May 11 | Fastorum Liber Quintus: Maius
C • LEM • N | V Eid. | V.493-544, Ovid relates the story of the unusual conception and birth of Orion.
Quorum si mediis Boeotum Oriona quaeres,
falsus eris. signi causa canenda mihi.
Iuppiter et lato qui regnat in aequore frater 495
carpebant socias Mercuriusque vias.
tempus erat, quo versa iugo referuntur aratra,
et pronus saturae lac bibit agnus ovis.
forte senex Hyrieus, angusti cultor agelli,
hos videt, exiguam stabat ut ante casam; 500
atque ita “longa via est, nec tempora longa supersunt,”
dixit “et hospitibus ianua nostra patet.”
addidit et voltum verbis iterumque rogavit:
parent promissis dissimulantque deos.
tecta senis subeunt nigro deformia fumo; 505
ignis in hesterno stipite parvus erat.
ipse genu nixus flammas exsuscitat aura
et promit quassas comminuitque faces.
stant calices; minor inde fabas, holus alter habebat,
et spumat testo pressus uterque suo. 510
dumque mora est, tremula dat vina rubentia dextra:
accipit aequoreus pocula prima deus.
quae simul exhausit, “da nunc bibat ordine” dixit
“Iuppiter.” audito palluit ille Iove.
ut rediit animus, cultorem pauperis agri 515
immolat et magno torret in igne bovem;
quaeque puer quondam primis diffuderat annis,
promit fumoso condita vina cado.
nec mora, flumineam lino celantibus ulvam,
sic quoque non altis, incubuere toris. 520
nunc dape, nunc posito mensae nituere Lyaeo:
terra rubens crater, pocula fagus erant.
verba fuere Iovis: “siquid fert impetus, opta:
omne feres.” placidi verba fuere senis:
“cara fuit coniunx, primae mihi flore iuventae 525
cognita. nunc ubi sit, quaeritis? urna tegit.
huic ego iuratus, vobis in verba vocatis,
‘coniugio’ dixi ‘sola fruere meo.’
et dixi et servo. sed enim diversa voluntas
est mihi; nec coniunx et pater esse volo.” 530
adnuerant omnes: omnes ad terga iuvenci
constiterant—pudor est ulteriora Ioqui—
tum superiniecta texere madentia terra;
iamque decem menses, et puer ortus erat.
hunc Hyrieus, quia sic genitus, vocat Uriona: 535
perdidit antiquum littera prima sonum.
creverat immensum; comitem sibi Delia sumpsit,
ille deae custos, ille satelles erat.
verba movent iram non circumspecta deorum:
“quam nequeam “dixit” vincere, nulla fera est.” 540
scorpion immisit Tellus: fuit impetus illi
curva gemilliparae spicula ferre deae;
obstitit Orion. Latona nitentibus astris
addidit et “meriti praemia” dixit “habe.”
493 If you look for Boeotian Orion on the middle of these three days, you will be disappointed.1 I must now sing of the cause of the constellation. Jupiter, and his brother who reigns in the deep sea, and Mercury, were journeying together. It was the time when the yoked kine draw home the upturned plough, and the lamb lies down and drinks the milk of the full ewe. An old man Hyrieus, who cultivated a tiny farm, chanced to see them as he stood before his little cottage; and thus he spoke: “Long is the way, but short the hours of daylight left, and my door is open to strangers.” He enforced his words by a look, and again invited them. They accepted the offer and dissembled their divinity. They passed beneath the old man’s roof, begrimed with black smoke; a little fire was glimmering in the log of yesterday. He knelt and blew up the flames with his breath, and drawing forth the stumps of torches he chopped them up. Two pipkins stood on the fire; the lesser contained beans, the other kitchen herbs; both boiled, each under the pressure of its lid. While he waited, he served out red wine with shaky hand. The god of the sea received the first cup. When he had drained it, “Now serve the drink,” said he, “to Jupiter in order.” At the word Jupiter the old man paled. When he recovered himself, he sacrificed the ox that ploughed his poor land, and he roasted it in a great fire; and the wine which as a boy he had laid up in his early years, he brought forth stored in its smoky jar. And straightway they reclined on mattresses stuffed with river sedge and covered with linen, but lowly still. The table shone, now with the viands, now with the wine set down on it: the bowl was of red earthenware, the cups were beechen wood. Quoth Jupiter: “If thou hast any fancy, choose: all will be thine.” The calm old man thus spoke: “I had a dear wife, whose love I won in the flower of early youth. Where is she now? you ask. The urn her ashes holds. To her I swore, and called you gods to witness, ‘Thou shalt be my only spouse.’ I gave my word, and I keep it. But a different wish is mine: I would be, not a husband, but a father.” All the gods assented; all took their stand at the bullock’s hide—I am ashamed to describe what followed—then they covered the reeking hide by throwing earth on it: when ten months had passed, a boy was born. Him Hyrieus called Urion on account of the mode of his begetting:2 the first letter of his name has lost its ancient sound. He grew to an enormous size; the Delian goddess took him to be her companion; he was her guardian, he her attendant. Heedless words excite the wrath of gods. “There is no wild beast,” said he, “which I cannot master.” Earth egged on a scorpion: its mission was to attack the Goddess Mother of Twins with its hooked fangs. Orion threw himself in the way. Latona set him among the shining stars, and said, “Take thy well-earned reward."
May 11 was the true evening setting of one of the stars of Orion.
The absurd derivation of Orion from οὖρον, “urine,” explains what had been done upon the hide; thus Orion should have been created without a mother. Various tales are told of his death: here he is defender of Latona, the goddess who brought forth her twins, Apollo and Artemis, in Delos.