The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Book IX (Fable. 6)

Ligdus commands his wife Telethusa, who is pregnant, to destroy the infant, should it prove to be a girl; on which, the Goddess Isis appears to her in a dream, and, forbidding her to obey, promises her her protection. Telethusa is delivered of a daughter, who is called Iphis, and passes for a son. Iphis is afterwards married to Ianthe, on which, Isis, to reward her mother’s piety, transforms her into a man.

The fame of this new prodigy would, perhaps, have filled the hundred cities of Crete, if Crete had not lately produced a nearer wonder of her own, in the change of Iphis.

For once on a time the Phæstian land65 adjoining to the Gnossian kingdom produced one Ligdus, of obscure name, a man of the freeborn class of common people. Nor were his means any greater than his rank, but his life and his honour were untainted. He startled the ears of his wife in her pregnancy, with these words, when her lying-in was near at hand: “Two things there are which I wish for; that thou mayst be delivered with very little pain, and that thou mayst bring forth a male child. The other alternative is a cause of greater trouble, and providence has denied us means for bringing up a female. The thing I abominate; but if a female should, by chance, be brought forth at thy delivery, (I command it with reluctance, forgive me, natural affection) let it be put to death.” Thus he said, and they bathed their faces with tears streaming down; both he who commanded, and she to whom the commands were given. But yet Telethusa incessantly urged her husband, with fruitless entreaties, not to confine his hopes within a compass so limited. But Ligdus’s resolution was fixed.

And now was she hardly able to bear her womb big with the burden ripe for birth; when in the middle of the night, under the form of a vision, the daughter of Inachus, attended by a train of her votaries, either stood, or seemed to stand, before her bed. The horns of the moon were upon her forehead, with ears of corn with their bright golden colour, and the royal ornament of the diadem; with her was the barking Anubis,66 and the holy Bubastis,67 and the particoloured Apis;68 he, too, who suppresses69 his voice, and with his finger enjoins silence. There were the sistra too, and Osiris,70 never enough sought for; and the foreign serpent,71 filled with soporiferous poison. When thus the Goddess addressed her, as though roused from her sleep, and seeing all distinctly: “O Telethusa, one of my votaries, lay aside thy grievous cares, and evade the commands of thy husband; and do not hesitate, when Lucina shall have given thee ease by delivery, to bring up the child, whatever it shall be. I am a befriending Goddess,72 and, when invoked, I give assistance; and thou shalt not complain that thou hast worshipped an ungrateful Divinity.”

Thus she advises her, and then retires from her chamber. The Cretan matron arises joyful from her bed; and suppliantly raising her pure hands towards the stars of heaven, prays that her vision may be fulfilled. When her pains increased, and her burden forced itself into the light, and a girl was born to the father unaware of it, the mother ordered it to be brought up, pretending it was a boy; and the thing gained belief, nor was any one but the nurse acquainted with the fact. The father performed his vows, and gave the child the name of its grandfather. The grandfather had been called Iphis. The mother rejoiced in that name because it was common to both sexes, nor would she be deceiving73 any one by it. Her deception lay unperceived under this fraud, the result of natural affection. The child’s dress was that of a boy; the face such, that, whether you gave it to a girl or to a boy, either would be beautiful. In the meantime the third year had now succeeded the tenth, when her father, O Iphis, promised to thee, in marriage, the yellow-haired Iänthe, who was a virgin the most commended among all the women of Phæstus, for the endowments of her beauty; the daughter of the Dictæan Telestes. Equal was their age, their beauty equal; and they received their first instruction, the elements suited to their age, from the same preceptor.

Love, in consequence, touches the inexperienced breasts of them both, and inflicts on each an equal wound; but how different are their hopes! Iänthe awaits the time of their union, and of the ceremonial agreed upon, and believes that she, whom she thinks to be a man, will be her husband. Iphis is in love with her whom she despairs to be able to enjoy, and this very thing increases her flame; and, herself a maid, she burns with passion for a maid. And, with difficulty, suppressing her tears, she says, “What issue of my love awaits me, whom the anxieties unknown to any before, and so unnatural, of an unheard-of passion, have seized upon? if the Gods would spare me, (they ought to have destroyed me, and if they would not have destroyed me), at least they should have inflicted some natural evil, and one common to the human race. Passion for a cow does not inflame a cow, nor does that for mares inflame the mares. The ram inflames the ewes; its own female follows the buck. And so do birds couple; and among all animals, no female is seized with passion for a female. Would that I did not exist.

“Yet, lest Crete might not be the producer of all kinds of prodigies, the daughter of the Sun loved a bull; that is to say, a female loved a male. My passion, if I confess the truth, is more extravagant than that. Still she pursued the hopes of enjoyment; still, by a subtle contrivance, and under the form of a cow, did she couple with the bull, and her paramour was one that might be deceived. But though the ingenuity of the whole world were to centre here, though Dædalus himself were to fly back again with his waxen wings, what could he do? Could he, by his skilful arts, make me from a maiden into a youth? or could he transform thee, Iänthe? But why dost thou not fortify thy mind, and recover thyself, Iphis? And why not shake off this passion, void of all reason, and senseless as it is? Consider what it was thou wast born (unless thou art deceiving thyself as well), and pursue that which is allowable, and love that which, as a woman, thou oughtst to love. Hope it is that produces, Hope it is that nourishes love. This, the very case itself deprives thee of. No guard is keeping thee away from her dear embrace; no care of a watchful husband, no father’s severity; does not she herself deny thy solicitations. And yet she cannot be enjoyed by thee; nor, were everything possible done, couldst thou be blessed; not, though Gods and men were to do their utmost. And now, too, no portion of my desires is baffled, and the compliant Deities have granted me whatever they were able, and what I desire, my father wishes, she herself wishes, and so does my destined father-in-law; but nature, more powerful than all these, wills it not; she alone is an obstacle to me. Lo, the longed-for time approaches, and the wedding-day is at hand, when Iänthe should be mine; and yet she will not fall to my lot. In the midst of water, I shall be athirst. Why, Juno, guardian of the marriage rites, and why, Hymenæus, do you come to this ceremonial, where there is not the person who should marry the wife, and where both of us females, we are coupled in wedlock?”

After saying these words, she closes her lips. And no less does the other maid burn, and she prays thee, Hymenæus, to come quickly. Telethusa, dreading the same thing that she desires, at one time puts off the time of the wedding, and then raises delays, by feigning illness. Often, by way of excuse, she pretends omens and visions. But now she has exhausted all the resources of fiction; and the time for the marriage so long delayed is now at hand, and only one day remains; whereon she takes off the fillets for the hair from her own head and from that of her daughter,74 and embracing the altar with dishevelled locks, she says, “O Isis, thou who dost inhabit Parætonium,75 and the Mareotic fields,76 and Pharos,77 and the Nile divided into its seven horns, give aid, I beseech thee, and ease me of my fears. Thee, Goddess, thee, I once beheld, and these thy symbols; and all of them I recognized; both thy attendants, and thy torches, and the sound of the sistra, and I noted thy commands with mindful care. That this girl78 now sees the light, that I, myself, am not punished, is the result of thy counsel, and thy admonition; pity us both, and aid us with thy assistance.”

Tears followed her words. The Goddess seemed to move, (and she really did move) her altars; and the doors of her temple shook. Her horns, too,79 shone, resembling those of the moon, and the tinkling sistrum sounded. The mother departs from the temple, not free from concern indeed, still pleased with this auspicious omen. Iphis follows her, her companion as she goes, with longer strides than she had been won't; her fairness does not continue on her face; both her strength is increased, and her features are more stern; and shorter is the length of her scattered locks. There is more vigour, also, than she had as a female. And now thou art a male, who so lately wast a female. Bring offerings to the temple, and rejoice with no hesitating confidence. They do bring their offerings to the temple. They add, too, an inscription; the inscription contains one short line: “Iphis, a male, offers the presents, which, as a female, he had vowed.”

The following morn has disclosed the wide world with the rays of the Sun; when Venus, and Juno, and Hymenæus, repair to the social fires80; and Iphis, now a youth, gains his dear Iänthe.

Footnotes:

65. Phæstian land.]—Ver. 668. Phæstus was a city of Crete, built by Minos.

66. Anubis.]—Ver. 689. This was an Egyptian Deity, which had the body of a man, and the head of a dog. Some writers say that it was Mercury who was so represented, and that this form was given him in remembrance of the fact of Isis having used dogs in her search for Osiris, when he was slain by his brother Typhon. Other authors say, that Anubis was the son of Osiris, and that he distinguished himself with an helmet, bearing the figure of a dog, when he followed his father to battle.

67. Bubastis.]—Ver. 690. Though she is here an attendant of Isis, Diodorus Siculus represents her to have been the same divinity as Isis. Herodotus, however, says that Diana was worshipped by the Egyptians under that name. There was a city of Lower Egypt, called Bubastis, in which Isis was greatly venerated.

68. Apis.]—Ver. 690. This is supposed to have been another name for Osiris, whose body, having been burned on the funeral pile, the Egyptians believed that he re-appeared under the form of a bull; the name for which animal was ‘apis.’

69. Who suppresses.]—Ver. 691. This was the Egyptian divinity Harpocrates, the God of Secresy and Silence, who was represented with his finger laid on his lips.

70. Osiris.]—Ver. 692. When slain by his brother Typhon, Isis long sought him in vain, till, finding his scattered limbs by the aid of dogs, she entombed them. As the Egyptians had a yearly festival, at which they bewailed the loss of Osiris, and feigned that they were seeking him, Ovid calls that God, ‘Nunquam satis quæsitus,’ ‘Never enough sought for.’

71. Foreign serpent.]—Ver. 693. This is, most probably, the asp, a small serpent of Egypt, which is frequently found represented on the statues of Isis. Its bite was said to produce a lethargic sleep, ending in death. Cleopatra ended her life by the bite of one, which she ordered to be conveyed to her in a basket of fruit. Some commentators have supposed that the crocodile is here alluded to; but, as others have justly observed, the crocodile has no poisonous sting, but rather a capacity for devouring.

72. A befriending Goddess.]—Ver. 698. Diodorus Siculus says, that Isis was the discoverer of numerous remedies for disease, and that she greatly improved the healing art.

73. Be deceiving.]—Ver. 709. The name ‘Iphis’ being equally well for a male or a female.

74. Of her daughter.]—Ver. 770. We must suppose that Iphis wore the ‘vitta,’ which was an article of female dress, in private only, and in presence of her mother. Of course, in public, such an ornament would not have suited her, when appearing in the character of a man.

75. Parætonium.]—Ver. 772. Strabo says, that Parætonium was a city of Libya, with a capacious harbour.

76. Mareotic fields.]—Ver. 772. The Mareotic Lake was in the neighbourhood of the city of Alexandria.

77. Pharos.]—Ver. 772. This was an island opposite to Alexandria, famed for its light-house, which was erected to warn sailors from off the dangerous quicksands in the neighbourhood.

78. This girl.]—Ver. 778. Pointing at Iphis, who had attended her, Antoninus Liberalis says, that Telethusa prayed that Iphis might be transformed into a man, and cited a number of precedents for such a change.

79. Her horns too.]—Ver. 783. Isis was sometimes worshipped under the form of a cow, to the horns of which reference is here made.

80. The social fires.]—Ver. 795. On the occasion of marriages, offerings were made on the altars of Hymenæus and the other Deities, who were the guardians of conjugal rites.