The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Book V (Fable. 2)

POLYDECTES continues his hatred against Perseus, and treats his victories and triumphs over Medusa as mere fictions, on which Perseus turns him into stone. Minerva leaves her brother, and goes to Mount Helicon to visit the Muses, who show the Goddess the beauties of their habitation, and entertain her with their adventure at the court of Pyreneus, and the death of that prince. They also repeat to her the song of the Pierides, who challenged them to sing.

YET, O Polydectes,23 the ruler of little Seriphus, neither the valor of the youth proved by so many toils, nor his sorrows have softened thee; but thou obstinately dost exert an inexorable hatred, nor is there any limit to thy unjust resentment. Thou also detractest from his praises, and dost allege that the death of Medusa is but a fiction. “We will give thee a proof of the truth,” says Perseus; “have a regard for your eyes, all besides;” and he makes the face of the king become stone, without blood, by means of the face of Medusa.

Hitherto Tritonia had presented herself as a companion to her brother,24 begotten in the golden shower. Now, enwrapped in an encircling cloud, she abandons Seriphus, Cythnus and Gyarus25 being left on the right. And where the way seems the shortest over the sea, she makes for Thebes and Helicon, frequented by the virgin Muses; having reached which mountain she stops, and thus addresses the learned sisters: “The fame of the new fountain26 has reached my ears, which the hard hoof of the winged steed sprung from the blood of Medusa has opened. That is the cause of my coming. I wished to see this wondrous prodigy; I saw him spring from the blood of his mother.” Urania27 replies, “Whatever, Goddess, is the cause of thy visiting these abodes, thou art most acceptable to our feelings. However, the report is true, and Pegasus is the originator of this spring;” and then she conducts Pallas to the sacred streams. She, long admiring the waters produced by the stroke of his foot, looks around upon the groves of the ancient wood, and the caves and the grass studded with flowers innumerable; and she pronounces the Mnemonian28 maids happy both in their pursuits and in their retreat; when one of the sisters thus addresses her:

“O Tritonia, thou who wouldst have come to make one of our number, had not thy valor inclined thee to greater deeds, thou sayest the truth, and with justice thou dost approve both our pursuits and our retreat; and if we are but safe, happy do we reckon our lot. But (to such a degree is no denial borne by villany) all things affright our virgin minds, and the dreadful Pyreneus is placed before our eyes; and not yet have I wholly recovered my presence of mind. He, in his insolence, had taken the Daulian and Phocean29 land with his Thracian troops, and unjustly held the government. We were making for the temple of Parnassus; he beheld us going, and adoring our Divinities30 in a feigned worship he said (for he had recognized us), ‘O Mnemonian maids, stop, and do not scruple, I pray, under my roof to avoid the bad weather and the showers (for it was raining); oft have the Gods above entered more humble cottages.’ Moved by his invitation and the weather, we assented to the man, and entered the front part of his house. The rain had now ceased, and the South Wind now subdued by the North, the black clouds were flying from the cleared sky. It was our wish to depart. Pyreneus closed his house, and prepared for violence, which we escaped by taking wing. He himself stood aloft on the top of his abode, as though about to follow us, and said ‘Wherever there is a way for you, by the same road there will beone for me.’ And then, in his insanity, he threw himself from the height of the summit of the tower, and fell upon his face, and with the bones of his skull thus broken, he struck the ground stained with his accursed blood.”

Thus spoke the Muse. Wings resounded through the air, and a voice of some saluting them31 came from the lofty boughs. The daughter of Jupiter looked up, and asked whence tongues that speak so distinctly made that noise, and thought that a human being had spoken. They were birds; and magpies that imitate everything, lamenting their fate, they stood perched on the boughs, nine in number. As the Goddess wondered, thus did the Goddess Urania commence: “Lately, too, did these being overcome in a dispute, increase the number of the birds. Pierus, rich in the lands of Pella,32 begot them; the Pæonian33 Evippe34 was their mother. Nine times did she invoke the powerful Lucina, being nine times in labor. This set of foolish sisters were proud of their number, and came hither through so many cities of Hæmonia, and through so many of Achaia,35 and engaged in a contest in words such as these: “Cease imposing upon the vulgar with your empty melody. If you have any confidence in your skill, ye Thespian Goddesses, contend with us; we will not be outdone in voice or skill; and we are as many in number. Either, if vanquished, withdraw from the spring formed by the steed of Medusa, and the Hyantean Aganippe,36 or we will retire from the Emathian plains, as far as the snowy Pæonians. Let the Nymphs decide the contest.” It was, indeed, disgraceful to engage, but to yield seemed even more disgraceful. The Nymphs that are chosen swear by the rivers, and they sit on seats made out of the natural rock. Then, without casting lots, she who had been the first to propose the contest, sings the wars of the Gods above, and gives the Giants honor not their due, and detracts from the actions of the great Divinities; and sings how that Typhœus, sent forth from the lowest realms of the earth, had struck terror into the inhabitants of Heaven; and how they had all turned their backs in flight, until the land of Egypt had received them in their weariness, and the Nile, divided into its seven mouths. She tells, how that Typhœus had come there, too, and the Gods above had concealed themselves under assumed shapes; and ‘Jupiter,’ she says, ‘becomes the leader of the flock, whence, even at the present day, the Libyan Ammon is figured with horns. Apollo, the Delian God, lies concealed as a crow, the son of Semele as a he-goat, the sister of Phœbus as a cat, Juno, the daughter of Saturn, as a snow-white cow, Venus as a fish,37 Mercury, the Cyllenian God, beneath the wings of an Ibis.’38

“Thus far she had exerted her noisy mouth to the sound of the lyre; we of Aonia39 were then called upon; but perhaps thou hast not the leisure, nor the time to lend an ear to our strains.” Pallas says, “Do not hesitate, and repeat your song to me in its order;” and she takes her seat under the pleasant shade of the grove. The Muse then tells her story. “We assigned the management of the contest to one of our number. Calliope rises, and, having her long hair gathered up with ivy, tunes with her thumb the sounding chords; and then sings these lines in concert with the strings when struck.”

Footnotes:

23. Polydectes.]—Ver. 242. Polydectes was king of the little island of Seriphus, one of the Cyclades. His brother Dictys had removed Perseus, with his mother Danaë, to the kingdom of Polydectes. The latter became smitten with love for Danaë, though he was about to marry Hippodamia. On this occasion he exacted a promise from Perseus, of the head of the Gorgon Medusa. When Perseus returned victorious, he found that his mother, with her protector Dictys, had taken refuge at the altars of the Deities, against the violence of Polydectes; on which Perseus changed him into stone. The story of Perseus afforded abundant materials to the ancient poets. Æschylus wrote a Tragedy called Polydectes, Sophocles one called Danaë, while Euripides composed two, called respectively Danaë and Dictys. Pherecydes also wrote on this subject, and his work seems to have been a text book for succeeding poets. Polygnotus painted the return of Perseus with the head of Medusa, to the island of Seriphus.

24. To her brother.]—Ver. 250. As both Tritonia, or Minerva, and Perseus had Jupiter for their father.

25. Gyarus.]—Ver. 252. Cythnus and Gyarus were two islands of the Cyclades.

26. The new fountain.]—Ver. 256. This was Helicon, which was produced by a blow from the hoof of Pegasus.

27. Urania.]—Ver. 260. One of the Muses, who presided over Astronomy.

28. Mnemonian.]—Ver. 268. The Muses are called ‘Mnemonides,’ from the Greek word μνήμων ‘remembering,’ or ‘mindful,’ because they were said to be the daughters, by Jupiter, of Mnemosyne, or Memory.

29. Phocean.]—Ver. 276. Daulis was a city of Phocis; a district between Bœotia and Ætolia, in which the city of Delphi and Mount Parnassus were situate.

30. Our Divinities.]—Ver. 279. ‘Nostra veneratus numina,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘and worshipping our Goddessships.’

31. Some saluting them.]—Ver. 295. That is, crying out χαῖρε, χαῖρε, the usual salutation among the Greeks, equivalent to our ‘How d’ye do?’ From two lines of Persius, it seems to have been a common thing to teach parrots and magpies to repeat these words.

32. Lands of Pella.]—Ver. 302. Pella was a city of Macedonia, in that part of it which was called Emathia. It was famed for being the birthplace of Philip, and Alexander the Great.

33. Pæonian.]—Ver. 303. Pæonia was a mountainous region of Macedonia, adjacent to Emathia.

34. Evippe.]—Ver. 303. Evippe was the wife of Pierus, and the mother of the Pierides.

35. Achaia.]—Ver. 306. The Achaia here mentioned was the Hæmonian, or Thessalian Achaia. The other parts of Thessaly were Phthiotis and Pelasgiotis.

36. Aganippe.]—Ver. 312. Aganippe was the name of a fountain in Bœotia, near Helicon, sacred to the Muses. It is called Hyantean, from the ancient name of the inhabitants of the country.

37. Venus as a fish.]—Ver. 331. The story of the transformation of Venus into a fish, to escape the fury of the Giants, is told, at length, in the second Book of the Fasti.

38. Wings of an Ibis.]—Ver. 331. The Ibis was a bird of Egypt, much resembling a crane, or stork. It was said to be of peculiarly unclean habits, and to subsist upon serpents.

39. We of Aonia.]—Ver. 333. The Muses obtained the name of Aonides from Aonia, a mountainous district of Bœotia.