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“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, VIII) – Ovid

**“Scene of the Deluge“ (1820)**

_______

following upon the threat of water,

rather than fire, to destroy the world,

under the command of Jove, dutifully

abetted by Neptune, his Olympian

brother, sea god himself, with his

fleet of observant minions, the

rivers, streams, waterways, the

annihilating flood takes place

Ovid recounts

The floods, by Nature enemies to land,
And proudly swelling with their new command,
Remove the living stones, that stopt their way,

the living stones, you’ve got me there,

these could only be stones as initial

matter somehow contributing to the

advent of an inherent life source, later

activated, induced into vivifying action

we are dust, in other words, we return

to dust, inert dust, however

incomprehensibly

And gushing from their source, augment the sea.

**the flowing rivers augment, enlarge,**

the growing sea, covering the land

Then, with his mace, their monarch struck the ground;

a mace is a club with metal spikes

With inward trembling Earth receiv’d the wound;

**a comma after trembling here would**

make this line easier to read, “With

inward trembling, Earth receiv’d the

wound”, but not everyone is as

punctilious about grammar as I am

And rising streams a ready passage found.

streams easily found their way

amidst the bracken, the shrubbery,

the rushes, to overwhelm the

otherwise quiescent pastures

Th’ expanded waters gather on the plain:

Manitoba, often, lately, in spring

They float the fields, and over-top the grain;
Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway,
Bear flocks, and folds, and lab’ring hinds away.

Bear here is a verb, not a noun, meaning

that animals, flocks, and folds, and lab’ring

hinds, are carried away, borne away,

borne asunder

Nor safe their dwellings were, for, sap’d by floods,

sap’d, sapped, deprived, weakened,

rendered unsuitable

Their houses fell upon their houshold Gods.

household Gods, icons, Lares or Penates,

personally held by the Ancients, like we

now keep pictures, tokens, of our own

particular, however often secular,

rather than religious, idols

The solid piles, too strongly built to fall,
High o’er their heads, behold a watry wall:

though tall, and apparently indestructible,

**the solid piles are nevertheless submerged,**

the very recent South Asian tsunami, for

instance, or the Japanese one that

provoked the nuclear incident that put an

end there to that earlier profoundly

nationally integrated industry, if you’ll

remember

Now seas and Earth were in confusion lost;
A world of waters, and without a coast.

water, water, everywhere, but the last

thing you want to do is drink

next, how humans survive

stay tuned

R ! chard

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“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, VII) – Ovid

**“The Garden of Earthly Delights“ (1510 – 1515)**

__________

Nor from his patrimonial Heaven alone
Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down;

let me say something about Heaven

here, a concept that is quite different

from the earlier Ancient Greek and

Roman understanding of the term,

was it, for that matter, even a term

then, of the Ancients, that would’ve

meant nothing other to them than

the blue sky above, not at all an

area reached by extraterrestrial

transcendence

the abode of the gods and goddesses

at the time of Ovid was Mount Olympus,

and had been for centuries, much closer

to the earth than the more ethereal home

we imagine of the gods today, every one

of them, however professedly uniquely

supreme, otherworldly

all gods, note, no goddesses, what’s up

with that, I’ve long wondered

the Underworld was for the Ancients

the dwelling place of the departed,

somewhere deep beneath the earth,

or at the very ends of all the seas,

never totally beyond the very

cosmos, as our prevailing faiths

now uniformly preach

the image of Heaven, Hell, and

Purgatory for that matter, that last

a completely Catholic invention – to

account for the salvation, however

partial, of innocent souls deprived

of Heaven for not having been

christened, though not able yet, at

so early an age, to have sinned –

was pretty well codified by Dante

in the 14th Century in his

**masterpiece, The Divine Comedy,**

a daunting, but profoundly

illuminating read, which has

shaped our impression of these

several possible afterlives ever

since

this particular translation, however

magisterial, but crafted after over a

thousand years of Catholic cultural

domination, cannot avoid the impact

of the Catholic understanding of

Heaven

neither, now, can we, for that matter,

intimately imbued as we are with

the binding faiths of our relatively

more recent forebears

be therefore perspicacious

Aid from his brother of the seas he craves,
To help him with auxiliary waves.

later, we’ll learn that Jove’s brother

of the seas is Neptune, god of all

aqueous things

The watry tyrant calls his brooks and floods,
Who rowl from mossie caves (their moist abodes);

rowl, or roil, upset

mossie, mossy

And with perpetual urns his palace fill:
To whom in brief, he thus imparts his will.

Neptune is stockpiling water, with

the help of his conforming waterways

Small exhortation needs;

no time, in other words, no need,

to do much coaxing, much

exhortation

your pow’rs employ:

use, put into action, or employ,

your pow’rs

And this bad world, so Jove requires, destroy.

Jove, god of gods, is here commanding,

authorizing, orchestrating

Let loose the reins to all your watry store:
Bear down the damms, and open ev’ry door.

The floods

will inexorably follow

stay tuned

R ! chard

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“Take care of your link with life” – Buffy Sainte-Marie

“Blue Sky“ (1932)

_____

while on the topic of alternate

mythologies, look what I found,

on our present collective

crisis

the faith is that of our indigenous

brothers and sisters, who’ve

managed to keep their ancient

stories alive despite years of

intense political and official

opposition

their lore was never ever less effective

than Roman lore was to the Romans,

Sainte-Marie‘s Mother Nature no less

noble and inspirational than Juno,

queen of Rome’s Heaven, nor, for

that matter, than to Catholics their

Virgin Mary

Take care of your link with life

Hold your head up
Lift the top of your mind
Put your eyes on the Earth
Lift your heart to your own home planet
What do you see?
What is your attitude
Are you here to improve or damn it
Look right now and you will see
We’re only here by the skin of our teeth as it is

So take heart and take care of your link with life
It ain’t money that makes the world go round
That’s only temporary confusion
It ain’t governments that make the people strong
It’s the opposite illusion
Look right now and you will see
They’re only here by the skin of their teeth as it is
So take heart and take care of your link with Life

Life is beautiful
If you’ve got the sense to take care of your source of protection
Mother Nature
She’s the daughter of God and the source of all protection
Look right now
And you will see she’s only here by the skin of her teeth as it is
So take heart and take care of your link with life

And carry it on
We’re saying
And carry it on
And keep playing
And carry it on
And keep praying
And carry it on

Buffy Sainte-Marie

R ! chard

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April 26, 2020

“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, VI) – Ovid

“Rainstorm over the Sea“ (1824 – 1828)

John Constable

_______

Already had he toss’d the flaming brand;
And roll’d the thunder in his spacious hand;
Preparing to discharge on seas and land:

in order to begin to fulfil his decree

of ridding the world of humans, Jove

had toss’d [a] flaming brand, a piece

of wood that’s been set on fire, and

***roll’d [ ] thunder*, set it to rumble, in**

his spacious, or large, hand, ready

to cast it upon the seas and land

But stopt, for fear, thus violently driv’n,
The sparks should catch his axle-tree of Heav’n.

an axletree is a beam that connects

two wheels of a carriage in order to

make them turn simultaneously

the suggestion here is that Heaven

is intimately connected to the earth,

both interwoven parts of a functioning,

and interdependent, mechanism

Remembring in the fates, a time when fire
Shou’d to the battlements of Heaven aspire,
And all his blazing worlds above shou’d burn;
And all th’ inferior globe to cinders turn.

Jove remembers that the fates had

decreed a time when fire would reach

the very battlements of Heaven, and

shou’d burn it, as well as the earth

below, turning everything there to

cinders, ashes

a counterpart to this event exists in

Norse mythology, incidentally, which

Richard Wagner sets to extraordinary

music, in the last segment,

Götterdämmerung, or The Twilight

of the Gods, of his four-part opera,

***The* Ring of the Nibelung, wherein**

Valhalla, the great hall of the Gods,

goes up in flames, bringing an end

to the dominion of that hallowed,

not to mention earlier incontestable,

pantheon

do not, despite its lack of subtitles,

**not watch this Götterdämmerung,**

do not not be astonished, Richard

Wagner is the Pink Floyd of the

19th Century, let him take you to

the conflagration

I cried

His dire artill’ry thus dismist, he bent
His thoughts to some securer punishment:
Concludes to pour a watry deluge down;
And what he durst not burn, resolves to drown.

having decided against fire, his dire

artill’ry, as an effective way of carrying

out his destructive mission, Jove opts

for water instead, a wat’ry deluge

need I even bring up here, Valhalla,

an obvious mythological equivalent,

but which of the two was the chicken,

one wonders, which was the egg, both

trails leading deep into inscrutable,

and indecipherable, antiquity

The northern breath, that freezes floods, he binds;
With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds:
The south he loos’d, who night and horror brings;

to set in motion his scheme, Jove

enlists, or binds, the winds, [t]he

northern breath, and [t]he south

wind, both of which apply their

own destructive methods

And foggs are shaken from his flaggy wings.

flaggy, in layers, feathers upon

feathers, Jove is represented

here, however unusually, with

wings

From his divided beard two streams he pours,
His head, and rheumy eyes distill in show’rs,
With rain his robe, and heavy mantle flow:
And lazy mists are lowring on his brow;

the water that will lay waste the

earth flows from Jove’s very

physical attributes, his divided

beard, his rheumy eyes, his

brow, et cetera

Still as he swept along, with his clench’d fist
He squeez’d the clouds,

not only does Jove exude a flow

of water through divine, though

intrinsically viable coroporeal

avenues, but he also actively

promotes it, squeez[ing] the

very clouds

but

th’ imprison’d clouds resist:

however

The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound;
And show’rs inlarg’d, come pouring on the ground.

February, for instance, in Vancouver

Then, clad in colours of a various dye,
Junonian Iris breeds a new supply
To feed the clouds:

Iris was a messenger of the gods,

though of Juno, Jove’s wife, in

particular

Iris, herself a goddess, of the

rainbow, was usually depicted

arrayed, appropriately, in vibrant

colours

impetuous rain descends;
The bearded corn beneath the burden bends:
Defrauded clowns deplore their perish’d grain;
And the long labours of the year are vain.

clowns, people who’ve been made

to look foolish, having been deprived,

[d]efrauded, of the fruit of their labour

R ! chard

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April 24, 2020

“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, V) – Ovid

“Allegory of Gluttony and Lust“ (1490 – 1500)

Hieronymus Bosch

_____________

This was a single ruin, but not one
Deserves so just a punishment alone.

the punishment of Lycaon, Jove says,

was not an isolated incident, more

miscreants need to be held

accountable for deeds equally as

blameworthy, equally as horrid

Mankind’s a monster, and th’ ungodly times
Confed’rate into guilt, are sworn to crimes.

Jove doesn’t think much of the human

race, nor of th’ ungodly times, for that

matter, that promise more crimes, are

sworn, he believes, consigned to them

confed’rate is an adjective here,

meaning participating, in agreement,

party to the events

All are alike involv’d in ill, and all
Must by the same relentless fury fall.

Jove here, much like the Christian God,

intends to subject the entire human race,

not just Lycaon, to punishment for its

pervasive monstrosities, its innate

aberrations

Thus ended he; the greater Gods assent;
By clamours urging his severe intent;
The less fill up the cry for punishment.

all Gods are in agreement, the greater,

and [t]he less, by very clamours urging

Jove’s blanket, and severe, censure,

once he has ***ended*, completed, his**

proclamation

Yet still with pity they remember Man;
And mourn as much as heav’nly spirits can.

there remains among the Gods,

however, the memory of early Man,

which is to say the people of the

Golden Age, but the trials and

tribulations of earthlings generally

would not be of much consequence

to the deities, it is suggested, who

as immortals, and as a function of

their infinite longevity, wouldn’t be

very likely, anyway, to mourn,

would find it an unfamiliar concept

They ask, when those were lost of humane birth,
What he wou’d do with all this waste of Earth:

if, the Gods ask, all humans were

obliterated from the Earth, what

would he, Jove, do with what

remained, bereft as it would be

of human stewardship

If his dispeopl’d world he would resign
To beasts, a mute, and more ignoble line;
Neglected altars must no longer smoke,
If none were left to worship, and invoke.

if Jove were to grant the dispeopl’d

world, a world without humans, to

beasts alone, the mute, and more

ignoble species, who would tend

the altars, who would worship

To whom the Father of the Gods reply’d,
Lay that unnecessary fear aside:
Mine be the care, new people to provide.

leave it to me, Jove, Father of the

Gods, tells them, I will provide

a new and improved model

I will from wondrous principles ordain
A race unlike the first, and try my skill again.

from new and wondrous principles,

Jove promises, I will create from the

scratch, as my German teacher used

to say, a better humanity

let’s see how that turns out

R ! chard

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April 21, 2020

“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, IV) – Ovid

“Jupiter and Lycaon”

Jan Cossiers

_______

having already warned his court of Lycaon’s

excesses, Jove instructs his deities to

Cancel your pious cares; already he
Has paid his debt to justice, and to me.

job accomplished

Yet what his crimes, and what my judgments were,
Remains for me thus briefly to declare.

let me tell you briefly, however, how

I came about it, Jove confides

The clamours of this vile degenerate age,
The cries of orphans, and th’ oppressor’s rage,
Had reach’d the stars:

he tells them

I will descend, said I,
In hope to prove this loud complaint a lye.

in order to prove that these clamours

stood for nothing, this loud complaint

a lye, or lie, he would, Jove explains,

descend to Earth in order to investigate

Disguis’d in humane shape, I travell’d round
The world, and more than what I heard, I found.

from his travels around the world,

his proofs, Jove claims, were mostly

personally obtained, rather than

having been merely hearsay

humane here, note, is an archaic

spelling of human

O’er Maenalus I took my steepy way,

Mount Maenalus, Latin for Mainalo, was

a mountain in Ancient Greece, sacred,

incidentally, to the god Pan, god of

rusticity, undomesticated nature

By caverns infamous for beasts of prey:

beasts of prey, note, would not have

been unexpected in Pan‘s territory

Then cross’d Cyllene, and the piny shade
More infamous, by curst Lycaon made:

Mount Cyllene, or Kyllini, is again a

mountain in Ancient Greece, this one

sacred to the god Hermes, god of

messages, communication, travellers,

speedy deliveries

what Lycaon did to make the piny shade

of Mount Cyllene more infamous, I’m

afraid I haven’t been able to ferret out

Dark night had cover’d Heaven, and Earth, before
I enter’d his unhospitable door.

nighttime permeates Jove’s arrival in

this new, and unfamiliar, unhospitable,

environment

Just at my entrance, I display’d the sign
That somewhat was approaching of divine.

as he entered this unfamiliar place,

Jove says, he display’d the sign of

his divinity, but one only approaching

of divine, he specifies, a subtle sign,

something merely suggestive

The prostrate people pray; the tyrant grins;

[t]he prostrate people get it, prostrate,

face down in reverence or submission,

Lycaon, the tyrant, however, doesn’t

And, adding prophanation to his sins,

prophanation, profanation

I’ll try, said he, and if a God appear,
To prove his deity shall cost him dear.

Lycaon challenges the god, any god,

to, should he appear, prove his divinity,

goddesses, surely also, would’ve been

similarly confronted, otherwise any

impostor would grievously suffer

‘Twas late; the graceless wretch my death prepares,
When I shou’d soundly sleep, opprest with cares:

while Jove sleeps, giving respite to

his cares, Lycaon plots his murder

This dire experiment he chose, to prove
If I were mortal, or undoubted Jove:

[t]his, or what is to follow, Jove points out, is

the method Lycaon had already decided he

would try out to determine Jove’s undoubted,

or indubitable, divinity

But first he had resolv’d to taste my pow’r;

the test

Not long before, but in a luckless hour,
Some legates, sent from the Molossian state,
Were on a peaceful errand come to treat:

legates, ambassadors

the Molossians, a tribe of Ancient

Greece come to peacefully confer

with Lycaon

Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh;
And lays the mangled morsels in a dish:
Some part he roasts; then serves it up, so drest,
And bids me welcome to this humane feast.

humane here again is an olden form

of human, as in they were feasting

on human flesh

Mov’d with disdain, the table I o’er-turn’d;
And with avenging flames, the palace burn’d.

Jove thunders, see above

The tyrant in a fright, for shelter gains
The neighb’ring fields, and scours along the plains.

Lycaon has realized that this guest is

indeed a god

Howling he fled, and fain he wou’d have spoke;
But humane voice his brutal tongue forsook.

fain, or most willingly

again here humane means human,

Lycaon could no longer speak in a

human voice

About his lips the gather’d foam he churns,
And, breathing slaughters, still with rage he burns,

though his voice and lips begin to be

affected, Lycaon continues through

this channel to fume, rage, breath[e]

slaughters

But on the bleating flock his fury turns.

but his anger, his fury, is now directed

towards flocks of bleating sheep

His mantle, now his hide, with rugged hairs
Cleaves to his back; a famish’d face he bears;
His arms descend, his shoulders sink away
To multiply his legs for chase of prey.

the metamorphosis of Lycaon has

begun, he wears a hide instead of

a mantle, an overgarment, his back

becomes hairy, his arms become

**legs as his shoulders sink away,**

a transformation appropriate to

hunt prey

He grows a wolf, his hoariness remains,

hoariness, the condition of being

old and grey, a remnant of his

earlier human self

And the same rage in other members reigns.
His eyes still sparkle in a narr’wer space:
His jaws retain the grin, and violence of his face

Lycaon’s members, or limbs, rage,

or exhibit fury

his eyes become narrower

Lycaon has turned into a wolf

R ! chard

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April 20, 2020

“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, III) – Ovid

“Charon Carries Dead Souls across the River Styx” (1861)

Konstantin Makovsky

____________

Jove, god of Thunder, speaks

I was not more concern’d in that debate
Of empire, when our universal state
Was put to hazard, and the giant race
Our captive skies were ready to imbrace:

I was not especially disturbed, Jove says,

when the state of our universe was

challenged, or ***debate[d]*, when the giants**

tried to usurp our territory, were ready to

imbrace, or embrace, take on, our

vulnerable, [o]ur captive, skies

For tho’ the foe was fierce, the seeds of all
Rebellion, sprung from one original;

because the enemy, then, the adversary,

came from the one original source, its

however manifold predations, its

however myriad desecrations, would’ve

been identifiable to Jove, not foreign, not

unmanageable, he would’ve recognized

the black sheep of the Olympian family,

the giants

Now, wheresoever ambient waters glide,
All are corrupt, and all must be destroy’d.

ambient, nearby, related, infected, corrupt,

all has been corrupted

Let me this holy protestation make,
By Hell, and Hell’s inviolable lake,

here’s another anachronism, for Hell wouldn’t’ve

been even a concept in the era of Ovid, where

the Underworld, and Hades, entirely different

afterworlds, would’ve prevailed, areas of

persistent gloom and shade, see Homer here,

for instance, or Virgil

the Underworld of the ancient world was

surrounded by five rivers, Hell’s inviolable

lake, the most famous of which was the

river Styx

in the Divine Comedy, Dante updates this

watery boundary for his own 14th Century

readers, and makes it the passageway to

the fifth circle of Hell, where Charon

remains, after even over a thousand

years, the very same ferryman

see above

nor was there either any of our present

conception of Heaven, Heaven would’ve

been Olympus then, the exclusive domain

of the Gods, either Greek or Roman

I try’d whatever in the godhead lay:

Jove says, I tried everything a god

could use

But gangren’d members must be lopt away,
Before the nobler parts are tainted to decay.

you’ve got to lop[ ] away, cut off, the bad

parts before they infect the more vital

components of the body

There dwells below, a race of demi-gods,
Of nymphs in waters, and of fawns in woods:
Who, tho’ not worthy yet, in Heav’n to live,
Let ’em, at least, enjoy that Earth we give.

not all beings are corrupt, but nymphs

and fawns, innocents, Jove pleads,

should be given consideration on

Earth, if they be not yet worthy of the

majesty **of Heav’n, and granted earthly**

areas of enjoyment in the confines of

their forsaken place

Can these be thought securely lodg’d below,
When I my self, who no superior know,
I, who have Heav’n and Earth at my command,
Have been attempted by Lycaon’s hand?

if Lycaon could attack me, Jove, god

of Thunder, asks, how can these

innocents, nymphs, fawns, ever be

safe

At this a murmur through the synod went,
And with one voice they vote his punishment.

the punishment of Lycaon, which we’ll

soon encounter

Thus, when conspiring traytors dar’d to doom
The fall of Caesar, and in him of Rome,
The nations trembled with a pious fear;
All anxious for their earthly Thunderer:

Thus, or in a similar manner, did the nations

of the earth tremble when Caesar, their

earthly Thunderer, was assassinated

nations, incidentally, is another anachronism,

nations didn’t appear on earth until the

18th Century, with the French Revolution

Nor was their care, o Caesar, less esteem’d
By thee, than that of Heav’n for Jove was deem’d:

Ovid addresses Caesar here, his contemporary,

and compares that emperor’s esteem for nations,

his reliance on their allegiance, to the esteem

Heav’n has for Jove

Who with his hand, and voice, did first restrain
Their murmurs, then resum’d his speech again.

Jove calls for silence in the assembly

before speaking again

The Gods to silence were compos’d, and sate
With reverence, due to his superior state.

The Gods … sate, or sat, then took heed,

bowing to Jove’s superior position

the tale of the punishment of Lycaon

will follow

R ! chard

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April 17, 2020

“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, II) – Ovid, 110

“The Marriage at Cana“ (1563)

Paolo Veronese

_________

Jove “sigh’d;” if you’ll remember, “nor

longer with his pity strove; / But kindled

to a wrath” which was worthy of him

Then call’d a general council of the Gods;

Who summon’d, issue from their blest abodes,

And fill th’ assembly with a shining train.

Jove calls the gods together to discuss

the abhorrent conditions on Earth, who,

upon being summon’d, leave their blest,

or blessed, homes, and fill Jove’s

assembly hall with their glittering train,

their advancing pageantry

A way there is, in Heav’n’s expanded plain,

Which, when the skies are clear, is seen below,

And mortals, by the name of Milky, know.

when the skies are clear in Heaven’s

expanded plain, its wide expanse,

mortals can see the Milky Way

The ground-work is of stars; through which the road

Lyes open to the Thunderer’s abode:

this Milky Way is paved with stars, which

lead to Jove’s, the Thunderer’s, domain

The Gods of greater nations dwell around,

And, on the right and left, the palace bound;

the dwellings of the gods who represent

the greater nations of the era, of Rome,

for instance, or Greece, surround,

encircle, the Thunderer’s abode, his

palace

The commons where they can: the nobler sort

With winding-doors wide open, front the court.

the more common gods, those of

lesser nations, live where they can,

while the winding-doors of the nobler

gods, doors which can be activated

mechanically, on hinges, though

perhaps here divinely, stand wide

open for this colloquy, this exalted

conference, before the celestial

court

This place, as far as Earth with Heav’n may vie,

I dare to call the Louvre of the skie.

if one were to compare [t]his place

this court, to anything on Earth, have

it vie with, one would liken it, Ovid

says, to the Louvre

there’s evidently an anachronism

here since the Louvre didn’t exist at

the time of Ovid, so that the translators

have replaced the “Palatia” of Ovid’s

original Latin, which refers to the

Palatine, the most central of Rome’s

Seven Hills, where imperial palaces

were built at the time of Augustus,

63 B.C. to 14 A.D., which is to say

during Ovid’s time, 43 B.C. to

17 /18 A.D., by this relatively more

recent palatial residence, the Louvre,

in order to make the text more

contemporary, like settings and

attire are used in Renaissance

art to kindle the viewer’s sense

of connection

see, for instance, above, where

Veronese depicts the scene of Jesus

attending a marriage at Cana, a village

in Galilee, and transforms water there

into wine to accommodate a shortage,

midst Roman, note, rather than Galilean,

trappings, splendour

When all were plac’d, in seats distinctly known,

And he, their father, had assum’d the throne,

seats distinctly known means the

traditionally assigned places, with

Jove, “their father”, at the head of

the convocation

Upon his iv’ry sceptre first he leant,
Then shook his head, that shook the firmament:

leant, or leaned, [t]hen shook his head

in revulsion

Air, Earth, and seas, obey’d th’ almighty nod;
And, with a gen’ral fear, confess’d the God.

the elements, “Air, Earth, and seas“,

acknowledge, or confess’d, the God,

with quivering anxiety

At length, with indignation, thus he broke
His awful silence, and the Pow’rs bespoke.

Jove, after a silence, bespeaks, or

addresses, the assembled Pow’rs,

the other divinities

R ! chard

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April 15, 2020

“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War) – Ovid

“The Giant“ (1943)

Nicholas Roerich

_________

The Giants’ War

Nor were the Gods themselves more safe above;

“justice” might have returned to Heaven,

but that didn’t mean the Gods there

were not affected by strife, nor immune

Against beleaguer’d Heav’n the giants move.

where do the giants come from, who

knows, I suspect there might be a

vestigial recollection here of larger

entities, dinosaurs, for instance,

lurking in our prehistoric memory,

our primeval consciousness, finding

expression and acknowledgment

in our myths

Hills pil’d on hills, on mountains mountains lie,
To make their mad approaches to the skie.

the giants were piling hills on hills,

mountains on mountains, building

pathways, however “mad” a

notion, to the “skie”, or sky

see above

‘Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time
T’ avenge with thunder their audacious crime:

Jove, god of thunder

Red light’ning plaid along the firmament,
And their demolish’d works to pieces rent.

lightning “plaid”, or played, at the edge

of the heavens, destroying there the

“works” the giants had erected, the

high hills, the expanded, the extended,

mountains

rent, past participle of the verb to rend,

to tear asunder

Sing’d with the flames, and with the bolts transfixt,
With native Earth, their blood the monsters mixt;

the blood of these giants, “[s]ing’d with

flames”, and “transfixt”, or pierced,

riven, by thunderbolts, mixes with earth

The blood, indu’d with animating heat,

hot, propulsive, generating blood

indu’d, or endued, which is to say,

supplied with

Did in th’ impregnant Earth new sons beget:

the blood of the giants impregnates

the Earth, begetting sons, there, and

daughters

They, like the seed from which they sprung, accurst,

Against the Gods immortal hatred nurst,

the sins of the father are carried on to

their sons, and daughters, who maintain,

**have maintained, “nurst”, or nursed, the**

primitive rancour

An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood;
Expressing their original from blood.

the children of the giants were recognizably

**the children of these “original[s]”, these**

preliminary giants, an “impious, arrogant,

***and* cruel *brood”***

Which when the king of Gods beheld from high

the king of Gods, Jove

(Withal revolving in his memory,

What he himself had found on Earth of late,
Lycaon’s guilt, and his inhumane treat),

“withal revolving”, or having revolved,

**considered,“in his memory”, what he’d**

recently seen on Earth, the reprehensible

behaviour of a certain Lycaon, Lycaon’s

monstrous discourtesies, his “inhumane

treat[ment]”, of which we’ll hear later

He sigh’d; nor longer with his pity strove;
But kindled to a wrath becoming Jove:

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May 5, 2020

“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, VIII) – Ovid

“Scene of the Deluge“ (1820)

Théodore Géricault

_______

following upon the threat of water,

rather than fire, to destroy the world,

under the command of Jove, dutifully

abetted by Neptune, his Olympian

brother, sea god himself, with his

fleet of observant minions, the

rivers, streams, waterways, the

annihilating flood takes place

Ovid recounts

The floods, by Nature enemies to land, And proudly swelling with their new command, Remove the living stones, that stopt their way,

the living stones, you’ve got me there,

these could only be stones as initial

matter somehow contributing to the

advent of an inherent life source, later

activated, induced into vivifying action

we are dust, in other words, we return

to dust, inert dust, however

incomprehensibly

And gushing from their source, augment the sea.

the flowing rivers augment, enlarge,

the growing sea, covering the land

Then, with his mace, their monarch struck the ground;

a mace is a club with metal spikes

With inward trembling Earth receiv’d the wound;

a comma after trembling here would

make this line easier to read, “With

inward trembling, Earth receiv’d the

wound”, but not everyone is as

punctilious about grammar as I am

And rising streams a ready passage found.

streams easily found their way

amidst the bracken, the shrubbery,

the rushes, to overwhelm the

otherwise quiescent pastures

Th’ expanded waters gather on the plain:

Manitoba, often, lately, in spring

They float the fields, and over-top the grain; Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway, Bear flocks, and folds, and lab’ring hinds away.

Bear here is a verb, not a noun, meaning

that animals, flocks, and folds, and lab’ring

hinds, are carried away, borne away,

borne asunder

Nor safe their dwellings were, for, sap’d by floods,

sap’d, sapped, deprived, weakened,

rendered unsuitable

Their houses fell upon their houshold Gods.

household Gods, icons, Lares or Penates,

personally held by the Ancients, like we

now keep pictures, tokens, of our own

particular, however often secular,

rather than religious, idols

The solid piles, too strongly built to fall, High o’er their heads, behold a watry wall:

though tall, and apparently indestructible,

the solid piles are nevertheless submerged,

the very recent South Asian tsunami, for

instance, or the Japanese one that

provoked the nuclear incident that put an

end there to that earlier profoundly

nationally integrated industry, if you’ll

remember

Now seas and Earth were in confusion lost; A world of waters, and without a coast.

water, water, everywhere, but the last

thing you want to do is drink

next, how humans survive

stay tuned

R ! chard

May 1, 2020

“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, VII) – Ovid

“The Garden of Earthly Delights“ (1510 – 1515)

Hieronymus Bosch

__________

Nor from his patrimonial Heaven alone Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down;

let me say something about Heaven

here, a concept that is quite different

**“Scene of the Deluge“ (1820)**

The floods, by Nature enemies to land,
And proudly swelling with their new command,
Remove the living stones, that stopt their way,

**the flowing rivers augment, enlarge,**

**a comma after trembling here would**

They float the fields, and over-top the grain;
Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway,
Bear flocks, and folds, and lab’ring hinds away.

The solid piles, too strongly built to fall,
High o’er their heads, behold a watry wall:

**the solid piles are nevertheless submerged,**

Now seas and Earth were in confusion lost;
A world of waters, and without a coast.

**“The Garden of Earthly Delights“ (1510 – 1515)**

Nor from his patrimonial Heaven alone
Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down;