The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books VIII-XV

38.Towards their sides.]—Ver. 475. ‘Obvertere lateri remos’ most probably means ‘To feather the oars,’ which it is especially necessary to do in a gale, to avoid the retarding power of the wind against the surface of the blade of the oar.

39.Fixes the sail-yards.]—Ver. 476. ‘Cornua’ means, literally, ‘The ends or points of the sail-yards,’ or ‘Antennæ:’ but here the word is used to signify the sail-yards themselves.

40.Covering of wax.]—Ver. 514. The ‘Cera’ with which the seams of the ships were stopped, was most probably a composition of wax and pitch, or other bituminous and resinous substances.

41.The tenth wave.]—Ver. 530. This is said in allusion to the belief that every tenth wave exceeded the others in violence.

42.Calls those happy.]—Ver. 540. Those who died on shore would obtain funeral rites; while those who perished by shipwreck might become food for the fishes, a fate which was regarded by the ancients with peculiar horror. Another reason for thus regarding death by shipwreck, was the general belief among the ancients, that the soul was an emanation from æther, or fire, and that it was contrary to the laws of nature for it to be extinguished by water. Ovid says in his Tristia, or Lament (Book I. El. 2, l. 51-57), ‘I fear not death: ’tis the dreadful kind of death; Take away the shipwreck: then death will be a gain to me. ’Tis something for one, either dying a natural death, or by the sword, to lay his breathless corpse in the firm ground, and to impart his wishes to his kindred, and to hope for a sepulchre, and not to be food for the fishes of the sea.’

43.A hurricane.]—Ver. 548-9. ‘Tanta vertigine pontus Fervet’ is transcribed by Clarke, ‘The sea is confounded with so great a vertigo.’

44.The billows allow.]—Ver. 566. ‘Quoties sinit hiscere fluctus’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘As oft as the waves suffer him to gape.’

45.A darkening arch.]—Ver. 568. Possibly ‘niger arcus’ means a sweeping wave, black with the sand which it has swept from the depths of the ocean; or else with the reflection of the dark clouds.

46.From the heavens.]—Ver. 571. The word Olympus is frequently used by the poets to signify ‘the heavens;’ as the mountain of that name in Thessaly, from its extreme height, was supposed to be the abode of the Gods.

47.Prepare the garments.]—Ver. 575. Horace tells us that their clients wove garments for the Roman patricians; and the females of noble family did the same for their husbands, children, and brothers. Ovid, in the Fasti, describes Lucretia as making a ‘lacerna,’ or cloak, for her husband Collatinus. She says to her hand-maidens, ‘With all speed there must be sent to your master a cloak made with our hands.’ (Book ii. l. 746.) Suetonius tells us that Augustus would wear no clothes but those made by his wife, sister, or daughter.

48.Polluted hands.]—Ver. 584. All persons who had been engaged in the burial of the dead were considered to be polluted, and were not allowed to enter the temples of the Gods till they had been purified. Among the Greeks, persons who had been supposed to have died in foreign countries, and whose funeral rites had been performed in an honorary manner by their own relatives, if it turned out that they were not dead, and they returned to their own country, were considered impure, and were only purified by being dressed in swaddling clothes, and treated like new-born infants. We shall, then, be hardly surprised at Juno considering Halcyone to be polluted by the death of her husband Ceyx, although at a distance, and as yet unknown to her.

49.The Cimmerians.]—Ver. 592. Ovid appropriately places the abode of the drowsy God in the cold, damp, and foggy regions of the Cimmerians, who are supposed, by some authors, to have been a people of Sarmatia, or Scythia, near the Palus Mæotis, or sea of Azof. Other writers suppose that a fabulous race of people, said to live near Baiæ in Italy, and to inhabit dark caves throughout the day, while they sallied forth to plunder at night, are here referred to. This description of the abode of Sleep, and of his appearance and attendants, is supposed to have been borrowed by Ovid from one of the Greek poets.

50.Geese more sagacious.]—Ver. 599. This is said in compliment to the geese, for the service they rendered, in giving the alarm, and saving the Capitol, when in danger of being taken by the Gauls.

51.Waters of Lethe.]—Ver. 603. After the dead had tasted the waters of Lethe, one of the rivers of Hell, it was supposed that they lost all recollection of the events of their former life.

52.Took to flight.]—Ver. 632. Clarke translates this line, ‘Away she scours, and returns through the bow through which she had come.’

53.Morpheus.]—Ver. 635. Morpheus was so called from the Greek μορφὴ, ‘shape,’ or ‘figure,’ because he assumed various shapes. Icelos has his name from the Greek ἴκελος, ‘like,’ for a similar reason. Phobetor is from the Greek φοβὸς, ‘fear,’ because it was his office to terrify mortals. Lucian appears to mean the same Deity, under the name of Taraxion. Phantasos is from the Greek φάντασις, ‘fancy.’

54.In the Ægean Sea.]—Ver. 663. The Ægean Sea lay between the city of Trachyn and the coast of Ionia, whither Ceyx had gone.

55.The inscription.]—Ver. 706. The epitaphs on the tombs of the ancients usually contained the name of the person, his age, and (with the Greeks) some account of the principal events of his life. Halcyone, in her affectionate grief, promises her husband, at least, an honorary funeral, and a share in her own epitaph.

56.Seven calm days.]—Ver. 745. Simonides mentions eleven as being the number of the days; Philochorus, nine; but Demagoras says seven, the number here adopted by Ovid.

57.Floating on the sea.]—Ver. 746. The male of the kingfisher was said by the ancients to be so constant to his mate, that on her death he refused to couple with any other, for which reason the poets considered that bird as the emblem of conjugal affection. The sea was supposed to be always calm when the female was sitting; from which time of serenity, our proverb, which speaks of ‘Halcyon days,’ takes its rise.

58.Some old man.]—Ver. 749-50. ‘Hos aliquis senior—spectat;’ these words are translated by Clarke, ‘Some old blade spies them.’

59.Ganymede.]—Ver. 756. Ovid need not have inserted Assaracus and Ganymede, as they were only the brothers of Ilus, and the three were the sons of Tros. Ilus was the father of Laomedon, whose son was Priam, the father of Æsacus.

60.Granicus.]—Ver. 763. The Granicus was a river of Mysia, near which Alexander the Great defeated Darius with immense slaughter.

61.Cebrenus.]—Ver. 769. The Cebrenus was a little stream of Phrygia, not far from Troy.

62.Plunges into the deep.]—Ver. 791-2. ‘Inque profundum Pronus abit,’ Clarke renders, ‘Goes plumb down into the deep.’ Certainly this is nearer to its French origin, ‘a plomb,’ than the present form, ‘plump down;’ but, like many other instances in his translation, it decidedly does not help us, as he professes to do, to ‘the attainment of the elegancy of this great Poet.’

63.Because he plunges.]—Ver. 795. He accounts for the Latin name of the diver, or didapper, ‘mergus,’ by saying that it was so called, ‘a mergendo,’ from its diving, which doubtless was the origin of the name, though not taking its rise in the fiction here related by the Poet.