“The Birth of Bacchus” (ll)– Ovid
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Category: “Metamorphoses”
February 13, 2021
“The Birth of Bacchus” – Ovid
“Juno” (c.1662 – c.1665)
Rembrandt
______
Actaeon’s suff’rings, and Diana’s rage,
Did all the thoughts of men and Gods engage;
Some call’d the evils which Diana wrought,
Too great, and disproportion’d to the fault:
Others again, esteem’d Actaeon’s woes
Fit for a virgin Goddess to impose.
The hearers into diff’rent parts divide,
And reasons are produc’d on either side.
Diana / Artemis had transformed
Actaeon into a stag, if you’ll
remember, not all the gods were
on side
Juno alone, of all that heard the news,
Nor would condemn the Goddess, nor excuse:
Juno, wife of Jove / Jupiter / Zeus,
queen, therefore, of the gods
She heeded not the justice of the deed,
But joy’d to see the race of Cadmus bleed;
Cadmus, founder of Thebes, brother
of Europa
For still she kept Europa in her mind,
And, for her sake, detested all her kind.
Europa had been whisked away
by Jove / Jupiter / Zeus, Juno’s
husband, and borne him several
children, to the enduring enmity
of the queen of the deities
Besides, to aggravate her hate, she heard
How Semele, to Jove’s embrace preferr’d,
Was now grown big with an immortal load,
And carry’d in her womb a future God.
Jove / Jupiter / Zeus, incorrigible
philanderer apparently, had now
impregnated Semele, youngest
daughter of Cadmus, to Juno’s
utter disgust and dismay
Thus terribly incens’d, the Goddess broke
To sudden fury, and abruptly spoke.
the Goddess, Juno / Hera
let me reiterate here that the original
gods and goddesses of Olympus had
migrated with the Greeks to other
areas of the Mediterranean, but
became known, in the lands that
they’d settled, by other names
according to the languages and
customs that evolved in these new
territories, thus the Greek goddess
Hera was in Rome and its outlying
areas known as Juno, the Greek
Zeus as both Jupiter and Jove,
though their home remained for
all Mount Olympus
“Are my reproaches of so small a force?
‘Tis time I then pursue another course:
though Juno / Hera might’ve
harangued Jove / Jupiter / Zeus
about his inveterate philandering,
her reproaches were not enough
to stop the god from his
determined activities
she therefore ordains
It is decreed the guilty wretch shall die,
If I’m indeed the mistress of the sky,
If rightly styl’d among the Pow’rs above
The wife and sister of the thund’ring Jove
(And none can sure a sister’s right deny);
It is decreed the guilty wretch shall die.
Juno / Hera is not only the wife of
Jove / Jupiter / Zeus, but also his
sister, both children of Cronos /
Saturn and Rhea / Ops, who
were themselves children of the
earth goddess Gaia and the sky
god Uranus
She boasts an honour I can hardly claim,
Pregnant she rises to a mother’s name;
While proud and vain she triumphs in her Jove,
And shows the glorious tokens of his love:
though Juno / Hera did indeed have
children with Jove / Jupiter / Zeus,
she is probably no longer here
bearing him any, I am supposing,
while Semele, proud and vain, is
now show[ing] the glorious tokens
of his love
But if I’m still the mistress of the skies,
By her own lover the fond beauty dies.”
it appears that Juno / Hera will
contrive to make Jove / Jupiter
/ Zeus the cause of Semele’s
demise
This said, descending in a yellow cloud,
Before the gates of Semele she stood.
Semele, priestess of Jove / Jupiter
/ Zeus, would’ve been officiating at
the Cadmeia, the equivalent of the
Athenian Acropolis, at Thebes, the
city named after her father, its
founder, Cadmus
sparks will surely fly
stay tuned
R ! chard
February 3, 2021
“The Transformation of Actaeon into a Stag” (ll) – Ovid
____________
Now all undrest the shining Goddess stood,
When young Actaeon, wilder’d in the wood,
wilder’d in the wood, wandered
in the wild, in the forest
To the cool grott by his hard fate betray’d,
grott, grotto
betray’d, treacherously confronted,
his hard fate would not be on his
side for this one
The fountains fill’d with naked nymphs survey’d.
survey’d, observed, espied,
considered, contemplated
The frighted virgins shriek’d at the surprize
(The forest echo’d with their piercing cries).
listen, you can hear it
Then in a huddle round their Goddess prest:
She, proudly eminent above the rest,
With blushes glow’d; such blushes as adorn
The ruddy welkin, or the purple morn;
ruddy welkin, red sky, as at sunset
And tho’ the crowding nymphs her body hide,
Half backward shrunk, and view’d him from a side.
Surpriz’d, at first she would have snatch’d her bow,
But sees the circling waters round her flow;
These in the hollow of her hand she took,
And dash’d ’em in his face, while thus she spoke:
These, ’em, the circling waters
“Tell, if thou can’st, the wond’rous sight disclos’d,
A Goddess naked to thy view expos’d.”
not a warning here, but a curse, if thou
can’st being the operative expression,
for Actaeon, now in the process of
transformation, will no longer be able
to utter words
This said, the man begun to disappear
By slow degrees, and ended in a deer.
begun, began
A rising horn on either brow he wears,
And stretches out his neck, and pricks his ears;
Rough is his skin, with sudden hairs o’er-grown,
His bosom pants with fears before unknown:
the skittishness of a deer
Transform’d at length, he flies away in haste,
And wonders why he flies away so fast.
how did I do that, Actaeon wonders
But as by chance, within a neighb’ring brook,
He saw his branching horns and alter’d look.
his reflection, however by chance,
however inadvertently, in the water,
the neighb’ring brook, reveals to him
his transformation, his metamorphosis
Wretched Actaeon! in a doleful tone
He try’d to speak, but only gave a groan;
And as he wept, within the watry glass
the watry glass, the mirroring rivulet,
rill, waterway, brook
He saw the big round drops, with silent pace,
Run trickling down a savage hairy face.
the association with Bambi here for
me is inescapable, however grim
might be later Actaeon’s own fate
What should he do? Or seek his old abodes,
Or herd among the deer, and sculk in woods!
Here shame dissuades him, there his fear prevails,
And each by turns his aking heart assails.
something like the onset of puberty,
I think, that frightful fundamental
biological transformation, the fear,
the shame, remember
compare Calisto pregnant before the
very same goddess, Diana / Artemis,
incidentally, the evidently unforgiving
deity before anything but unsullied
modesty, before uncompromised
chastity, who’s presently, consider,
condemning Actaeon
As he thus ponders, he behind him spies
His op’ning hounds, and now he hears their cries:
op’ning, advancing
A gen’rous pack, or to maintain the chace,
Or snuff the vapour from the scented grass.
or to … Or, either to … Or
maintain the chace … snuff the vapour,
dogs doing what dogs do
He bounded off with fear, and swiftly ran
O’er craggy mountains, and the flow’ry plain;
Through brakes and thickets forc’d his way, and flew
Through many a ring, where once he did pursue.
brakes, bracken, brush
a ring, a territory, a circumscribed
area
where once he did pursue, Actaeon
had earlier been not the hunted, but
the hunter
In vain he oft endeavour’d to proclaim
His new misfortune, and to tell his name;
Nor voice nor words the brutal tongue supplies;
“Tell, if thou can’st, Diana / Artemis
had warned, and now [n]or voice
nor words the brutal tongue supplies,
allows, Actaeon, to speak
From shouting men, and horns, and dogs he flies,
Deafen’d and stunn’d with their promiscuous cries.
promiscuous, unleashed,
unconstrained
When now the fleetest of the pack, that prest
Close at his heels, and sprung before the rest,
Had fasten’d on him, straight another pair,
Hung on his wounded haunch, and held him there,
‘Till all the pack came up, and ev’ry hound
Tore the sad huntsman grov’ling on the ground,
Who now appear’d but one continu’d wound.
the attack
With dropping tears his bitter fate he moans,
And fills the mountain with his dying groans.
His servants with a piteous look he spies,
And turns about his supplicating eyes.
His servants, the jolly huntsmen, the
friends he’d advised to [t]ake the cool
morning to renew the chace
His servants, ignorant of what had chanc’d,
what had chanc’d, the transformation,
the metamorphosis, Actaeon become
a stag
With eager haste and joyful shouts advanc’d,
And call’d their lord Actaeon to the game.
Actaeon seemed to them not there,
absent
He shook his head in answer to the name;
he couldn’t speak, could only [shake]
his head
He heard, but wish’d he had indeed been gone,
gone, away, in another place, as [h]is
servants thought him to be
Or only to have stood a looker-on.
a looker-on, observing rather than
having been the centre, the subject
of the situation
But to his grief he finds himself too near,
too near, indeed present, central,
in the very thick of the fray
And feels his rav’nous dogs with fury tear
Their wretched master panting in a deer.
Actaeon doesn’t survive this
transformation, nor is he
transmuted, like so many others
who’d displeased the gods, into
sets of stars, or constellations
a recurring theme seems to be,
as the poem advances, how
arbitrary the fate of humans is
in the hands of the, apparently
capricious, gods
to follow
R ! chard
January 25, 2021
“The Transformation of Actaeon into a Stag” – Ovid
“The Bath of Diana” (1855)
Camille Corot
_____
In a fair chace a shady mountain stood,
chace, chase
a fair chace, not far away
Well stor’d with game, and mark’d with trails of blood;
Here did the huntsmen, ’till the heat of day,
Pursue the stag, and load themselves with rey:
rey, probably prey, cause rey is not
a word, and ray instead of rey would
lead to inanities, improbabilities, lead
to hunters, huntsmen, bearing branches,
or stalks, of flowers at best, at worst,
bolts of light
When thus Actaeon calling to the rest:
Actaeon, grandson of Cadmus,
founder of Thebes
“My friends,” said he, “our sport is at the best,
The sun is high advanc’d, and downward sheds
His burning beams directly on our heads;
let’s take a break, Actaeon says, it’s
midday, too hot, it’s scorching
Then by consent abstain from further spoils,
Call off the dogs, and gather up the toils,
And ere to-morrow’s sun begins his race,
Take the cool morning to renew the chace.”
we’ve gathered sufficient quarry, he
continues, let’s wait until to-morrow,
for the cool[er] morning, in order to
renew the chace
They all consent, and in a chearful train
The jolly huntsmen, loaden with the slain,
Return in triumph from the sultry plain.
loaden, laden
the slain, the spoils from the hunt
Down in a vale with pine and cypress clad,
Refresh’d with gentle winds, and brown with shade,
The chaste Diana’s private haunt, there stood
Diana / Artemis, goddess of the Hunt,
and of the Moon
Full in the centre of the darksome wood
A spacious grotto, all around o’er-grown
With hoary moss, and arch’d with pumice-stone.
see above
From out its rocky clefts the waters flow,
And trickling swell into a lake below.
Nature had ev’ry where so plaid her part,
That ev’ry where she seem’d to vie with art.
to vie, to contend, to curry for
position, favour
Here the bright Goddess, toil’d and chaf’d with heat,
Was wont to bathe her in the cool retreat.
Here did she now with all her train resort,
Panting with heat, and breathless from the sport;
Her armour-bearer laid her bow aside,
Some loos’d her sandals, some her veil unty’d;
Each busy nymph her proper part undrest;
While Crocale, more handy than the rest,
Gather’d her flowing hair, and in a noose
Bound it together, whilst her own hung loose.
Crocale, one of Diana’s nymphs
Five of the more ignoble sort by turns
Fetch up the water, and unlade the urns.
ignoble, not noble, lacking authority,
pedigree, courtly experience
unlade, empty
an idyll about to unravel
stay tuned
R ! chard
January 15, 2021
“The Story of of Cadmus” (V) – Ovid
“Minerva or Pallas Athena” (1898)
Gustav Klimt
______
an interesting thing has happened with
the story of Cadmus, he is not only a
mythical figure, but also a legendary
one, which is to say that Cadmus has
roots in actual history, he’s not just an
imaginary construct like those that
until now have peopled Ovid’s text
Cadmus appears to have actually
founded Thebes, whose origins,
however, are lost in antiquity, going
back to, it appears, the late Bronze
Age, around 2000 BC, goodness
stories evidently grew around
Cadmus, that transformed him into
our first documented hero, indeed
superhero
counterparts exist in other traditions,
consider David, for instance, who
slew his own dragon, Goliath, before
becoming king of the Israelites, 10th
Century BCE, at Jerusalem, where
he consorted, incidentally, later, with
Bathsheba, however illicitly, but
that’s another story
King Arthur, late 5th to early 6th
Centuries CE, stems from British
lore, though his historical actuality
has been contested, is also a hero
with preternatural capabilities based
on some historical accountability
in our day, there’s James Bond,
based on real, living and breathing,
personalities
or, dare I say, even Jesus
the point here is that actual people
are being included in the, however
culturally specific, mythologies,
which, in each, had earlier consisted
of metaphorical constructs merely,
the concept of History, in other words,
was being born, memorable events
were to be remembered, recorded,
documented, if only, originally, orally,
around, say, campfires, however
aggrandized might have been their
recollected heroes
Cadmus, meanwhile, in our story, is
about to establish his own historical,
and archeologically confirmed, note,
credentials
The dire example ran through all the field,
‘Till heaps of brothers were by brothers kill’d;
The dire example, the dragon’s teeth,
grown into men, had begun, if you’ll
remember, to slaughter one another
example, display
The furrows swam in blood: and only five
Of all the vast increase were left alive.
Echion one, at Pallas’s command,
Let fall the guiltless weapon from his hand,
Echion, one of the five surviving
brothers
Pallas, Pallas Athena, goddess of
Wisdom, also of War
see above
And with the rest a peaceful treaty makes,
Whom Cadmus as his friends and partners takes;
the rest, the four other survivors
So founds a city on the promis’d earth,
And gives his new Boeotian empire birth.
promis’d earth, the premonition of
the oracles whose counsel Cadmus
had sought at Delphi, if you’ll
remember
Here Cadmus reign’d; and now one would have guess’d
The royal founder in his exile blest:
his exile, from Tyre, Cadmus’ original
home, from which his father, Agenor,
had sent him, not to return, he’d
warned, without his sister, Europa
Long did he live within his new abodes,
Ally’d by marriage to the deathless Gods;
Ally’d by marriage, at the end of a
period of penance for having killed
the dragon, which had been sacred
to Ares, god of War, the gods gave
Cadmus Harmonia, goddess of
Concord, to be his wife
Ares would eventually exact mighty
vengeance, but that’s another story
And, in a fruitful wife’s embraces old,
A long increase of children’s children told:
But no frail man, however great or high,
Can be concluded blest before he die.
even Cadmus, though he might
enjoy a long life, and many, a long
increase of, children, is not immune
to any of the vicissitudes of life either
until his own time has come, the poet
advises, however ominously
and here Ovid also introduces the
subject of his next metamorphosis,
Actaeon, however early, luring us
thereby, deftly, literarily, towards
his next instalment, Actaeon’s
story, eponymously, there, given
its title
Actaeon was the first of all his race,
Who griev’d his grandsire in his borrow’d face;
Condemn’d by stern Diana to bemoan
The branching horns, and visage not his own;
his grandsire, his grandfather,
Cadmus was the father of Autonoë,
who was the mother of Actaeon
borrow’d face, Actaeon was
transformed into a stag by the
goddess Diana / Artemis, of the
Hunt, of the Moon, of Chastity,
for having seen her naked as
she was bathing
he now has the face, the visage, of
someone, something, he hadn’t
been before, borrow’d
To shun his once lov’d dogs, to bound away,
And from their huntsman to become their prey,
having been transformed into a
stag, or metamorphized, Actaeon
would end up hunted, and worse,
by his own, once lov’d, dogs
And yet consider why the change was wrought,
You’ll find it his misfortune, not his fault;
Or, if a fault, it was the fault of chance:
For how can guilt proceed from ignorance?
to have been at the wrong place
at the wrong time, yet to suffer,
however unfairly, the consequences,
that, Ovid asks, is the question, the
conundrum
stay tuned
R ! chard
December 31, 2020
“The Story of of Cadmus” (lV) – Ovid
“Cadmus Sowing the Dragon’s Teeth” (1610/1690)
Peter Paul Rubens
___________
Cadmus beheld him wallow in a flood
Of swimming poison, intermix’d with blood;
swimming poison, the venom the
dragon had spewed, intermix’d
with blood, after Cadmus had
struck the beast with his jav’lin,
if you’ll remember
When suddenly a speech was heard from high
(The speech was heard, nor was the speaker nigh),
the suggestion here is that the voice
is disincarnate, ethereal, otherworldly,
from high, not nigh
“Why dost thou thus with secret pleasure see,
Insulting man! what thou thy self shalt be?”
secret pleasure, the self-satisfaction
of the soul, unspoken
what thou thy self shalt be, a prophecy
as cryptic as oracular pronouncements
ever tended to be,also ever ominous
Astonish’d at the voice, he stood amaz’d,
And all around with inward horror gaz’d:
all around, the detritus, the waste, the
ravages that surrounded him, that
Cadmus viewed, gaz’d at, amaz’d …
with inward horror
When Pallas swift descending from the skies,
Pallas, the guardian of the bold and wise,
Pallas, the goddess Athena, of Wisdom,
of War, bold and wise patroness,
protectress of, among other Greek
cities, incidentally, Athens, site of, on
the Acropolis there, the Parthenon,
her temple
Bids him plow up the field, and scatter round
The dragon’s teeth o’er all the furrow’d ground;
we’ve seen this happen before, if you’ll
remember, with Deucalion and Pyrrha,
casting the stones, their mighty mother‘s
bones, to replenish, after the flood, the
resurgent Earth with people
Then tells the youth how to his wond’ring eyes
Embattled armies from the field should rise.
wond’ring, startled
He sows the teeth at Pallas’s command,
And flings the future people from his hand.
The clods grow warm, and crumble where he sows;
Cadmus is sow[ing] people, future
people, however, apparently, military,
at the command of the goddess, but
Pallas, remember, is goddess of War,
these metamorphosizing, ahem,
entities would be her progeny, her
spawn
And now the pointed spears advance in rows;
Now nodding plumes appear, and shining crests,
Now the broad shoulders and the rising breasts;
O’er all the field the breathing harvest swarms,
A growing host, a crop of men and arms.
an army – listen, this is how I think
Shostakovich would’ve heard it,
from his 7th Symphony, the
Leningrad, its first movement, a
searing allegretto, a movement
he’d initially entitled War before
deciding against it
here’s the entire symphony, should
you be, and I highly recommend it,
into it, a much more convincing, to
my mind, production, however
significantly extended
So through the parting stage a figure rears
Its body up, and limb by limb appears
By just degrees; ’till all the man arise,
And in his full proportion strikes the eyes.
as each of the teeth develops, grow[s]
warm, as each figure rears … and limb
by limb appears, men arise, recognizable
as such, each in his full proportion
Cadmus surpriz’d, and startled at the sight
Of his new foes, prepar’d himself for fight:
When one cry’d out, “Forbear, fond man, forbear
To mingle in a blind promiscuous war.”
forbear, hold on, desist, stop
promiscuous, indiscriminate
This said, he struck his brother to the ground,
Himself expiring by another’s wound;
Nor did the third his conquest long survive,
Dying ere scarce he had begun to live.
the new foes are slaughtering each
other, Cadmus doesn’t have to lift
a finger
what’s up
stay tuned
R ! chard
December 20, 2020
“The Story of of Cadmus” (lll) – Ovid
“Cadmus Slays the Dragon“
Hendrick Goltzius
__________
And now the scorching sun was mounted high,
In all its lustre, to the noon-day sky;
When, anxious for his friends, and fill’d with cares,
To search the woods th’ impatient chief prepares.
th’ impatient chief, Cadmus, prince of
Tyre, had sen[t] his servants to a
neighb’ring grove / For living streams,
if you’ll remember, a sacrifice to Jove,
to thank that god for these new
dominions, their new home
A lion’s hide around his loins he wore,
The well poiz’d javelin to the field he bore,
Inur’d to blood; the far-destroying dart;
And, the best weapon, an undaunted heart.
Cadmus here is a precursor of the
mythologically later Heracles, or
Herakles, or Hercules in Latin, a
hero, which is to say descended
from the gods, in that latter’s case,
son of Jove / Zeus / Jupiter, the
very deity who’d just abducted
Europa, Cadmus‘ sister, mother
of all Europeans, divine or human
Soon as the youth approach’d the fatal place,
He saw his servants breathless on the grass;
breathless, not breathing,
deceased
The scaly foe amid their corps he view’d,
Basking at ease, and feasting in their blood.
The scaly foe, the dragon
corps, corpses
“Such friends,” he cries, “deserv’d a longer date;
a longer date, a longer life, a more
extended period of existence
But Cadmus will revenge or share their fate.”
either [t]he scaly foe will die, the
dragon, or Cadmus himself, in the
attempt to avenge his friends, his
servants breathless on the grass,
he promises
Then heav’d a stone, and rising to the throw,
He sent it in a whirlwind at the foe:
in a whirlwind, taking advantage
of a meteorological condition, as
one would a kite
A tow’r, assaulted by so rude a stroke,
With all its lofty battlements had shook;
a tower would’ve swayed at so
powerful a strike, I remember
an earthquake once rocking my
own high rise apartment building
for an unnerving moment before
settling, returning the ground,
my ground, to its, otherwise
imperturbable, placidity
But nothing here th’ unwieldy rock avails,
Rebounding harmless from the plaited scales,
That, firmly join’d, preserv’d him from a wound,
With native armour crusted all around.
native, integral, a constituent
part of
With more success, the dart unerring flew,
the dart, the javelin
Which at his back the raging warriour threw;
the raging warriour, Cadmus
Amid the plaited scales it took its course,
And in the spinal marrow spent its force.
The monster hiss’d aloud, and rag’d in vain,
And writh’d his body to and fro with pain;
He bit the dart, and wrench’d the wood away;
The point still buried in the marrow lay.
And now his rage, increasing with his pain,
Reddens his eyes, and beats in ev’ry vein;
Churn’d in his teeth the foamy venom rose,
Whilst from his mouth a blast of vapours flows,
Such as th’ infernal Stygian waters cast.
Stygian, of the River Styx, which
forms the boundary between the
Earth and the Underworld, named
after the Goddess Styx, daughter
of Tethys and Oceanus, god, and
river also, which encircled the
entire world
The plants around him wither in the blast.
Now in a maze of rings he lies enrowl’d,
enrowl’d, encircled, surrounded
Now all unravel’d, and without a fold;
without a fold, without a hitch, without
an intervening obstacle
Now, like a torrent, with a mighty force
Bears down the forest in his boist’rous course.
Bears down the forest, advances,
like a torrent, against the wall of
trees
Cadmus gave back, and on the lion’s spoil
Sustain’d the shock, then forc’d him to recoil;
gave back, drew back, backed
away, forc’d … to recoil
the lion’s spoil, the dragon’s
venom and its gore
The pointed jav’lin warded off his rage:
the dragon readies for the onslaught,
overcoming his, otherwise consuming
rage, at the sight of [t]he pointed jav’lin
Mad with his pains, and furious to engage,
The serpent champs the steel, and bites the spear,
Till blood and venom all the point besmear.
But still the hurt he yet receiv’d was slight;
For, whilst the champion with redoubled might
Strikes home the jav’lin, his retiring foe
Shrinks from the wound, and disappoints the blow.
the jav’lin is still no match for the,
however wounded, dragon
The dauntless heroe still pursues his stroke,
And presses forward, ’till a knotty oak
Retards his foe, and stops him in the rear;
retards, stops, inhibits
Full in his throat he plung’d the fatal spear,
That in th’ extended neck a passage found,
And pierc’d the solid timber through the wound.
the fatal spear has pierc’d not
only th’ extended neck, but also
the knotty oak behind it, which
had prevented the dragon from
moving onward toward his
escape
Fix’d to the reeling trunk, with many a stroke
Of his huge tail he lash’d the sturdy oak;
‘Till spent with toil, and lab’ring hard for breath,
He now lay twisting in the pangs of death.
ding dong, the dragon is, if not
dead, dying
stay tuned
R ! chard
December 10, 2020
“The Story of of Cadmus” (ll) – Ovid
“St. George and the Dragon” (c.1470)
Paolo Uccello
_______
Cadmus salutes the soil, and gladly hails
The new-found mountains, and the nameless vales,
And thanks the Gods, and turns about his eye
To see his new dominions round him lye;
Cadmus, son of Agenor, brother of
Europa, has, on the advice of the
Delphick oracles, settled where
the lonely cow, / Unworn with yokes,
unbroken to the plow had stoop’d,
and couch’d amid the rising grass,
and stakes there his new appointed
home
vales, valleys
Then sends his servants to a neighb’ring grove
For living streams, a sacrifice to Jove.
Cadmus, a prince, would’ve had
a retinue, followers, Hamlet for
instance, his Horatio, his
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Jove, note, is the god who abducted
Europa, though Cadmus, according
to our story, isn’t yet supposed to
know this, never having found his
sister, nor identified, consequently,
her ravisher, namely Jove, the god
to whom Cadmus is now about to
give sacrifice, give thanks
O’er the wide plain there rose a shady wood
Of aged trees; in its dark bosom stood
A bushy thicket, pathless and unworn,
O’er-run with brambles, and perplex’d with thorn:
perplex’d, a wonderful metaphor
here for entangled, enmeshed
Amidst the brake a hollow den was found,
With rocks and shelving arches vaulted round.
brake, bracken, brush
Deep in the dreary den, conceal’d from day,
Sacred to Mars, a mighty dragon lay,
Mars, god of War
a mighty dragon, dragons, it appears,
go back to very prehistory, perhaps
as a memory in our reptilian brain of
dinosaurs, and the like, that made its
way into our poetic imagination
see above
Bloated with poison to a monstrous size;
Fire broke in flashes when he glanc’d his eyes:
glanc’d his eyes, threw glances at
His tow’ring crest was glorious to behold,
crest, as in roosters, or reptiles
His shoulders and his sides were scal’d with gold;
scal’d, having scales, plates,
overlapping surfaces
Three tongues he brandish’d when he charg’d his foes;
His teeth stood jaggy in three dreadful rowes.
rowes, rows, three dreadful ones,
one behind the other
The Tyrians in the den for water sought,
The Tyrians, Cadmus and his men,
all originally from Tyre
And with their urns explor’d the hollow vault:
urns, to collect from living streams
within the vault a sacrifice to Jove
From side to side their empty urns rebound,
rebound, knock against a harder
surface repeatedly
And rowse the sleeping serpent with the sound.
rowse, rouse
Strait he bestirs him, and is seen to rise;
he bestirs him, he bestirs himself
And now with dreadful hissings fills the skies,
And darts his forky tongues, and rowles his glaring eyes.
rowles, rolls
The Tyrians drop their vessels in the fright,
vessels, urns
All pale and trembling at the hideous sight.
Spire above spire uprear’d in air he stood,
Spire above spire, scale upon scale
uprear’d, reared up
he, the serpent
And gazing round him over-look’d the wood:
overlook’d, looked over, surveyed
Then floating on the ground in circles rowl’d;
rowl’d, rolled
Then leap’d upon them in a mighty fold.
fold, embrace, encirclement
Of such a bulk, and such a monstrous size
The serpent in the polar circle lyes,
That stretches over half the northern skies.
The serpent in the polar circle, Serpens,
a constellation in the Northern Hemisphere
in close proximity to the North Pole
lyes, lies
In vain the Tyrians on their arms rely,
their arms, their weapons
In vain attempt to fight, in vain to fly:
All their endeavours and their hopes are vain;
Some die entangled in the winding train;
the winding train, the serpent’s
tail
Some are devour’d, or feel a loathsom death,
Swoln up with blasts of pestilential breath.
stay tuned
R ! chard
November 30, 2020
“The Story of of Cadmus” – Ovid
“Lying Cow” (1883)
Vincent van Gogh
______
When now Agenor had his daughter lost,
Europa, his daughter lost
He sent his son to search on ev’ry coast;
his son, Agenor’s son, Cadmus,
Europa’s brother
And sternly bid him to his arms restore
The darling maid, or see his face no more,
But live an exile in a foreign clime;
Thus was the father pious to a crime.
pious to a crime, intent on, devoted to,
having justice restored
The restless youth search’d all the world around;
But how can Jove in his amours be found?
amours, loves, trysts, entanglements
When, tir’d at length with unsuccessful toil,
To shun his angry sire and native soil,
his angry sire, Agenor, father, sire
He goes a suppliant to the Delphick dome;
suppliant, supplicant, petitioner,
one in search of a favour
Delphick dome, the Temple of Apollo
at Delphi, where the oracle, Pythia,
proclaimed her cryptic prognostications,
her famously ambiguous prophecies
Delphi, incidentally, was one of several
sacred sites in Greece, sanctuaries,
open to any Greek, or person who
could speak Greek, regardless of
geographical provenance, any
city-state, for instance then, or
kingdom, akin to embassies today,
or places where people can expect
to find similar political haven
Delphi was the destination then also of
pilgrimages, comparable to our own
Santiago de Compostela today, an
ancient path I dearly would’ve, but
never have, unfortunately, undertaken
though I did walk to Mission B.C. some
several years ago, from my home in
Vancouver, to a monastery there, a
place of recuperation when I needed
one, three days there, and a half, three
days and an equal half back, my feet
were blistered, I noticed at one point,
but hadn’t at all registered any pain,
a truth I gathered about the power of
intention, one’s very aim can be a
salve, a balm, a solace, against any
adversity
but back to Cadmus
There asks the God what new appointed home
Should end his wand’rings, and his toils relieve.
where do I land, asks Cadmus,where
is my appointed home, my final
destination
The Delphick oracles this answer give.
The Delphick oracles, subordinates
to Pythia, the high priestess at Delphi
“Behold among the fields a lonely cow,
Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plow;
Mark well the place where first she lays her down,
There measure out thy walls, and build thy town,
And from thy guide Boeotia call the land,
In which the destin’d walls and town shall stand.”
Boeotia, a region still of Greece
No sooner had he left the dark abode,
Big with the promise of the Delphick God,
the Delphick God, Apollo, god of
music, dance, truth, prophecy,
healing, the sun, light, poetry,
among many other things
When in the fields the fatal cow he view’d,
Nor gall’d with yokes, nor worn with servitude:
fatal, fateful
gall’d, irritated, frustrated
Her gently at a distance he pursu’d;
And as he walk’d aloof, in silence pray’d
To the great Pow’r whose counsels he obey’d.
the great Pow’r, Apollo, by way of his
Delphick oracles,the high priestesses,
through their counsel, their divinations
Her way thro’ flow’ry Panope she took,
Panope, plural, were sea nymphs, not
places, in Ancient Greece, therefore
Cadmus must’ve been crossing water,
however flow’ry, I’ll have to check my
Latin text for, maybe, inaccuracies in
the translation
And now, Cephisus, cross’d thy silver brook;
Cephisus, or Cephissus, a river in Boeotia,
a brook, a stream, anthropomorphized here,
which is to say Cephissus, the flow, the
waterway, is being addressed as a rational
being, I have cross’d thy silver brook, he
says, speaking to the torrent
meanwhile, to brook, to conquer, to
overcome, a wonderful, a shimmering,
literarily speaking, homonym, which is
to say, a word with two faces
When to the Heav’ns her spacious front she rais’d,
And bellow’d thrice, then backward turning gaz’d
On those behind, ’till on the destin’d place
She stoop’d, and couch’d amid the rising grass.
she, the fatal cow, see above, has led
Cadmus to his famed, his mythic,
destination, destin’d place, destiny
stay tuned
R ! chard
November 22, 2020
“Europa’s Rape” (ll) – Ovid
