Metamorphoses, Books I-VIIRoman MythologyAncient Myth / ComparativeLatinShareMetamorphoses 90Riley, Books I-VII - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availableRiley, Books I-VIILanguageEnglishEspañol‹Metamorphoses 1Metamorphoses 2Metamorphoses 3Metamorphoses 4Metamorphoses 5Metamorphoses 6Metamorphoses 7Metamorphoses 8Metamorphoses 9Metamorphoses 10Metamorphoses 11Metamorphoses 12Metamorphoses 13Metamorphoses 14Metamorphoses 15Metamorphoses 16Metamorphoses 17Metamorphoses 18Metamorphoses 19Metamorphoses 20Metamorphoses 21Metamorphoses 22Metamorphoses 23Metamorphoses 24Metamorphoses 25Metamorphoses 26Metamorphoses 27Metamorphoses 28Metamorphoses 29Metamorphoses 30Metamorphoses 31Metamorphoses 32Metamorphoses 33Metamorphoses 34Metamorphoses 35Metamorphoses 36Metamorphoses 37Metamorphoses 38Metamorphoses 39Metamorphoses 40Metamorphoses 41Metamorphoses 42Metamorphoses 43Metamorphoses 44Metamorphoses 45Metamorphoses 46Metamorphoses 47Metamorphoses 48Metamorphoses 49Metamorphoses 50Metamorphoses 51Metamorphoses 52Metamorphoses 53Metamorphoses 54Metamorphoses 55Metamorphoses 56Metamorphoses 57Metamorphoses 58Metamorphoses 59Metamorphoses 60Metamorphoses 61Metamorphoses 62Metamorphoses 63Metamorphoses 64Metamorphoses 65Metamorphoses 66Metamorphoses 67Metamorphoses 68Metamorphoses 69Metamorphoses 70Metamorphoses 71Metamorphoses 72Metamorphoses 73Metamorphoses 74Metamorphoses 75Metamorphoses 76Metamorphoses 77Metamorphoses 78Metamorphoses 79Metamorphoses 80Metamorphoses 81Metamorphoses 82Metamorphoses 83Metamorphoses 84Metamorphoses 85Metamorphoses 86Metamorphoses 87Metamorphoses 88Metamorphoses 89Metamorphoses 90Metamorphoses 91Metamorphoses 92Metamorphoses 93Metamorphoses 94Metamorphoses 95Metamorphoses 96Metamorphoses 97Metamorphoses 98Metamorphoses 99Metamorphoses 100Metamorphoses 101Metamorphoses 102Metamorphoses 103Metamorphoses 104Metamorphoses 105Metamorphoses 106Metamorphoses 107Metamorphoses 108Metamorphoses 109Metamorphoses 110Metamorphoses 111Metamorphoses 112Metamorphoses 113Metamorphoses 114Metamorphoses 115Metamorphoses 116Metamorphoses 117Metamorphoses 118Metamorphoses 119Metamorphoses 120Metamorphoses 121Metamorphoses 122Metamorphoses 123Metamorphoses 124Metamorphoses 125Metamorphoses 126Metamorphoses 127Metamorphoses 128Metamorphoses 129Metamorphoses 130Metamorphoses 131Metamorphoses 132Metamorphoses 133Metamorphoses 134Metamorphoses 135Metamorphoses 136›Fable X. [Iv.663-803]Metamorphoses 90ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1Perseus, after his victory over Atlas, and his change into a mountain, arrives in Æthiopia, at the time when Andromeda is exposed to be devoured by a monster. He kills it, and hides the Gorgon’s head under the sand, covered with sea-weed and plants; which are immediately turned into coral. He then renders thanks to the Gods for his victory, and marries Andromeda. At the marriage feast he relates the manner in which he had killed Medusa; and the reason why Minerva had changed her hair into serpents. 2The grandson of Hippotas[77] had shut up the winds in their eternal prison; and Lucifer, who reminds {men} of their work, was risen in the lofty sky, in all his splendor. Resuming his wings, {Perseus} binds his feet with them on either side, and is girt with his crooked weapon, and cleaves the liquid air with his winged ankles. Nations innumerable being left behind, around and below, he beholds the people of the Æthiopians and the lands of Cepheus. There the unjust Ammon[78] had ordered the innocent Andromeda to suffer punishment for her mother’s tongue.[79] 3Soon as the descendant of Abas beheld her, with her arms bound to the hard rock, but that the light breeze was moving her hair, and her eyes were running with warm[80] tears, he would have thought her to be a work of marble. Unconsciously he takes fire, and is astonished; captivated with the appearance of her beauty, {thus} beheld, he almost forgets to wave his wings in the air. When he has lighted {on the ground}, he says, “O thou, undeserving of these chains, but {rather} of those by which anxious lovers are mutually united, disclose to me, inquiring both the name of this land and of thyself, and why thou wearest {these} chains.” At first she is silent, and, a virgin, she does not dare address[81] a man; and with her hands she would have concealed her blushing features, if she had not been bound; her eyes, ’twas {all} she could do, she filled with gushing tears. Upon his often urging her, lest she should seem unwilling to confess her offence, she told the name both of her country and herself, and how great had been the confidence of her mother in her beauty. All not yet being told, the waves roared, and a monster approaching,[82] appeared with its head raised out of the boundless ocean, and covered the wide expanse with its breast. The virgin shrieks aloud; her mournful father, and her distracted mother, are there, both wretched, but the latter more justly so. 4Nor do they bring her any help with them, but tears suitable to the occasion, and lamentations, and they cling round her body, bound {to the rock}. 5Then thus the stranger says: “Plenty of time will be left for your tears {hereafter}, the season for giving aid is {but} short. If I were to demand her {in marriage}, I, Perseus, the son of Jove, and of her whom, in prison, Jove embraced in the impregnating {shower of} gold, Perseus, the conqueror of the Gorgon with her serpent locks, and who has dared, on waving wings, to move through the ætherial air, I should surely be preferred before all as your son-in-law. To so many recommendations I endeavor to add merit (if only the Deities favor me). I {only} stipulate that she may be mine, {if} preserved by my valor.” Her parents embrace the condition, (for who could hesitate?) and they entreat {his aid}, and promise as well, the kingdom as a dowry. Behold! as a ship onward speeding, with the beak fixed {in its prow}, plows the waters, impelled by the perspiring arms[83] of youths; so the monster, moving the waves by the impulse of its breast, was as far distant from the rocks, as {that distance} in the mid space of air, which a Balearic string can pass with the whirled plummet of lead; when suddenly the youth, spurning the earth with his feet, rose on high into the clouds. As the shadow of the hero was seen on the surface of the sea, the monster vented its fury on the shadow {so} beheld. And as the bird of Jupiter,[84] when he has espied on the silent plain a serpent exposing its livid back to the sun, seizes it behind; 6and lest it should turn upon him its raging mouth, fixes his greedy talons in its scaly neck; so did the winged {hero}, in his rapid flight through the yielding {air}, press the back of the monster, and the descendant of Inachus thrust his sword up to the very hilt in its right shoulder, as it roared aloud. 7Tortured by the grievous wound, it sometimes raises itself aloft in the air, sometimes it plunges beneath the waves, sometimes it wheels about, just like a savage boar, which a pack of hounds in full cry around him affrights. With swift wings he avoids the eager bites[85] {of the monster}, and, with his crooked sword, one while wounds its back covered with hollow shells, where it is exposed, at another time the ribs of its sides, and now, where its tapering tail terminates in {that of} a fish. The monster vomits forth from its mouth streams mingled with red blood; its wings, {made} heavy {by it}, are wet with the spray. Perseus, not daring any longer to trust himself on his dripping pinions,[86] beholds a rock, which with its highest top projects from the waters {when} becalmed, {but is now} covered by the troubled sea. Resting on that, and clinging to the upper ridge[87] of the rock with his left hand, three or four times he thrusts his sword through its entrails aimed at {by him}. A shout, with applause, fills the shores and the lofty abodes of the Gods. Cassiope and Cepheus, the father, rejoice, and salute him as their son-in-law, and confess that he is the support and the preserver of their house. 8Released from her chains, the virgin walks along, both the reward and the cause of his labors. He himself washes his victorious hands in water taken {from the sea}; and that it may not injure the snake-bearing head with the bare sand, he softens the ground with leaves; and strews some weeds produced beneath the sea, and lays upon them the face of Medusa, the daughter of Phorcys. The fresh weeds, being still alive, imbibed the poison of the monster in their spongy pith, and hardened by its touch; and felt an unwonted stiffness in their branches and their leaves. But the Nymphs of the sea attempt the wondrous feat on many {other} weeds, and are pleased at the same result; and raise seed again from them scattered on the waves. Even now the same nature remains in the coral, that it receives hardness from contact with the air; and what was a plant in the sea, out of the sea becomes stone. 9To three Deities he erects as many altars of turf; the left one to Mercury; the right to thee, warlike Virgin; the altar of Jove is in the middle. A cow is sacrificed to Minerva; a calf to the wing-footed {God, and} a bull to thee, greatest of the Deities. Forthwith he takes Andromeda, and the reward of an achievement so great, without any dowry. Hymenæus and Cupid wave their torches before them; the fires are heaped with abundant perfumes. Garlands, too, are hanging from the houses: flageolets and lyres, and pipes, and songs resound, the happy tokens of a joyous mind. The folding-doors thrown open, the entire gilded halls are displayed, and the nobles of king Cepheus sit down at a feast furnished with splendid preparations. After they have done the feast, and have cheered their minds with the gifts of the generous Bacchus, the grandson of Abas inquires the customs and habits of the country. Immediately one {of them}, Lyncides, tells him, on his inquiring, the manners and habits of the inhabitants. Soon as he had told him these things, he said, “Now, most valiant Perseus, tell us, I beseech thee, with how great valor and by what arts thou didst cut off the head all hairy with serpents.” The descendant of Abas tells them that there is a spot situate beneath cold Atlas, safe in its bulwark of a solid mass; that, in the entrance of this, dwelt the two sisters, the daughters of Phorcys, who shared the use of a single eye; 10that he stealthily, by sly craft, while it was being handed over,[88] obtained possession of this by putting his hand in the way; and that through rocks far remote, and pathless, and bristling with woods on their craggy sides, he had arrived at the abodes of the Gorgons, and saw everywhere, along the fields and the roads, statues of men and wild beasts turned into stone, from their {natural form}, at the sight of Medusa; yet that he himself, from the reflection on the brass of the shield[89] which his left hand bore, beheld the visage of the horrible Medusa; and that, while a sound sleep held her and her serpents {entranced}, he took the head from off the neck; and that Pegasus and his brother,[90] fleet with wings, were produced from the blood of {her}, their mother. He added, too, the dangers of his lengthened journey, {themselves} no fiction;[91] what seas, what lands he had seen beneath him from on high, and what stars he had reached with his waving wings. 11Yet, before it was expected,[92] he was silent; {whereupon} one of the nobles rejoined, inquiring why she alone, of the sisters, wore snakes mingled alternately with her hair. “Stranger,” said he, “since thou inquirest on a matter worthy to be related, hear the cause of the thing thou inquirest after. She was the most famed for her beauty, and the coveted hope of many wooers; nor, in the whole of her person, was any part more worthy of notice than her hair: I have met {with some} who said they had seen it. The sovereign of the sea is said to have deflowered her in the Temple of Minerva. The daughter of Jove turned away, and covered her chaste eyes with her shield. And that this might not be unpunished, she changed the hair of the Gorgon into hideous snakes. Now, too, that she may alarm her surprised foes with terror, she bears in front upon her breast, those snakes which she {thus} produced.” 12[Footnote 77: Hippotas.--Ver. 663. Æolus, the God of the Winds, was the son of Jupiter, by Acesta, the daughter of Hippotas.] 13[Footnote 78: Ammon.--Ver. 671. Jupiter, with the surname of Ammon, had a temple in the deserts of Libya, where he was worshipped under the shape of a ram; a form which he was supposed to have assumed, when, in common with the other Deities, he fled from the attacks of the Giants. The oracle of Jupiter Ammon being consulted relative to the sea monster, which Neptune, at the request of the Nereids, had sent against the Ethiopians, answered that Andromeda must be exposed to be devoured by it; which Ovid here, not without reason, calls an unjust demand.] 14[Footnote 79: Mother’s tongue.--Ver. 670. Cassiope, the mother of Andromeda, had dared to compare her own beauty with that of the Nereids. Cepheus, the son of Phœnix, was the father of Andromeda.] 15[Footnote 80: Warm.--Ver. 674. ‘Tepido,’ ‘warm,’ is decidedly preferable here to ‘trepido,’ ‘trembling.’] 16[Footnote 81: Dare address.--Ver. 682. Heinsius thinks that ‘appellare’ here is not the correct reading; and suggests ‘aspectare,’ which seems to be more consistent with the sense of the passage, which would then be, ‘and does not dare to look down upon the hero.’] 17[Footnote 82: Monster approaching.--Ver. 689. Pliny the Elder and Solinus tell us that the bones of this monster were afterwards brought from Joppa, a seaport of Judæa, to Rome, and that the skeleton was forty feet in length, and the spinal bone was six feet in circumference.] 18[Footnote 83: The perspiring arms.--Ver. 707. ‘Juvenum sudantibus acta lacertis’ is translated by Clarke, ‘forced forward by the arms of sweating young fellows.’] 19[Footnote 84: Bird of Jupiter.--Ver. 714. The eagle was the bird sacred to Jove. The larger kinds of birds which afforded auguries from their mode of flight, were called ‘præpetes.’] 20[Footnote 85: Avoids the eager bites.--Ver. 723. Clarke translates this line, ‘He avoids the monster’s eager snaps with his swift wings.’] 21[Footnote 86: His dripping pinions.--Ver. 730. ‘Talaria’ were either wings fitted to the ankles, or shoes having such wings fastened to them; they were supposed to be usually worn by Mercury.] 22[Footnote 87: Clinging to the upper ridge.--Ver. 733. ‘Tenens juga prima sinistra’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘seizing the tip-top of it with his left hand.’] 23[Footnote 88: Being handed over.--Ver. 766. Of course, as they had but one eye between them, they must have both been blind while it was passing from one hand to another, so that Perseus could have had but little difficulty in effecting the theft here mentioned.] 24[Footnote 89: Brass of the shield.--Ver. 783. This reflecting shield Perseus is said to have received from Minerva, and by virtue of it he was enabled to see without being seen. Lucian says that Minerva herself held this reflecting shield before him, and by that means afforded him the opportunity of seeing the reflection of Medusa’s figure; and that Perseus, seizing her by the hair with his left hand, and keeping his eye fixed on the image reflected in the shield, took his sword in his right, and cut off her head, and then, by the aid of his wings, flew away before the other Gorgon sisters were aware of what he had done.] 25[Footnote 90: Pegasus and his brother.--Ver. 786. Pegasus and Chrysaor were two winged horses, which were fabled to have sprung up from the blood of Medusa, when slain by Perseus.] 26[Footnote 91: Themselves no fiction.--Ver. 787. His dangers were not false or imaginary, inasmuch as he was pursued by Sthenyo and Euryale, the sisters of Medusa, who were fabled to have wings, and claws of iron on their hands. Ovid deals a sly hit in the words ‘non falsa pericula cursus,’ at the tales of travellers, who, even in his day, seem to have commenced dealing in the marvellous; as, indeed, we may learn for ourselves, on turning to the pages of Herodotus, who seems to have been often imposed upon.] 27[Footnote 92: Before it was expected.--Ver. 790. Showing thereby how delighted his audience was with his narrative.] ‹Previous chapterMetamorphoses 89Next chapterMetamorphoses 91›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain in the United States via Project Gutenberg