Part 32 (2/2)
[Footnote 113: _The son of Laius._--Ver. 759. dipus was the son of Laius, king of Thebes. The Sphinx was a monster, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, which haunted a mountain near Thebes. dipus solved the riddle which it proposed for solution, on which the monster precipitated itself from a rock. It had the face of a woman, the wings of a bird, and the extremities of a lion.]
[Footnote 114: _Genial Themis._--Ver. 762. Themis had a very ancient oracle in Botia.]
[Footnote 115: _Gortynian bow._--Ver. 778. Crete was called Gortynian, from Gortys or Gortyna, one of its cities, which was famous for the skill of its inhabitants in archery.]
[Footnote 116: _The wild beast._--Ver. 782. Antoninus Liberalis and Apollodorus say that this was a fox, which was called 'the Teumesian,' from Teumesus, a mountain of Botia, and that the Thebans, to appease its voracity, were wont to give it a child to devour every month. Palaephatus says that it was not a wild beast, but a man called Alopis.]
EXPLANATION.
There were two princes of the name of Cephalus; one, the son of Mercury and Herse, the daughter of Cecrops; the other, the son of Deoneus, king of Phocis, and Diomeda, the daughter of Xuthus. The first was carried off by Aurora, and went to live with her in Syria; the second married Procris, the daughter of Erectheus, king of Athens.
Though Apollodorus seems, in the first instance, to follow this genealogy, in his third book he confounds the actions of those two princes. Ovid and other writers have spoken only of the son of Deoneus, who was carried off by Aurora, and having left her, according to them, returned to Procris.
FABLE VIII. [VII.794-865]
Procris, jealous of Cephalus, in her turn, goes to the forest, which she supposes to be the scene of his infidelity, to surprise him.
Hearing the rustling noise which she makes in the thicket, where she lies concealed, he imagines it is a wild beast, and, hurling the javelin, which she has formerly given to him, he kills her.
Thus far {did he speak}; and {then} he was silent. ”But,” said Phocus, ”what fault is there in that javelin?” {whereupon} he thus informed him of the demerits of the javelin. ”Let my joys, Phocus, be the first portion of my sorrowful story. These will I first relate. O son of aeacus, I delight to remember the happy time, during which, for the first years {after my marriage}, I was completely blessed in my wife, {and} she was happy in her husband. A mutual kindness and social love possessed us both. Neither would she have preferred the bed of Jupiter before my love; nor was there any woman that could have captivated me, not {even} if Venus herself had come. Equal flames fired the b.r.e.a.s.t.s {of us both}. The Sun striking the tops of the mountains with his early rays, I was wont generally to go with youthful ardor into the woods, to hunt; but I neither suffered my servants, nor my horses, nor my quick-scented hounds to go {with me}, nor the knotty nets to attend me; I was safe with my javelin. But when my right hand was satiated with the slaughter of wild beasts, I betook myself to the cool spots and the shade, and the breeze which was breathing forth from the cool valleys.
The gentle breeze was sought by me, in the midst of the heat. For the breeze was I awaiting; that was a refreshment after my toils: 'Come, breeze,' I was wont to sing, for I remember it {full well}, 'and, most grateful, refresh me, and enter my breast; and, as thou art wont, be willing to a.s.suage the heat with which I am parched.' Perhaps I may have added ({for} so my destiny prompted me) many words of endearment, and I may have been accustomed to say, 'Thou art my great delight; thou dost refresh and cherish me; thou makest me to love the woods and lonely haunts, and thy breath is ever courted by my face.' I was not aware that some one was giving an ear, deceived by these ambiguous words; and thinking the name of the breeze, so often called upon by me, to be that of a Nymph, he believed some Nymph was beloved by me.
”The rash informer of an imaginary crime immediately went to Procris, and with his whispering tongue related what he had heard. Love is a credulous thing. When it was told her, she fell down fainting, with sudden grief; and coming to, after a long time, she declared that she was wretched, and {born} to a cruel destiny; and she complained about my constancy. Excited by a groundless charge,[117] she dreads that which, {indeed}, is nothing; {and} fears a name without a body; and, in her wretchedness, grieves as though about a real rival. Yet she is often in doubt, and, in her extreme wretchedness, hopes she may be deceived, and denies credit to the information; and unless she beholds it herself, will not pa.s.s sentence upon the criminality of her husband. The following light of the morning had banished the night, when I sallied forth, and sought the woods; and being victorious in the fields, I said, 'Come, breeze, and relieve my pain;' and suddenly I seemed to hear I know not what groans in the midst of my words; yet I said, 'Come hither, most delightful {breeze}.' Again, the falling leaves making a gentle noise, I thought it was a wild beast, and I discharged my flying weapon.
It was Procris; and receiving the wound in the middle of her breast, she cried out, 'Ah, wretched me!' When the voice of my attached wife was heard, headlong and distracted, I ran towards {that} voice. I found her dying, and staining her scattered vestments with blood, and drawing her own present (ah, wretched me!) from out of her wound; I lifted up her body, dearer to me than my own, in my guilty arms, and I bound up her cruel wounds with the garments torn from my bosom; and I endeavored to stanch the blood, and besought her that she would not forsake me, {thus} criminal, by her death. She, wanting strength, and now expiring, forced herself to utter these few words:
”'I suppliantly beseech thee, by the ties of our marriage, and by the G.o.ds above, and my own G.o.ds, and if I have deserved anything well of thee, by that {as well}, and by the cause of my death, my love even now enduring, while I am peris.h.i.+ng, do not allow the Nymph Aura [{breeze}]
to share with thee my marriage ties.' She {thus} spoke; and then, at last, I perceived the mistake of the name, and informed her of it. But what avails informing her? She sinks; and her little strength flies, together with her blood. And so long as she can look on anything, she gazes on me, and breathes out upon me, on my face,[118] her unhappy life; but she seems to die free from care, and with a more contented look.”
In tears, the hero is relating these things to them, as they weep, and, lo! aeacus enters, with his two sons,[119] and his soldiers newly levied; which Cephalus received, {furnished} with valorous arms.
[Footnote 117: _Groundless charge._--Ver. 829. Possibly, Ovid may intend to imply that her jealousy received an additional stimulus from the similarity of the name 'Aura' to that of her former rival, Aurora.]
[Footnote 118: _On my face._--Ver. 861. He alludes to the prevalent custom of catching the breath of the dying person in the mouth.]
[Footnote 119: _His two sons._--Ver. 864. These were Telamon and Peleus, who had levied these troops.]
EXPLANATION.
The love which Cephalus, the son of Deoneus, bore for the chase, causing him to rise early in the morning for the enjoyment of his sport, was the origin of the story of his love for Aurora. His wife, Procris, as Apollodorus tells us, carried on an amour with Pteleon, and, probably, caused that report to be spread abroad, to divert attention from her own intrigue. Cephalus, suspecting his wife's infidelity, she fled to the court of the second Minos, king of Crete, who fell in love with her. Having, thereby, incurred the resentment of Pasiphae, who adopted several methods to destroy her rival, and, among others, spread poison in her bed, she left Crete, and returned to Thoricus, the place of her former residence, where she was reconciled to Cephalus, and gave him the celebrated dog and javelin mentioned by Ovid.
The poets tell us, that this dog was made by Vulcan, and presented by him to Jupiter, who gave him to Europa; and that coming to the hands of her son Minos, he presented it to Procris. The wild beast, which ravaged the country, and was pursued by the dog of Procris, and which some writers tell us was a monstrous fox, was probably a pirate or sea robber; and being, perhaps, pursued by some Cretan officer of Minos, who escorted Procris back to her country, on their vessels being s.h.i.+pwrecked near some rocks, it gave occasion to the story that the dog and the monster had been changed into stone. Indeed, Tzetzes says distinctly, that the dog was called Cyon, and the monster, or fox, Alopis; and he also says that Cyon was the captain who brought Procris back from Crete. It being believed that resentment had some share in causing the death of Procris, the court of the Areiopagus condemned Cephalus to perpetual banishment. The island of Cephalenia, which received its name from him, having been given to him by Amphitryon, he retired to it, where his son Celeus afterwards succeeded him.
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