March 23rd | Fastorum Liber Tertius: Martius
B • TVBIL• NP | X Kal. | III.849-876, Ovid announces the Tubilustrium festival and relates how the ram that carried away Helle and Phrixus became a constellation.
Summa dies e quinque tubas lustrare canoras
admonet et forti sacrificare deo. 850
nunc potes ad solem sublato dicere voltu
“hic here Phrixeae vellera pressit ovis.”
seminibus tostis sceleratae fraude novercae
sustulerat nullas, ut solet, herba comas.
mittitur ad tripodas, certa qui sorte reportet, 855
quam sterili terrae Delphicus edat opem.
hic quoque corruptus cum semine nuntiat Helles
et iuvenis Phrixi funera sorte peti;
utque recusantem cives et tempus et Ino
compulerunt regem iussa nefanda pati, 860
et soror et Phrixus, velati tempora vittis,
stant simul ante aras iunctaque fata gemunt.
aspicit hos, ut forte pependerat aethere, mater
et ferit attonita pectora nuda manu,
inque draconigenam nimbis comitantibus urbem 865
desilit et natos eripit inde suos;
utque fugam capiant, aries nitidissimus auro
traditur: ille vehit per freta longa duos.
dicitur infirma cornu tenuisse sinistra
femina, cum de se nomina fecit aquae. 870
paene simul periit, dum volt succurrere lapsae
frater, et extentas porrigit usque manus.
flebat, ut amissa gemini consorte pericli,
caeruleo iunctam nescius esse deo.
litoribus tactis aries fit sidus, at huius 875
pervenit in Colchas aurea lana domos.
849 The last day of the five reminds us to purify the melodious trumpets1 and to sacrifice to the strong god.2
851 Now you can look up to the sun and say, “Yesterday he set foot on the fleece of the Phrixean sheep.”3 By the guile of a wicked stepmother4 the seeds had been roasted, so that no corn sprouted in the wonted way. A messenger was sent to the tripods to report, by a sure oracle, what remedy the Delphic god would prescribe for the dearth. But he, corrupted like the seed, brought word that the oracle demanded the death of Helle and the stripling Phrixus; and when the citizens, the season, and Ino compelled the reluctant king to submit to the wicked command, Phrixus and his sister, their brows veiled with fillets, stood together before the altars and bewailed the fate they shared. Their mother spied them, as by chance she hovered in the air, and thunder-struck she beat her naked breast with her hand: then, accompanied by clouds, she leaped down into the dragon-begotten city5 and snatched from it her children, and that they might take to flight, a ram all glistering with gold was delivered to them. The ram bore the two over wide seas. It is said that the sister relaxed the hold of her left hand on the ram’s horn, when she gave her own name to the water.6 Her brother almost perished with her in attempting to succour her as she fell, and in holding out his hands at the utmost stretch. He wept at losing her who had shared his double peril, wotting not that she was wedded to the blue god. On reaching the shore the ram was made a constellation, but his golden fleece was carried to Colchian homes.
Tubilustrium.
Mars.
That is, entered the sign of the Ram. Athamas, king of Boeotia, had a son Phrixus and a daughter Helle. Their mother, Nephele, died, and he married Ino. She plotted their death as described here.
Ino.
Thebes.
Hellespont.