Part 24 (2/2)
forsake their streams. And not only did it give them pleasure to look at the garments when made, but even, too, while they were being made, so much grace was there in her working. Whether it was that she was rolling the rough wool into its first b.a.l.l.s, or whether she was unravelling the work with her fingers, and was softening the fleeces worked over again with long drawings out, equalling the mists {in their fineness}; or whether she was moving the {smooth} round spindle with her nimble thumb, or was embroidering with the needle, you might perceive that she had been instructed by Pallas.
This, however, she used to deny; and, being displeased with a mistress so famed, she said, ”Let her contend with me. There is nothing which, if conquered, I should refuse {to endure}.” Pallas personates an old woman; she both places false gray hair on her temples, and supports as well her infirm limbs by a staff. Then thus she begins to speak: ”Old age has not everything which we should avoid; experience comes from lengthened years. Do not despise my advice; let the greatest fame for working wool be sought by thee among mortals. {But} yield to the G.o.ddess, and, rash woman, ask pardon for thy speeches with suppliant voice. She will grant pardon at my entreaty.” {The other} beholds her with scowling {eyes}, and leaves the threads she has begun; and scarcely restraining her hand, and discovering her anger by her looks, with such words as these does she reply to the disguised Pallas: ”Thou comest {here} bereft of thy understanding, and worn out with prolonged old age; and it is thy misfortune to have lived too long. If thou hast any daughter-in-law, if thou hast any daughter {of thy own}, let her listen to these remarks.
I have sufficient knowledge for myself in myself, and do not imagine that thou hast availed anything by thy advice; my opinion is {still} the same. Why does not she come herself? why does she decline this contest?”
Then the G.o.ddess says, ”Lo! she is come;” and she casts aside the figure of an old woman, and shows herself {as} Pallas. The Nymphs and the Mygdonian[6] matrons venerate the G.o.ddess. The virgin alone is not daunted. But still she blushes, and a sudden flush marks her reluctant features, and again it vanishes; {just} as the sky is wont to become tinted with purple, when Aurora is first stirring, and after a short time to grow white from the influence of the Sun. She persists in her determination, and, from a desire for a foolish victory, she rushes upon her own destruction. Nor, indeed, does the daughter of Jupiter decline {it}, or advise her any further, nor does she now put off the contest.
There is no delay; they both take their stand in different places, and stretch out two webs {on the loom} with a fine warp. The web is tied around the beam; the sley separates the warp; the woof is inserted in the middle with sharp shuttles, which the fingers hurry along, and being drawn within the warp, the teeth notched in the moving sley strike it.
Both hasten on, and girding up their garments to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, they move their skilful arms, their eagerness beguiling their fatigue. There both the purple is being woven, which is subjected to the Tyrian brazen vessel,[7] and fine shades of minute difference; just as the rainbow, with its mighty arch, is wont to tint a long tract of the sky by means of the rays reflected by the shower: in which, though a thousand different colors are s.h.i.+ning, yet the very transition eludes the eyes that look upon it; to such a degree is that which is adjacent the same; and yet the extremes are different. There, too, the pliant gold is mixed with the threads, and ancient subjects are represented on the webs.
Pallas embroiders the rock of Mars[8] in {Athens}, the citadel of Cecrops, and the old dispute about the name of the country. Twice six[9]
celestial G.o.ds are sitting on lofty seats in august state, with Jupiter in the midst. His own proper likeness distinguishes each of the G.o.ds.
The form of Jupiter is that of a monarch. She makes the G.o.d of the sea to be standing {there}, and to be striking the rugged rocks with his long trident, and a wild {horse} to be springing forth[10] out of the midst of the opening of the rock; by which pledge {of his favor} he lays claim to the city. But to herself she gives the s.h.i.+eld, she gives the lance with its sharp point; she gives the helmet to her head, {and} her breast is protected by the aegis. She {there} represents, too, the earth struck by her spear, producing a shoot of pale olive with its berries, and the G.o.ds admiring it. Victory is the end of her work. But that the rival of her fame may learn from precedents what reward to expect for an attempt so mad, she adds, in four {different} parts, four contests bright in their coloring, and distinguished by diminutive figures. One corner contains Thracian Rhodope and Haemus, now cold mountains, formerly human bodies, who a.s.sumed to themselves the names of the supreme G.o.ds.
Another part contains the wretched fate of the Pygmaean matron.[11] Her, overcome in a contest, Juno commanded to be a crane, and to wage war against her own people. She depicts, too, Antigone,[12] who once dared to contend with the wife of the great Jupiter; {and} whom the royal Juno changed into a bird; nor did Ilion protect her, or her father Laomedon, from a.s.suming wings, and {as} a white crane, from commending herself with her chattering beak. The only corner that remains, represents the bereft Cinyras;[13] and he, embracing the steps of a temple, {once} the limbs of his own daughters, and lying upon the stone, appears to be weeping. She surrounds the exterior borders with peaceful olive. That is the close; and with her own tree she puts an end to the work.
The Maeonian Nymph delineates Europa, deceived by the form of the bull; and you would think it a real bull, and real sea. She herself seems to be looking upon the land which she has left, and to be crying out to her companions, and to be in dread of the touch of the das.h.i.+ng waters, and to be drawing up her timid feet. She drew also Asterie,[14] seized by the struggling eagle; and made Leda, reclining beneath the wings of the swan. She added, how Jupiter, concealed under the form of a Satyr, impregnated {Antiope},[15] the beauteous daughter of Nycteus, with a twin offspring; {how} he was Amphitryon, when he beguiled thee, Tirynthian[16] dame; how, turned to gold, he deceived Danae; {how}, changed into fire, the daughter of Asopus;[17] {how}, as a shepherd, Mnemosyne;[18] and as a speckled serpent, Deois.[19] She depicted thee too, Neptune, changed into a fierce bull, with the virgin daughter[20]
of aeolus. Thou, seeming to be Enipeus,[21] didst beget the Alodae; as a ram, thou didst delude {Theophane}, the daughter of Bisaltis.[22] Thee too the most bounteous mother of corn, with her yellow hair, experienced[23] as a steed; thee, the mother[24] of the winged horse, with her snaky locks, received as a bird; Melantho,[25] as a dolphin. To all these did she give their own likeness, and the {real} appearance of the {various} localities. There was Phbus, under the form of a rustic; and how, {besides}, he was wearing the wings of a hawk at one time, at another the skin of a lion; how, too, as a shepherd, he deceived Isse,[26] the daughter of Macareus. How Liber deceived Erigone,[27] in a fict.i.tious bunch of grapes; {and} how Saturn[28] begot the two-formed Chiron, in {the form of} a horse. The extreme part of the web, being enclosed in a fine border, had flowers interwoven with the twining ivy.
Pallas could not blame that work, nor could Envy {censure} it. The yellow-haired Virgin grieved at her success, and tore the web embroidered with the criminal acts of the G.o.ds of heaven. And as she was holding her shuttle {made of boxwood} from Mount Cytorus, three or four times did she strike the forehead of Arachne, the daughter of Idmon. The unhappy creature could not endure it; and being of a high spirit, she tied up her throat in a halter. Pallas, taking compa.s.sion, bore her up as she hung; and thus she said: ”Live on indeed, wicked one,[29] but still hang; and let the same decree of punishment be p.r.o.nounced against thy race, and against thy latest posterity, that thou mayst not be free from care in time to come.” After that, as she departed, she sprinkled her with the juices of an Hecatean herb;[30] and immediately her hair, touched by the noxious drug, fell off, and together with it her nose and ears. The head of herself, {now} small as well throughout her whole body, becomes very small. Her slender fingers cleave to her sides as legs; her belly takes possession of the rest {of her}; but out of this she gives forth a thread; and {as} a spider, she works at her web as formerly.
[Footnote 1: _Colophon._--Ver. 8. Colophon was an opulent city of Lydia, famous for an oracle of Apollo there.]
[Footnote 2: _Phocaean._--Ver. 9. Phocaea was a city of aeolia, in Ionia, on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, famous for its purple dye.]
[Footnote 3: _Purple._--Ver. 9. 'Murex' was a sh.e.l.l-fish, now called 'the purple,' the juices of which were much used by the ancients for dyeing a deep purple color. The most valuable kinds were found near Tyre and Phocaea, mentioned in the text.]
[Footnote 4: _Hypaepae._--Ver. 13. This was a little town of Lydia, near the banks of the river Cayster. It was situate on the descent of Mount Tymolus, or Tmolus, famed for its wines and saffron.]
[Footnote 5: _Pactolus._--Ver. 16. This was a river of Lydia, which was said to have sands of gold.]
[Footnote 6: _Mygdonian._--Ver. 45. Mygdonia was a small territory of Phrygia, bordering upon Lydia, and colonized by a people from Thrace. Probably these persons had come from the neighboring country, to see the exquisite works of Arachne. As the Poet tells us, many were present when the G.o.ddess discovered herself, and professed their respect and veneration, while Arachne alone remained unmoved.]
[Footnote 7: _Brazen vessel._--Ver. 60. It seems that brazen cauldrons were used for the purposes of dyeing, in preference to those of iron.]
[Footnote 8: _Rock of Mars._--Ver. 70. This was the spot called Areiopagus, which was said to have received its name from the trial there of Mars, when he was accused by Neptune of having slain his son Halirrothius.]
[Footnote 9: _Twice six._--Ver. 72. These were the 'Dii consentes,' mentioned before, in the note to Book i., l. 172. They are thus enumerated in an Elegiac couplet, more consistent with the rules of prosody than the two lines there quoted:--
'Vulca.n.u.s, Mars, Sol, Neptunus, Jupiter, Hermes, Vesta, Diana, Ceres, Juno, Minerva, Venus.']
[Footnote 10: _To be springing forth._--Ver. 76-7. Clarke renders 'facit--e vulnere saxi Exsiluisse ferum,' 'she makes a wild horse bounce out of the opening in the rock.']
[Footnote 11: _Pygmaean matron._--Ver. 90. According to aelian, the name of this queen of the Pigmies was Gerane, while other writers call her Pygas. She was wors.h.i.+pped by her subjects as a G.o.ddess, which raised her to such a degree of conceit, that she despised the wors.h.i.+p of the Deities, especially of Juno and Diana, on which in their indignation, they changed her into a crane, the most active enemy of the Pygmies. These people were dwarfs, living either in India, Arabia, or Thrace, and they were said not to exceed a cubit in height.]
[Footnote 12: _Antigone._--Ver. 93. She was the daughter of Laomedon, king of Troy, and was remarkable for the extreme beauty of her hair. Proud of this, she used to boast that she resembled Juno; on which the G.o.ddess, offended at her presumption, changed her hair into serpents. In compa.s.sion, the Deities afterwards transformed her into a stork.]
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