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Page 351 Next Page > page_351 < previous page page_351 next page > Page 351 133 huc adde: the imperative might continue to refer to Cadmus, or it 35 might now address the Ovidian audience. genus de coniuge tanta: one might have expected tantum with genus, but the MSS universally agree on the ablative, which emphasizes the eminence of this semi- divine wife. natas natosque 134: a few MSS have chauvinistically assumed that sons would always take priority over daughters and reversed the nouns. However, Cadmus seems to have had only one son, named Polydorus; he disappears rather quickly, yielding center stage to his four sisters, whose tragic stories inspire Ovid in most of Books 3 and 4. pignora cara: children and grandchildren are consid- ered "guarantees" of the family and its prosperous survival. The meta- phor is ironic in the case of Cadmus' grandsons. iam iuvenes 135: the third generation has already reached young manhood; about fifty years had passed. 135 homini 136: dative of agent with passive periphrastic. The sentiment 37 is particularly attributed to Solon by Herodotus 1.32, who then demon- strates the truth of Greek wisdom by tracing the ruin of Croesus. Actaeon (138252) Having mentioned Cadmus' grandsons, Ovid proceeds to follow their wretched fates, ignoring strict chronology in favor of narrative importance. The two who appear in Book 2 are Actaeon and Pentheus, and Ovid places them not together, but at the start and end of the book. Why he chooses to start with Actaeon, Autonoe's son, instead of Pentheus, he does not say. I suspect that Actaeon serves immediate poetic purposes better because he is a hunter who suffers the wrath of Diana, and his story can be seen as parallel to those of other unfortunate hunters, notably Callisto. The myth of Actaeon knew several variants. Always a hunter, young Actaeon was early presented as one who outraged Diana, whether by challenging her to a competition in hunting, by violating her sanctuary, or by trying to rape her (cf. Hyginus 180), and for his guilt he was changed into a deer and hunted to his death by his own hounds. At latest by the time of Callimachus, Actaeon's "crime" had become less outrageous: he had chanced upon Diana bathing. Ovid takes that situation and builds it into a powerful story of human innocence abused, as was Callisto's innocence, by a ruthless deity. Actaeon, in Ovid's narrative, had no intention of spying on Diana, accidently stumbled onto her bathing, and, before he even had a chance to react, was branded as guilty and punished with metamorphosis by the indignant, plainly unjust goddess. As a deer, Actaeon does not stand a chance. Trapped inside the animal form, he cannot communicate his human feelings, and he dies a helpless beast of prey, torn to < previous page page_351 next page > file:///C|/...1/Ovid/METAMORPHOSES/Modern%20editions%20and%20commentaries/Anderson%201-5/files/page_351.html[25/10/2010 11:31:02 πμ] page_352 < previous page page_352 next page > Page 352 bits by his own dogs who are urged on by his own recent hunting companions. The pathos of this human deer and the cruelty of angry, unreasonable Diana align us with the innocent victim. In terms of the basic theme of beholding the forbidden and holy, Actaeon is even less guilty and more abused than his grandfather Cadmus, who was innocent in his trespassing on the dragon's lair, but brought trouble on himself by attacking and killing this creature of Mars. 138 The poet begins his story, avoiding the name of Actaeon and describing 40 him for the clever audience through key details, namely, the horns on his head (an allusion to his becoming a deer) and his death as victim of his own dogs. The name Actaeon will finally first appear when the deer vainly tries to identify itself as the prince before falling prey to the hounds (cf. 230 below). The word order of 13839 may be simplified as follows: prima causa luctus inter . secundas fuit nepos. Notice that the poet once again addresses Cadmus. The cir- cumlocutions to avoid naming Actaeon allow the poet to introduce (in 13940) key elements of the tragic tale he plans to tell. But they do not seem tragic at this stage, especially with the apostrophe to the dogs. 141 si quaeras . invenies 142: a mixed condition of subjunctive and 42 indicative. The second person may continue the conversation with Cadmus and offer him comfort, but the audience would naturally feel addressed by it, too. The narrator is raising the common question about a sudden, cruel death: what did the dead man do to deserve his death? He insists, against earlier tradition about Actaeon, that, if there was a misdeed, it should be attributed to fortune. Then, he goes on to contrast scelus and error: scelus would be an act of deliberate evil (such as openly insulting Diana from foolish pride); error would be accidental wandering, whether literally from the path or figuratively from the truth. It turns out that Actaeon's mistake is one of literal wandering (cf. 174 ff.). He did not mean to intrude on Diana's bath, and he certainly does not have time to think of scelus before she angrily punishes him. 143 infectus: the verb of dyeing has so many bad connotations, e.g., 45 "soaked, infected, poisoned," that it is hard to read this description of animal slaughter as neutral. Ironically, the blood of other animals that he has copiously shed as the story opens will be matched (and avenged) by the hunter's own blood at the end, blood shed from a seeming animal. dies medius 144: Ovid devotes two lines to the representation of high noon (cf. 50). In the Met., this is a frequent setting for disaster. meta . utraque 145: ablative of place from which, without preposition. The metaphor of a racetrack is common < previous page page_352 next page > file:///C|/...1/Ovid/METAMORPHOSES/Modern%20editions%20and%20commentaries/Anderson%201-5/files/page_352.html[25/10/2010 11:31:03 πμ] page_353 < previous page page_353 next page > Page 353 for the Sun, especially since he is imagined to drive a chariot and four swift horses. The two metae or turning posts are the east from which he rises and west where he sets. Ovid slows down the rhythm in 145 with four spondees just before introducing his main character. 146 iuvenis . Hyantius: first of several epic circumlocutions designed 47 to avoid naming the "hero." The adjective probably appears here for the first time in Latin; it means "Boeotian." Along with placido . ore, it frames the scene. Actaeon's serenity is designedly emphasized, in contrast to the common tradition about his violence and arrogance. He is almost an ideal Vergilian prince. 148 Like the narrator in 143, Actaeon registers in 148 the bloody success of 49 he hunt, and perhaps he distances himself from its cruel wastefulness. fortunamque dies habuit satis 149: one early fragment emended the accusative to partitive genitive with satis, but the change is unneces- sary. In light of the narrator's introduction at 141, the statement here by Actaeon must seem ironic. He thinks of fortune as favorable and asks no more of it after his hunting successes; but fortune now has a crime to inflict on him. Its day has just begun. 149 altera lucem / cum . Aurora reducet: the normally initial temporal 52 cum yields to more significant words. Instead of saying "another day," Actaeon expands with a description of Dawn (which he will never see). Phoebus utraque / distat idem terra 15152: variant on 145. idem replaces ex aequo, and utraque . terra replaces the racing image of the turning post with the limits of the earth. 153 tollite lina: Actaeon's speech ends on the same word with which it 54 began. That suggests not only Ovid's cleverness but also the prince's sense of order. The hunters have used nets to trap the deer: now they are to take them up. intermittuntque laborem 154: we have already had descriptions of tired hunters and the ways in which they relieve their toil. Ovid does not need to spell that out. However, earlier tired hunters rested only with drastic results. When Ovid stops here and turns to another hunter, he is either breaking or postponing a pattern. 155 The poet begins an ecphrasis without indicating its pertinence to what 58 has preceded. Actaeon has apparently been on a mountain (cf. 143); now the scene shifts, by this description, to a thickly wooded valley. There was a spring near Plataea, below the mountains, which the Greeks called Gargaphie. Ovid is the first to name the valley such. succinctae . Dianae 156: as the huntress goddess, Diana hitched up her long robes to facilitate the chase. In both 9.89 and 10.536, Ovid uses the phrase ritu succincta Dianae to liken other women to the goddess. antrum nemorale 157: this is the second cave in Book 3, and it acquires menace from the previous one. arte laboratum nulla 158: ostensibly, Ovid means only that it is a natural cave; but he also < previous page page_353 next page > file:///C|/...1/Ovid/METAMORPHOSES/Modern%20editions%20and%20commentaries/Anderson%201-5/files/page_353.html[25/10/2010 11:31:03 πμ] page_354 < previous page page_354 next page > Page 354 refers to the contemporary Augustan delight in artificial caves, which were planned for aristocratic gardens, as later in eighteenth century England. 158 Not content with praising the artlessness of Nature, the narrator argues 60 that Nature is a superior artist, working with its own genius.
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