, with its shade of trees; And drew two arrows from his quiver’s load: One was the curb of love, and one the goad.

The first was dull, blunt-tipped with leaden dross, The second needle-barbed, with golden gloss. The first was for the girl: when that had flown, The second pierced Apollo to the bone.

He loved; but love was her antipathy: Peneüs’ child, a river nymph, was she. She took for pattern Phoebe, loveless maid, And found her pleasure in the forest glade. A fillet bound the nymph’s unbraided hair; The skins of beasts were her delight to wear. On lovers, not a few, she looked with dread, And walked the pathless woods unwon, unwed. She did not know what marriage meant, nor care Who Hymen was, that blessed the wedded pair. Her father urged her: Child, you owe to me, A son-in-law, and grandsons at my knee. She blushed for shame; her blood ran hot within; She shunned the marriage torches like a sin; And throwing arms around his neck, she said: "Give me permission, father, not to wed;

And as Diana’s father left her free

To live in maidenhood, do you leave me."

With his good-will she might have lived a maid, But what she wished, her charms themselves forbade; For Phoebus saw her, loved, and wished to wed — Both wished and hoped, a prophet self-misled.

Like fire in stubble when the field is bared;

Or as when travelers through the night have fared, Some torch, discarded when the daylight came, Or trailed too near, has set the hedge aflame, So love consumed the god: he turned to fire, And fed with hope his ill-conceived desire. Upon her neck he saw the tumbled hair: What would it be, he thought, with proper care? He saw her eyes: no stars could gleam so bright; He saw her lips, and wanted more than sight; Approved her fingers, arms, and shoulders bare; And what he did not see, surmised more fair.

The maiden fled light as the wind away, And though she heard him calling, would not stay. Stay, nymph, he cried; "I beg you, run not so. Stay, nymph; I do not follow as a foe. Lambs run from wolves, and stags from lions flee, And doves from eagles try to flutter free;

And each thing shuns its foe: no foe am I: Love is what makes me follow: do not fly. If you should fall, or if the thorns should maim Your unoffending feet, I bear the blame.

The road is rough: I wish no pain to you: More gently run, and gentlier I’ll pursue. At least be curious whom your charms have won, And whom, through ignorance, you blindly shun. No hillman I, no shaggy guard of sheep, No local watch on flocks and herds I keep: In Delphi’s land and Tenedos I reign;

Claros and Patara are my proud domain;

Jove is my father; and revealed by me is all that was, and is, and is to be; Through me the song and string to concord grew; And true my arrow’s aim; though one more true (I own) than mine has pierced my free heart through. The world’s first healer, help of every land, I hold the power of herbs at my command: Alas, no herb can mend love’s malady: My skill, that helps all others, helps not me."

He had not done, but timorous Daphne fled,

And left him thus with half his speech unsaid.

Lovely she seemed in flight: her robes, blown back From her bared body, fluttered in her track;

The meeting wind drove back her streaming hair, And ever as she fled she seemed more fair.

He wooed no more, where wooing won no grace, But spurred by love, the young god pressed his pace; And just as when the harvest-field is bare From reaping, and a hound has seen a hare — Greed against love of life — the race is hot: He nears and nears: he has her, has her not: With nose thrust out he sniffs her heels: the prey, Though seeming caught and eaten, slips away — So Phoebus followed, and so fled the maid, But swifter he, with wings of love to aid: He gives no pause; his hope outspeeds her fear; He crowds her close; his breath is on her hair.

As, spent with speed, her strength and color fled, She reached her father’s stream, and Sire, she said, "If streams have power divine, with changing spell Destroy the form by