May 14 | Fastorum Liber Quintus: Maius
F C | Pr. Eid. | V.603-662, Ovid gives a possible explanation for the origin of the Bull constellation, and chats with the god of the Tiber river.
Idibus ora prior stellantia tollere Taurum
indicat. huic signo fabula nota subest.
praebuit, ut taurus, Tyriae sua terga puellae 605
Iuppiter et falsa cornua fronte tulit.
illa iubam dextra, laeva retinebat amictus,
et timor ipse novi causa decoris erat.
aura sinus implet, flavos movet aura capillos:
Sidoni, sic fueras aspicienda Iovi. 610
saepe puellares subduxit ab aequore plantas.
et metuit tactus assilientis aquae:
saepe deus prudens tergum demisit in undas,
haereat ut collo fortius illa suo.
litoribus tactis stabat sine cornibus ullis 615
Iuppiter inque deum de bove versus erat.
taurus init caelum: te, Sidoni, Iuppiter implet,
parsque tuum terrae tertia nomen habet.
hoc alii signum Phariam dixere iuvencam,
quae bos ex homine est, ex bove facta dea. 620
tum quoque priscorum virgo simulacra virorum
mittere roboreo scirpea ponte solet.
corpora post decies senos qui credidit annos
missa neci, sceleris crimine damnat avos.
fama vetus tum, cum Saturnia terra vocata est, 625
talia fatidici dicta fuisse Iovis:
“falcifero libata seni duo corpora gentis
mittite, quae Tuscis excipiantur aquis:”
donec in haec venit Tirynthius arva, quotannis
tristia Leucadio sacra peracta modo; 630
illum stramineos in aquam misisse Quirites:
Herculis exemplo corpora falsa iaci.
pars putat, ut ferrent iuvenes suffragia soli,
pontibus infirmos praecipitasse senes.
Thybri, doce verum. tua ripa vetustior Urbe est, 635
principium ritus tu bene nosse potes.
Thybris harundiferum medio caput extulit alveo
raucaque dimovit talibus ora sonis:
“haec loca desertas vidi sine moenibus herbas:
pascebat sparsas utraque ripa boves, 640
et quem nunc gentes Tiberim noruntque timentque,
tunc etiam pecori despiciendus eram.
Arcadis Euandri nomen tibi saepe refertur:
ille meas remis advena torsit aquas.
venit et Alcides, turba comitatus Achiva 645
(Albula si memini, tunc mihi nomen erat):
excipit hospitio iuvenem Pallantius heros,
et tandem Caco debita poena venit.
victor abit, secumque boves, Erytheïda praedam,
abstrahit. at comites longius ire negant. 650
magnaque pars horum desertis venerat Argis:
montibus his ponunt spemque laremque suum.
saepe tamen patriae dulci tanguntur amore,
atque aliquis moriens hoc breve mandat opus:
‘mittite me in Tiberim, Tiberinis vectus ut undis 655
litus ad Inachium pulvis inanis eam.’
displicet heredi mandati cura sepulcri:
mortuus Ausonia conditur hospes humo,
scirpea pro domino Tiberi iactatur imago,
ut repetat Graias per freta longa domos.” 660
hactenus, et subiit vivo rorantia saxo
antra: leves cursum sustinuistis aquae.
603 The day before the Ides marks the time when the Bull lifts his starry front.1 This constellation is explained by a familiar tale. Jupiter in the shape of a bull offered his back to the Tyrian maid2 and wore horns on his false brow. She held the bull’s mane in her right hand, her drapery in her left; and her very fear lent her fresh grace. The breeze fills the robe on her bosom, it stirs her yellow hair; Sidonian damsel, thus indeed it became thee to meet the gaze of Jove. Oft did she withdraw her girlish soles from the sea, and feared the contact of the dashing wave; often the god knowingly plunged his back into the billows, that she might cling the closer to his neck. On reaching the shore, Jupiter stood without any horns, and the bull was turned into the god. The bull passed into the sky: thou, Sidonian damsel, wast got with child by Jupiter, and a third part of the earth doth bear thy name. Others say that this constellation is the Pharian heifer, which from a human being was made a cow, and from a cow was made a goddess.3
621 Then, too, the Virgin4 is wont to throw the rush-made effigies of ancient men from the oaken bridge. He who believes that after sixty years men were put to death, accuses our forefathers of a wicked crime. There is an old tradition, that when the land was called Saturnia these words were spoken by soothsaying Jove: “Do ye cast into the water of the Tuscan river two of the people as a sacrifice to the Ancient who bears the sickle.” The gloomy rite was performed, so runs the tale, in the Leucadian manner5 every year, until the Tirynthian hero came to these fields; he cast men of straw into the water, and now dummies are thrown after the example set by Hercules. Some think that the young men used to hurl the feeble old men from the bridges,6 in order that they themselves alone should have the vote. O Tiber, inform me of the truth: thy bank is older than the City: thou canst well know the origin of the rite. The Tiber raised his reed-crowned head from the mid channel, and opened his hoarse mouth to utter these words: “These regions I have seen when they were solitary grass-lands without any city walls: scattered kine pastured on either bank; and I, the Tiber, whom the nations now both know and fear, was then a thing to be despised even by cattle. You often hear mention of the name of Arcadian Evander7: he came from far and churned my waters with his oars. Alcides also came, attended by a troop of Greeks. At that time, if I remember aright, my name was Albula.8 The Pallantian hero9 received him hospitably; and Cacus10 got at last the punishment he deserved. The victorious Hercules departed and carried off with him the kine, the booty he had taken from Erythea. But his companions refused to go farther: a great part of them had come from Argos, which they abandoned. On these hills they set their hope and their home; yet were they often touched by the sweet love of their native land, and one of them in dying gave this brief charge: ’Throw me into the Tiber, that, borne upon his waves, my empty dust may pass to the Inachian shore.’ His heir disliked the charge of sepulture thus laid on him: the dead stranger was buried in Ausonian ground, and an effigy of rushes was thrown into the Tiber instead of him, that it might return to his Greek home across the waters wide.” Thus far did Tiber speak, then passed into the dripping cave of living rock: ye nimble waters checked your flow.
Probably he really referred to the Hyades: their true morning rising was on May 16; apparent, on June 9.
Europa.
Io, often identified with Egyptian Isis.
The Vestals. See Appendix, p. 425, The Argei.
The “lover’s leap”at the promontory of Leucas is well known. A man used to be cast from it every year; but all possible means were taken to make his fall easy and to save him.
The pontes here are the raised passages, through which voters used to be ushered into the septa (i. 53).
Evander, born at Pallantium in Arcadia.