Metamorphoses. Ovid

and with her right hand she grasps his horn, while the other is placed on his back; her waving garments are ruffled by the breeze.

      EXPLANATION.

      This Fable depicts one of the most famous events in the ancient Mythology. As we have already remarked, it is supposed that there were several persons of the name of Zeus, or Jupiter; though there is great difficulty in assigning to each individual his own peculiar adventures. Vossius refers the adventure of Niobe, the daughter of Phoroneus, to Jupiter Apis, the king of Argos, who reigned about B.C. 1770; and that of Danaë to Jupiter Prœtus, who lived about 1350 years before the Christian era. It was Jupiter Tantalus, according to him, that carried off Ganymede; and it was Jupiter, the father of Hercules, that deceived Leda. He says that the subject of the present Fable was Jupiter Asterius, who reigned about B.C. 1400. Diodorus Siculus tells us that he was the son of Teutamus, who, having married the daughter of Creteus, went with some Pelasgians to settle in the island of Crete, of which he was the first king. We may then conclude, that Jupiter Asterius, having heard of the beauty of Europa, the daughter of Agenor, King of Tyre, fitted out a ship, for the purpose of carrying her off by force. This is the less improbable, as we learn from Herodotus, that the custom of carrying those away by force, who could not be obtained by fair means, was very common in these rude ages.

      The ship in which Asterius made his voyage, had, very probably, the form of a bull for its figure-head; which, in time, occasioned those who related the adventure, to say, that Jupiter concealed himself under the shape of that animal, to carry off his mistress. Palæphatus and Tzetzes suggest, that the story took its rise from the name of the general of Asterius, who was called Taurus, which is also the Greek name for a bull. Bochart has an ingenious suggestion, based upon etymological grounds. He thinks that the twofold meaning of the word ‘Alpha,’ or ‘Ilpha,’ which, in the Phœnician dialect, meant either a ship or a bull, gave occasion to the fable; and that the Greeks, on reading the annals of the Phœnicians, by mistake, took the word in the latter sense.

      Europa was honored as a Divinity after her death, and a festival was instituted in her memory, which Hesychius calls ‘Hellotia,’ from Ἑλλωτὶς, the name she received after her death.

1 Ægeon.]—Ver. 10. Homer makes him to be the same with Briareus. According to another account, which Ovid here follows, he was a sea God, the son of Oceanus and Terra.

2 Doris.]—Ver. 11. She was the daughter of Oceanus, the wife of Nereus, and the mother of the fifty Nereids.

3 Tethys.]—Ver. 69. She was the daughter of Cœlus and Terra, and the wife of Oceanus. Her name is here used to signify the ocean itself.

4 Are carried round.]—Ver. 70. Clarke thus renders this line,—“Add, too, that the heaven was whisked round with a continual rolling.”

5 Wild beasts.]—Ver. 78. The signs of the Zodiac.

6 Hæmonian.]—Ver. 81. Or Thessalian. He here alludes to the Thessalian Chiron, the Centaur, who, according to Ovid and other writers, was placed in the Zodiac as the Constellation Sagittarius: while others say that Crotus, or Croto, the son of Eupheme, the nurse of the Muses, was thus honored.

7 Through the five direct circles.]—Ver. 129. There is some obscurity in this passage, arising from the mode of expression. Phœbus here counsels Phaëton what track to follow, and tells him to pursue his way by an oblique path, and not directly in the plane of the equator. This last is what he calls ‘directos via quinque per arcus.’ These five arcs, or circles, are the five parallel circles by which astronomers distinguish the heavens, namely, the two polar circles, the two tropics, and the equinoctial. The latter runs exactly in the middle, between the other two circles, so that the expression must be understood to mean, ‘pursue not your way directly through that circle which is the middlemost of the five, but observe the track that cuts it obliquely.’

8 The chariot give bounds.]—Ver. 165-6. Clarke thus renders these lines.—‘Thus does the chariot give jumps into the air without its usual weight, and is kicked up on high, and is like one empty.’

9 They say, too.]—Ver. 176-7. The following is Clarke’s translation of these two lines,—‘They say, too, that you, Boötes, scowered off in a mighty bustle, although you were but slow, and thy cart hindered thee.’

10 Athos.]—Ver. 217. Athos (now Monte Santo) was a mountain of Macedonia, so lofty that its shadow was said to extend even to the Isle of Lemnos, which was eighty-seven miles distant.

11 Taurus.]—Ver. 217. This was an immense mountain range which ran through the middle of Cilicia, in Asia Minor.

12 Tmolus.]—Ver. 217. Tmolus (now Bozdaz) was a mountain of Lydia, famed for its wines and saffron. Pactolus, a stream with sands reputed to be golden, took its rise there.

13 Œta.]—Ver. 217. This was a mountain chain, which divided Thessaly from Doris and Phocis; famed for the death of Hercules on one of its ridges.

14 Ida.]—Ver. 218. There were two mountains of the name of Ide, or Ida; one in Crete, the other near Troy. The latter is here referred to, as being famed for its springs.

15 Helicon.]—Ver. 219. This was a mountain of Bœotia, sacred to the Virgin Muses.

16 Hæmus.—Ver. 219. This, which is now called the Balkan range, was a lofty chain of mountains running through Thrace. Orpheus, the son of Œagrus and Calliope, was there torn in pieces by the Mænades, or Bacchanalian women, whence the mountain obtained the epithet of ‘Œagrian.’

17 Ætna.]—Ver. 220. This is the volcanic mountain of Sicily; the flames caused by the fall of Phaëton, added to its own, caused them to be redoubled.

18 Eryx.]—Ver. 221. This was a mountain of Sicily, now called San Juliano. On it, a magnificent temple was erected, in honor of Venus.

19 Cynthus.]—Ver. 221. This was a mountain of Delos, on which Apollo and Diana were said to have been born.

20 Rhodope.]—Ver. 222. It was a high mountain, capped with perpetual snows, in the northern part of Thrace.

21 Mimas.]—Ver. 222. A mountain of Ionia, near the Ionian Sea. It was of very great height; whence