The Metamorphoses of Ovid: Book 6
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 sixth book: Pallas and Arachné. Niobé. The Lycian peasants. Marsyas. Pélops. Progné et philomèle. Borée, Zéthès et Calaïs.
Three stories inspired the artists.
- Arachné and Minerve, Arachné dares to defy Minerve. (ca 1-145)
- Niobe, legend of Niobe, punished by Latone whom she defied (circa 146-312).
- Marsyas, legend of Marsyas, victim of Apollo (circa 382-400).
Arachne
"... it was clear that Arachne had received the lessons of Pallas. She does not want to agree, however, and, offended that they think she is being raised by such a mistress: "Let her compete with me, she says, there is nothing to what, defeated, I submit."
Pallas gives herself the appearance of an old woman ... Then she spoke in these terms " ... Do not dismiss my advice. You may seek the reputation of being among the mortal, the first for the work of the wool, but bow before a goddess, and ask her, rashly, in a voice begging forgiveness for your words; this forgiveness, if you ask, she will grant you."
Arachne looks at her fiercely and leaves there the thread begun ...
"You have lost your mind, and your prolonged old age overwhelms you. To live too long you gain nothing ... Why does the goddess not come in person? Why is she hiding from this competition?" Then the goddess: "She has come", she said, and rejecting her aspect as an old woman, she made Pallas appear ...
Arachne stubbornly pursues her goal, and her desire to win an unreasonable palm precipitates her to her loss. Because the daughter of Jupiter, takes up the challenge and, without dwelling on the warnings, accepts, without deferring it, the struggle.
[Pallas weaves his struggle with Neptune for the sponsorship of Athens. Arachne weaves the guilty adventures of the gods. Pallas-Minerve strikes Arachne, who is humiliated and hangs himself]
Pallas took pity on her and lightened the weight, then: "Keep life, but still hang on shamelessly", she said ...
[Arachne turns into a spider]
—and now, spider, she weaves, as once did, her web."
Niobe
[Niobe rejects the worship of the gods, especially Latona]
Niobe: "What is this madness, she says, of putting the gods we speak of above those you see? And why this worship and these altars erected at Latone, when my divinity has not yet received any incense? My father is Tantalum, and only he was given to share the feast of the gods. My mother is the sister of the Pleiades ...
To some part of my home I turn my eyes, immense riches are offered to them. To this is added a beauty worthy of a goddess. Add seven more daughters, as many young sons, and soon sons-in-law and brus. Search now for the causes of our pride, and dare to prefer me a daughter of Titan, born of I don’t know what Coeus, Latone, to whom the vast earth, once, refused even a corner to give birth! ... She became a mother of two children: that’s seven times that have not worn my flanks. ...
I am too great for Fortune to harm me ...
Indignation seized the goddess, ... she addressed herself to her two children in these words: "Behold, I, your mother, so proud of having given birth to you, ..., doubt is raised that I am a goddess. I am driven, O my children, if you do not come to my aid, from the altars where, down the centuries, my worship was always celebrated.
[Apollo to avenge his mother, kills all the children of Niobe]
For Amphion, the father, by dipping an iron in his breast, he had put an end to both his life and his pain ...
Now without a family, Niobé sat down in the midst of the corpses of her sons, of her daughters, of her husband: misfortune made her insensitive...
to the bottom of the bowels, it is made of stone. Her tears flow however... Standing there at the top of a mountain, it melts in water, and the marble, still today, streams of tears."
Marsyas
[Marsyas retrieves the reed flute that Minerva threw, and gives a musical challenge to Apollo]
"... a second recalls the adventure of the Satyr, betrayed by the reed that came to him from the goddess of the Triton, [Minerva], and that, winner, the son of Latone [Apollo] châtia." Why do you tear me from myself? he said. Ah! what are my remorse! Ah! he cried, a flute is not worth paying that price!" While he was screaming, his skin was torn off all the limbs; ...
The Faunas who lived in the countryside, the Satyrs his brothers, Olympus who, even at this hour, remains dear to him, and the nymphs mourned him."
[From these tears was born the source of a river called Marsyas]