The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Book X (Fable. 8)

Myrrha, the daughter of Cinyras and Cenchris, having conceived an incestuous passion for her own father, and despairing of satisfying it, attempts to hang herself. Her nurse surprises her in the act, and prevents her death. Myrrha, after repeated entreaties and assurances of assistance, discloses to her the cause of her despair. The nurse, by means of a stratagem, procures her the object of her desires, which being discovered by her father, he pursues his daughter with the intention of killing her. Myrrha flies from her father’s dominions and being delivered of Adonis, is transformed into a tree.

“Of him was that Cinyras sprung, who, if he had been without issue, might have been reckoned among the happy. Of horrible events shall I now sing. Daughters, be far hence; far hence be parents, too; or, if my verse shall charm your minds, let credit not be given to me in this part of my song, and do not believe that it happened; or, if you will believe, believe as well in the punishment of the deed.
“Yet, if Nature allows this crime to appear to have been committed, I congratulate the Ismarian matrons, and my own division of the globe. I congratulate this land, that it is afar from those regions which produced so great an abomination. Let the Panchæan land42 be rich in amomum, and let it produce cinnamon, and its zedoary,43 and frankincense distilling from its tree, and its other flowers, so long as it produces the myrrh-tree, as well. The new tree was not of so much worth as to be a recompense for the crime to which it owed its origin. Cupid himself denies, Myrrha, that it was his arrows that injured thee; and he defends his torches from that imputation; one of the three Sisters kindled this flame within thee, with a Stygian firebrand and with swelling vipers. It is a crime to hate a parent; but this love is a greater degree of wickedness than hatred. On every side worthy nobles are desiring thee in marriage, and throughout the whole East the youths come to the contest for thy bed. Choose out of all these one for thyself, Myrrha, so that, in all that number, there be not one person, namely, thy father.

“She, indeed, is sensible of her criminality, and struggles hard against her infamous passion, and says to herself, ‘Whither am I being carried away by my feelings? What am I attempting? I beseech you, O ye Gods, and natural affection, and ye sacred ties of parents, forbid this guilt: defend me from a crime so great! if, indeed, this be a crime. But yet the ties of parent and child are said not to forbid this kind of union; and other animals couple with no distinction. It is not considered shameful for the heifer to mate with her sire; his own daughter becomes the mate of the horse; the he-goat, too, consorts with the flocks of which he is the father; and the bird conceives by him, from whose seed she herself was conceived. Happy they, to whom these things are allowed! The care of man has provided harsh laws, and what Nature permits, malignant ordinances forbid. And yet there are said to be nations44 in which both the mother is united to the son, and the daughter to the father, and natural affection is increased by a twofold passion. Ah, wretched me! that it was not my chance to be born there, and that I am injured by my lot being cast in this place! but why do I ruminate on these things? Forbidden hopes, begone! He is deserving to be beloved, but as a father only. Were I not, therefore, the daughter of the great Cinyras, with Cinyras I might be united. Now, because he is so much mine, he is not mine, and his very nearness of relationship is my misfortune.

“‘A stranger, I were more likely to succeed. I could wish to go far away hence, and to leave my native country, so I might but escape this crime. A fatal delusion detains me thus in love; that being present, I may look at Cinyras, and touch him, and talk with him, and give him kisses, if nothing more is allowed me. But canst thou hope for anything more, impious maid? and dost thou not perceive both how many laws, and how many names thou art confounding? Wilt thou be both the rival of thy mother, and the harlot of thy father? Wilt thou be called the sister of thy son, and the mother of thy brother? and wilt thou not dread the Sisters that have black snakes for their hair, whom guilty minds see threatening their eyes and their faces with their relentless torches? But do not thou conceive criminality in thy mind, so long as thou hast suffered none in body, and violate not the laws of all-powerful Nature by forbidden embraces. Suppose he were to be compliant, the action itself forbids thee; but he is virtuous, and regardful of what is right. And yet, O that there were a like infatuation in him!’

“Thus she says; but Cinyras, whom an honourable crowd of suitors is causing to be in doubt what he is to do, inquires of herself, as he repeats their names, of which husband she would wish to be the wife. At first she is silent; and, fixing her eyes upon her father’s countenance, she is in confusion, and fills her eyes with the warm tears. Cinyras, supposing this to be the effect of virgin bashfulness, bids her not weep, and dries her cheeks, and gives her kisses. On these being given, Myrrha is too much delighted; and, being questioned what sort of a husband she would have, she says, ‘One like thyself.’ But he praises the answer not really45 understood by him, and says, ‘Ever be thus affectionate.’ On mention being made of affection, the maiden, conscious of her guilt, fixed her eyes on the ground.

“It is now midnight, and sleep has dispelled the cares, and has eased the minds of mortals. But the virgin daughter of Cinyras, kept awake, is preyed upon by an unconquerable flame, and ruminates upon her wild desires. And one while she despairs, and at another she resolves to try; and is both ashamed, and yet is desirous, and is not certain what she is to do; and, just as a huge tree, wounded by the axe, when the last stroke now remains, is in doubt, as it were, on which side it is to fall, and is dreaded in each direction; so does her mind, shaken by varying passions, waver in uncertainty, this way and that, and receives an impulse in either direction; and no limit or repose is found for her love, but death: ’tis death that pleases her. She raises herself upright, and determines to insert her neck46 in a halter; and tying her girdle to the top of the door-post, she says, ‘Farewell, dear Cinyras, and understand the cause of my death;’ and then fits the noose to her pale neck.

“They say that the sound of her words reached the attentive ears of her nurse,47 as she was guarding the door of her foster-child. The old woman rises, and opens the door; and, seeing the instruments of the death she has contemplated, at the same moment she cries aloud, and smites herself, and rends her bosom, and snatching the girdle from her neck, tears it to pieces. And then, at last, she has time to weep, then to give her embraces, and to inquire into the occasion for the halter. The maid is silent, as though dumb, and, without moving, looks upon the earth; and thus detected, is sorry for her attempt at death in this slow manner. The old woman still urges her; and laying bare her grey hair, and her withered breasts, begs her, by her cradle and by her first nourishment, to entrust her with that which is causing her grief. She, turning from her as she asks, heaves a sigh. The nurse is determined to find it out, and not to promise her fidelity only. ‘Tell me,’ says she, ‘and allow me to give thee assistance; my old age is not an inactive one. If it is a frantic passion, I have the means of curing it with charms and herbs; if any one has hurt thee by spells, by magic rites shalt thou be cured; or if it is the anger of the Gods, that anger can be appeased by sacrifice. What more than these can I think of? No doubt thy fortunes and thy family are prosperous, and in the way of continuing so; thy mother and thy father are still surviving.’ Myrrha, on hearing her father’s name, heaves a sigh from the bottom of her heart. Nor, even yet, does her nurse apprehend in her mind any unlawful passion; and still she has a presentiment that it is something connected with love. Persisting in her purpose, she entreats her, whatever it is, to disclose it to her, and takes her, as she weeps, in her aged lap; and so embracing her in her feeble arms, she says, ‘Daughter, I understand it; thou art in love, and in this case (lay aside thy fears) my assiduity will be of service to thee; nor shall thy father ever be aware of it.’

“Furious, she sprang away from her bosom; and pressing the bed with her face, she said, ‘Depart, I entreat thee, and spare my wretched shame.’ Upon the other insisting, she said, ‘Either depart, or cease to inquire why it is I grieve; that which thou art striving to know, is impious.’ The old woman is struck with horror, and stretches forth her hands palsied both with years and with fear, and suppliantly falls before the feet of her foster-child. And one while she soothes her, sometimes she terrifies her with the consequences, if she is not made acquainted with it; and then she threatens her with the discovery of the halter, and of her attempted destruction, and promises her good offices, if the passion is confided to her. She lifts up her head, and fills the breast of her nurse with tears bursting forth; and often endeavouring to confess, as often does she check her voice; and she covers her blushing face with her garments, and says, ‘O, mother, happy in thy husband!’ Thus much she says; and then she sighs. A trembling shoots through the chilled limbs and the bones of her nurse, for she understands her; and her white hoariness stands bristling with stiff hair all over her head; and she adds many a word to drive away a passion so dreadful, if only she can. But the maiden is well aware that she is not advised to a false step; still she is resolved to die, if she does not enjoy him whom she loves. ‘Live then,’ says the nurse, ‘thou shalt enjoy thy——’ and, not daring to say ‘parent,’ she is silent; and then she confirms her promise with an oath.

“The pious matrons were now celebrating the annual festival of Ceres,48 on which, having their bodies clothed with snow-white robes, they offer garlands made of ears of corn, as the first fruits of the harvest; and for nine nights they reckon embraces, and the contact of a husband, among the things forbidden. Cenchreïs, the king’s wife, is absent in that company, and attends the mysterious rites. Therefore, while his bed is without his lawful wife, the nurse, wickedly industrious, having found Cinyras overcome with wine, discloses to him a real passion, but under a feigned name, and praises the beauty of the damsel. On his enquiring the age of the maiden, she says, ‘She is of the same age as Myrrha.’ After she is commanded to bring her, and as soon as she has returned home, she says, ‘Rejoice, my fosterling, we have prevailed.’ The unhappy maid does not feel joy throughout her entire body, and her boding breast is sad. And still she does rejoice: so great is the discord in her mind.

“’Twas the time when all things are silent, and Boötes had turned his wain with the pole obliquely directed among the Triones.49 She approaches to perpetrate her enormity. The golden moon flies from the heavens; black clouds conceal the hiding stars; the night is deprived of its fires. Thou, Icarus, dost conceal thy rising countenance; and thou, Erigone, raised to the heavens through thy affectionate love for thy father. Three times was she recalled by the presage of her foot stumbling; thrice did the funereal owl give an omen by its dismal cry. Yet onward she goes, and the gloom and the dark night lessen her shame. In her left hand she holds that of her nurse, the other, by groping, explores the secret road. And now she is arrived at the door of the chamber; and now she opens the door; now she is led in; but her knees tremble beneath her sinking hams, her colour and her blood vanish; and her courage deserts her as she moves along. The nearer she is to the commission of her crime, the more she dreads it, and she repents of her attempt, and could wish to be able to return unknown. The old woman leads her on by the hand as she lingers, and when she has delivered her up on her approach to the lofty bed, she says, ‘Take her, Cinyras, she is thy own,’ and so unites their doomed bodies. The father receives his own bowels into the polluted bed, and allays her virgin fears, and encourages her as she trembles. Perhaps, too, he may have called her by a name suited to her age, and she may have called him ‘father,’ that the appropriate names might not be wanting in this deed of horror. Pregnant by her father, she departs from the chamber, and, in her impiety, bears his seed in her incestuous womb, and carries with her, criminality in her conception. The ensuing night repeats the guilty deed; nor on that night is there an end. At last, Cinyras, after so many embraces, longing to know who is his paramour, on lights being brought in, discovers both the crime and his own daughter.

“His words checked through grief, he draws his shining sword from the scabbard as it hangs. Myrrha flies, rescued from death by the gloom and the favour of a dark night; and wandering along the wide fields, she leaves the Arabians famed for their palms, and the Panchæan fields. And she wanders during nine horns of the returning moon; when, at length, being weary, she rests in the Sabæan country,50 and with difficulty she supports the burden of her womb. Then, uncertain what to wish, and between the fear of death and weariness of life, she uttered such a prayer as this: ‘O ye Deities, if any of you favour those who are penitent; I have deserved severe punishment, and I do not shrink from it. But that, neither existing, I may pollute the living, nor dead, those who are departed, expel me from both these realms; and transforming me, deny me both life and death.’ Some Divinity ever regards the penitent; at least, the last of her prayers found its Gods to execute it. For the earth closes over her legs as she speaks, and a root shoots forth obliquely through her bursting nails, as a firm support to her tall trunk. Her bones, too, become hard wood, and her marrow continuing in the middle, her blood changes into sap, her arms into great branches, her fingers into smaller ones; her skin grows hard with bark. And now the growing tree has run over her heavy womb, and has covered her breast, and is ready to enclose her neck. She cannot endure delay, and sinks down to meet the approaching wood, and hides her features within the bark. Though she has lost her former senses together with her human shape, she still weeps on, and warm drops distil51 from the tree. There is a value even in her tears, and the myrrh distilling from the bark, retains the name of its mistress, and will be unheard-of in no future age.

“But the infant conceived in guilt grows beneath the wood, and seeks out a passage, by which he may extricate himself, having left his mother. Her pregnant womb swells in the middle of the tree. The burden distends the mother, nor have her pangs words of their own whereby to express themselves; nor can Lucina be invoked by her voice while bringing forth. Yet she is like one struggling to be delivered; and the bending tree utters frequent groans, and is moistened with falling tears. Gentle Lucina stands by the moaning boughs, and applies her hands, and utters words that promote delivery. The tree gapes open, in chinks, and through the cleft bark it discharges the living burden. The child cries; the Naiads, laying him on the soft grass, anoint him with the tears of his mother.

“Even Envy herself would have commended his face; for just as the bodies of naked Cupids are painted in a picture, such was he. But that their dress may not make any difference, either give to him or take away from them, the polished quivers.”

Footnotes:

42. The Panchæan land.]—Ver. 309. Panchæa was a region of Arabia Felix, abounding in the choicest wines and frankincense. Here, the Phœnix was said to find the materials for making its nest.

43. Its zedoary.]—Ver. 308. ‘Costus,’ or ‘costum,’ was an Indian shrub, which yielded a fragrant ointment, much esteemed by the ancients. Clarke translates it ‘Coysts,’A a word apparently of his own coining.

44. Said to be nations.]—Ver. 331. We do not read of any such nations, except the fabulous Troglodytes of Ethiopia, who were supposed to live promiscuously, like the brutes. Attica, king of the Huns, long after Ovid’s time, married his own daughter, amid the rejoicings of his subjects.

45. Not really.]—Ver. 365. That is to say, not understood by him in the sense in which Myrrha meant it.

46. To insert her neck.]—Ver. 378. ‘Laqueoque innectere fauces Destinat,’ is translated by Clarke, ‘And resolves to stitch up her neck in a halter.’

47. Of her nurse.]—Ver. 382. Antoninus Liberalis gives this hag the name of Hippolyte.

48. Festival of Ceres.]—Ver. 431. Commentators, in general, suppose that he here alludes to the festival of the Thesmophoria, which was celebrated in honour of Demeter, or Ceres, in various parts of Greece; in general, by the married women, though the virgins joined in some of the ceremonies. Demosthenes, Diodorus Siculus, and Plutarch, say that it was first celebrated by Orpheus; while Herodotus states, that it was introduced from Egypt by the daughters of Danaüs; and that, after the Dorian conquest, it fell into disuse, being retained only by the people of Arcadia. It was intended to commemorate the introduction of laws and the regulations of civilized life, which were generally ascribed to Demeter. It is not known whether the festival lasted four or five days with the Athenians. Many days were spent by the matrons in preparing for its celebration. The solemnity was commenced by the women walking in procession from Athens to Eleusis. In this procession they carried on their heads representations of the laws which had been introduced by Ceres, and other symbols of civilized life. They then spent the night at Eleusis, in celebrating the mysteries of the Goddess. The second day was one of mourning, during which the women sat on the ground around the statues of Ceres, taking no food but cakes made of sesame and honey. On it no meetings of the people were held. Probably it was in the afternoon of this day that there was a procession at Athens, in which the women walked bare-footed behind a waggon, upon which were baskets, with sacred symbols. The third day was one of merriment and festivity among the women, in commemoration of Iämbe, who was said to have amused the Goddess during her grief at the loss of Proserpine. An atoning sacrifice, called ζήμια, was probably offered to the Goddess, at the end of this day. It is most probable that the ceremonial lasted but three days. The women wore white dresses during the period of its performance, and they adopted the same colour during the celebration of the Cerealia at Rome. Burmann thinks, that an Eastern festival, in honour of Ceres, is here referred to. If so, no accounts of it whatever have come down to us.

49. Among the Triones.]—Ver. 446. ‘Triones’. This word, which is applied to the stars of the Ursa Major, or Charles’s Wain, literally means ‘oxen;’ and is by some thought to come from ‘tero,’ ‘to bruise,’ because oxen were used for the purpose of threshing corn; but it is more likely to have its origin from ‘terra,’ ‘the earth,’ because oxen were used for ploughing. The Poet employs this periphrasis, to signify the middle of the night.

50. Sabæan country.]—Ver. 480. Sabæa, or Saba, was a region of Arabia Felix, now called ‘Yemen.’ It was famed for its myrrh, frankincense, and spices. In the Scriptures it is called Sheba, and it was the queen of this region, who came to listen to the wisdom of Solomon.

51. Warm drops distil.]—Ver. 500. He alludes to the manner in which frankincense is produced, it exuding from the bark of the tree in drops; this gum, Pliny the Elder and Lucretius call by the name of ‘stacta,’ or ‘stacte.’ The ancients flavoured their wines with myrrh.