June 21 | Fastorum Liber Sextus: Iunius
D C | XI Kal. | VI.733-762, Ovid relates the story of Hippolytus and his resurrection.
Hanc quoque cum patriis Galatea receperit undis,
plenaque securae terra quietis erit,
surgit humo iuvenis telis afflatus avitis 735
et gemino nexas porrigit angue manus.
notus amor Phaedrae, nota est iniuria Thesei:
devovit natum credulus ille suum.
non impune pius iuvenis Troezena petebat:
dividit obstantes pectore taurus aquas. 740
solliciti terrentur equi frustraque retenti
per scopulos dominum duraque saxa trahunt.
exciderat curru lorisque morantibus artus
Hippolytus lacero corpore raptus erat
reddideratque animam, multum indignante Diana. 745
“nulla” Coronides “causa doloris” ait;
“namque pio iuveni vitam sine volnere reddam,
et cedent arti tristia fata meae.”
gramina continuo loculis depromit eburnis
(profuerant Glauci manibus illa prius, 750
tum cum observatas augur descendit in herbas,
usus et auxilio est anguis ab angue dato),
pectora ter tetigit, ter verba salubria dixit:
depositum terra sustulit ille caput.
lucus eum nemorisque sui Dictynna recessu 755
celat: Aricino Virbius ille lacu.
at Clymenus Clothoque dolent: haec, fila reneri,
hic, fieri regni iura minora sui.
Iuppiter exemplum veritus derexit in ipsum
fulmina, qui nimiae moverat artis opem. 760
Phoebe, querebaris: deus est, placare parenti:
propter te, fieri quod vetat, ipse facit.
733 When that day also has been received by Galatea in her father’s waters, and all the world is sunk in untroubled sleep, there rises above the horizon the young man blasted by the bolts of his grandsire and stretches out his hands, entwined with twin snakes.1 Familiar is the tale of Phaedra’s love, familiar, too, the wrong that Theseus did, when, too confiding, he did curse his son to death.2 Doomed by his piety, the youth was journeying to Troezen, when a bull cleft with his breast the waters in his path. Fear seized the startled steeds; in vain their master held them back, they dragged him along the crags and flinty rocks. Hippolytus fell from the car, and, his limbs entangled by the reins, his mangled body was whirled along, till he gave up the ghost, much to Diana’s rage. “There is no need for grief,” said the son of Coronis,3 “for I will restore the pious youth to life all unscathed, and to my leech-craft gloomy fate shall yield.” Straightway he drew from an ivory casket simples that before had stood Glaucus’ ghost4 in good stead, what time the seer went down to pluck the herbs he had remarked, and the snake was succoured by a snake. Thrice he touched the youth’s breast, thrice he spoke healing words; then Hippolytus lifted his head, low laid upon the ground. He found a hiding-place in a sacred grove and in the depths of Dictynna’s own woodland; he became Virbius of the Arician Lake.5 But Clymenus6 and Clotho7 grieved, she that life’s broken thread should be respun, he that his kingdom’s rights should be infringed. Fearing the example thus set, Jupiter aimed a thunderbolt at him who used the resources of a too potent art. Phoebus, thou didst complain. But Aesculapius is a god, be reconciled to thy parent: he did himself for thy sake what he forbids others to do.
Anguitenens (Ophiuchus). Evening rising, April 19; but this is within a few days of its true morning setting at Alexandria.
See Met. xv. 497–529. Phaedra, wife of Theseus, made advances to his son Hippolytus, which were repulsed. She accused him of having made advances to her, and he prayed to his father Poseidon, to punish Hippolytus. Poseidon sent a bull out of the sea to frighten Hippolytus’s horses, and the young man was killed.
Aesculapius.
The story is told by Apollodorus, iii. c. 1 (see the Loeb edition by J. G. Frazer, vol. i. p. 311). Glaucus, as a boy, was drowned in a jar of honey; and his father restored him by using a herb which he saw a serpent use for a fellow-serpent.
Pluto.
One of the three Fates.