Metamorphoses, Books VIII-XVRoman MythologyAncient Myth / ComparativeLatinShareMetamorphoses 79Riley, Books VIII-XV - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availableRiley, Books VIII-XVLanguageEnglishEspañol‹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 106›Fable Ii. [Xiv.75-100]Metamorphoses 79ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1Dido entertains Æneas in her palace, and falls in love with him. He afterwards abandons her, on which she stabs herself in despair. Jupiter transforms the Cercopes into apes; and the islands which they inhabit are afterwards called ‘Pithecusæ,’ from the Greek word signifying ‘an ape.’ 2After the Trojan ships, with their oars, had passed by her and the ravening Charybdis; when now they had approached near the Ausonian shores, they were carried back by the winds[5] to the Libyan coasts. The Sidonian {Dido}, she who was doomed not easily to endure the loss of her Phrygian husband, received Æneas, both in her home and her affection; on the pile, too, erected under the pretext of sacred rites, she fell upon the sword; and, {herself} deceived, she deceived all. Again, flying from the newly erected walls of the sandy regions, and being carried back to the seat of Eryx and the attached Acestes, he performs sacrifice, and pays honour[6] to the tomb of his father. He now loosens {from shore} the ships which Iris, the minister of Juno, has almost burned; and passes by the realms of the son of Hippotas, and the regions that smoke with the heated sulphur, and leaves behind him the rocks of the Sirens,[7] daughters of Acheloüs; and the ship, deprived of its pilot,[8] coasts along Inarime[9] and Prochyta,[10] and Pithecusæ, situate on a barren hill, so called from the name of its inhabitants. 3For the father of the Gods, once abhorring the frauds and perjuries of the Cercopians, and the crimes of the fraudulent race, changed these men into ugly animals; that these same beings might be able to appear unlike men, and yet like them. He both contracted their limbs, and flattened their noses; bent back from their foreheads; and he furrowed their faces with the wrinkles of old age. And he sent them into this spot, with the whole of their bodies covered with long yellow hair. Moreover, he first took away from them the use of language, and of their tongues, made for dreadful perjury; he only allowed them to be able to complain with a harsh jabbering. 4[Footnote 5: By the winds.--Ver. 77. The storm in which Æneas is cast upon the shores of Africa forms the subject of part of the first Book of the Æneid.] 5[Footnote 6: And pays honour.--Ver. 84. The annual games which Æneas instituted at the tomb of his father, in Sicily, are fully described in the fifth Book of the Æneid.] 6[Footnote 7: The Sirens.--Ver. 87. The Sirens were said to have been the daughters of the river Acheloüs. Their names are Parthenope, Lysia, and Leucosia.] 7[Footnote 8: Deprived of its pilot.--Ver. 88. This was Palinurus, who, when asleep, fell overboard, and was drowned. See the end of the fifth Book of the Æneid.] 8[Footnote 9: Inarime.--Ver. 89. This was an island not far from the coast of Campania, which was also called Ischia and Ænaria. The word ‘Inarime’ is thought to have been coined by Virgil, from the expression of Homer, εῖν Ἀρίμοις, when speaking of it, as that writer is the first who is found to use it, and is followed by Ovid, Lucan, and others. Strabo tells us, that ‘aremus’ was the Etrurian name for an ape; if so, the name of this spot may account for the name of Pithecusæ, the adjoining islands, if the tradition here related by the Poet really existed. Pliny the Elder, however, says that Pithecusæ were so called from πίθος, an earthern cask, or vessel, as there were many potteries there.] 9[Footnote 10: Prochyta.--Ver. 89. This island was said to have been torn away from the isle of Inarime by an earthquake; for which reason it received its name from the Greek verb προχέω, which means ‘to pour forth.’] ‹Previous chapterMetamorphoses 78Next chapterMetamorphoses 80›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