The Metamorphoses of Ovid: Book 5
Through the traditional Greek and Roman legends, Ovide tells in fifteen songs or books (representing more than twelve thousand verses), a set of concise stories about the metamorphoses of gods, goddesses, heroes or mere mortals. Here are the accounts of the fifth book: Perseus (continued). Hippocrene. Pierids. Ceres and Proserpine. Cyane. Ascalaphus. Sirens. Arethusis.
Four stories inspired the artists.
- Muses and Piérides, Piérides defy Muses (around 294-314 and 662-678).
- Proserpine, abduction of the goddess by Pluto (circa 332-408).
- Ceres, errant journeys of Ceres to find his daughter Proserpine (circa 409-437).
- Aréthuse, the nymph flees Alphée aidée de Diane (circa 570-640).
The Muses and the Pierides
"... we heard a sound of wings in the air and a voice greeting the goddess coming from the trees ... It was a bird. Nine of them, bemoaning their destiny, had rested on the branches of the magpies, which imitate everything. As the goddess showed her astonishment, the Muse replied: "It was not long ago that these unfortunate women, after a struggle in which they succumbed, increased the number of birds. The rich Piéros begat them in the fields of Pella: the Pelonian Euippé was their mother ..."
Puffed up by their numbers, the troupe of these stupid sisters ... come here and challenge us in these words: "Cease, therefore, by the vain sweetness of your accents, to deceive the ignorant crowd. If you have any confidence in yourself, goddesses of Thespies, measure yourself with us. Neither for the voice nor for the art, we will have the bottom, and we are as numerous as you. Either, defeated, leave the source of the son of Medusa ... or it will be up to us to leave the fields of Hemionia and return to the snowy land of the Peonians. Let the nymphs be between us judges of the fight."
[one of the Pierids sings the War of the Giants against the Gods, and Calliope, one of the Muses sings the story of Proserpine and Ceres]
Then the nymphs in a unanimous voice proclaimed victorious the goddesses inhabiting the Helicon."
[The Pierids dissatisfied with judgment, are transformed into pies]
Muses and Pierides on Mona Lisa
Proserpine
[Venus sees Pluto, asks her son Cupid to throw two arrows]
"... can’t you see that Pallas and Diana the huntress have disowned me? The daughter of Ceres, in her turn, if we support her, will remain a virgin, for she nourishes the same hopes ... if I have some credit with you, united the goddess with her uncle". Thus spoke Venus. Love detached her quiver and to satisfy her mother, between a thousand arrows put one aside, ... he struck Pluto ...
While in this wood she plays Proserpine ... almost in one instant she was seen, loved and taken away by Pluto; such is the promptness of love. The goddess, frightened, calls with desperate cries her mother and her companions ... The kidnapper pushes his chariot, excites his horses ...
[Cyane source opposes Pluto]
From the middle of the deep waters, Cyane emerged, the bust raised to the waist and recognized the goddess: "You will not go any further, she says. You cannot, without his consent, be the son-in-law of Ceres. You had to ask for Proserpine and not remove him ... she prevented him from passing. The son of Saturn could not contain his anger any more; exciting his terrible messengers, he brandished, with his robust arm, his royal scepter and plunged it to the bottom of the waters ...
But Cyane, full of pain at the rapture of the goddess and of the contempt shown for the rights of her source, carries silently in herself an incurable wound; she is consumed in tears, and in those waters of which she was once the great deity, she dissolves little by little."
Ceres
"However, filled with fear, the mother [of Proserpine] vainly searched all over the earth, in every sea-hole, for her daughter.
[Ceres] invective against the whole earth, treating her as ungrateful, unworthy of the present harvest ... And so, with a merciless hand, she broke the plows ... and, in her anger, confounded in the same death the ploughmen and their ploughmen, the oxen.
[A nymph tells Ceres]
"... So, as I sank underground through the Styx sinkholes with my own eyes, I saw your daughter Proserpine there: sad to the truth, and her face still imbued with a remnant of terror, yet queen and ruler of the world of darkness, but powerful matron alongside the king of hell." ...
But Jupiter, divided between his afflicted brother and sister, divides the course of the year into two equal parts. From now on, the goddess, a divinity common to both kingdoms, spends as many months with her mother as with her husband..."
Arethusis
"Ceres the nursemaid, who has found peace since her daughter was returned, wants to know why you run away, Arethuse, and why you are a sacred source. ... " I was one of the nymphs who lived in Achaia, she said... despite my courage, it was to be beautiful that I had the reputation... It was hot and tiredness redoubled the heat. I find on my way a river flowing without eddies, without murmuring, ... I lay my soft veils on the curved branch of a willow tree, and, naked, I plunge into the water... I seem to hear I do not know what murmur came from the middle of the abyss. Frightened, I set foot on the edge of the nearest shore: "Where are you going so quickly, Arethuse? Alpheus told me from the depths of his waters? Where are you going so fast"... As I was, I flee without clothes... He only pursues me with more ardour, burning with desires ... I, less resistant, was unable to sustain this race for long; he had the vigour necessary for a long effort. ... the sound of Alpheus' footsteps terrified me, ...
[Arethuse appeals to Diane, who hears and hides her in a thick cloud]
I see myself turned into a fountain. But the river - because it recognizes this water as the object of its love - leaving the human appearance it had taken, taking its own form, changes itself, to mingle with me, into waves. The goddess of Delos then split the ground, and I, plunged into obscure caves, am dragged to Ortygie (Delos island)."
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