BNF manuscrit 871
http://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc51121m
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10467094j.r=manuscrit%20francais%20871?rk=21459;2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_de_Vitry
http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/vitry.php
tony kline's translation from ovid begins here ...
Bk V:294-331 The
contest between the Pierides and the Muses
The
Muse was speaking: wings sounded in the air, and voices in greeting came out of
the high branches. The daughter of Jupiter looked up, and questioned where the
sound came from, that was so much like mouths speaking, and thought it human,
though it was birdsong. Nine of them, magpies, that imitate everything, had
settled in the branches, bemoaning their fate. While she wondered, the other began
speaking, goddess to goddess, ‘Defeated in a contest, they have been added only
recently to the flocks of birds. Pierus of Pella,
rich in fields, was their father, and Paeonian Euippe was
their mother. Nine times, while giving birth, she called, nine times, to
powerful Lucina.
Swollen with pride in their numbers, this crowd of foolish sisters came here,
to us, through the many cities of Achaia and Haemonia,
and challenged us to a singing competition, saying “Stop cheating the untutored
masses with your empty sweetness. If you have faith in yourselves, contend with
us, you goddesses of Thespiae.
We cannot be outdone in voice or art, and we are your equals in numbers. If you
want, if you are defeated, you can grant us the Heliconian fountains, Hippocrene, of Medusa’s
offspring, and Boeotian Aganippe.
Or we will grant you the Emathian plains as far as snow-covered Paeonia!
Let the nymphs decide the outcome.”
It
was shameful to compete with them, but it seemed more shameful to concede. The
nymphs were elected, and swore on their streams to judge fairly, and sat on
platforms of natural rock. Then, without drawing lots, the one who had first
declared the contest sang, of the war with the gods, granting false honours to
the giants, and diminishing the actions of the mighty deities. How Typhoeus,
issued forth from his abode in the depths of the earth, filling the heavenly
gods with fear, and how they all turned their backs in flight, until Egypt received
them, and the Nile with
its seven mouths. She told how earth-born Typhoeus came
there as well, and the gods concealed themselves in disguised forms. “Jupiter”
she said, “turned himself into a ram, the head of the flock, and even now Libyan Ammon is
shown with curving horns. Delian Apollo hid
as a crow, Bacchus, Semele’s
child, as a goat, Diana,
the sister of Phoebus,
a cat, Saturnian Juno a
white cow, Venus a
fish, and Cyllenian Mercury the
winged ibis.”
Bk V:332-384 Calliope
sings: Cupid makes Dis fall in love
‘This
much she played on her lute, with singing voice. Then called on us, - but
perhaps you are not at leisure, or free to listen to a repetition of our
music?’ ‘Do not stop’ said Pallas,
‘but sing your song again as you arranged it!’ and she sat amongst the light
shadows of the grove. The Muse renewed her tale ‘We gave our best singer to the
contest. Calliope,
who rose, with her loose hair bound with ivy, tried out the plaintive strings
with her fingers, then accompanied the wandering notes with this song.
‘“Ceres first
turned the soil with curving plough, first ripened the crops and produce of the
earth, first gave us laws: all things are Ceres’s gift. My song is of her. If
only I could create a song in any way worthy of the goddess! This goddess is
truly a worthy subject for my song.
‘“Trinacris,
the vast isle of Sicily,
had been heaped over the giant’s limbs, and with its great mass oppressed
buried Typhoeus,
he who had dared to aspire to a place in heaven. He struggles it’s true and
often tries to rise, but his right hand is held by the promontory of Ausonian Pelorus,
and his left hand by you, Pachynus. Lilybaeum presses
on his legs, Etna weighs
down his head, supine beneath it, Typhoeus throws ash from his mouth, and spits
out flame. Often, a wrestler, he throws back the weight of earth, and tries to
roll the high mountains and the cities from his body, and then the ground
trembles, and even the lord of the silent kingdom is afraid lest he be exposed,
and the soil split open in wide fissures, and the light admitted to scare the
anxious dead.
‘“Fearing
this disaster, the king of the dark had left his shadowy realm, and, drawn in
his chariot by black horses, carefully circled the foundations of the Sicilian
land. When he had checked and was satisfied that nothing was collapsing, he
relinquished his fears. Then Venus,
at Eryx, saw him moving, as she sat on the hillside, and
embraced her winged son, Cupid,
and said ‘My child, my hands and weapons, my power, seize those arrows, that
overcome all, and devise a path for your swift arrows, to the heart of that god
to whom the final share of the triple kingdom fell. You conquer the gods
and Jupiter himself,
the lords of the sea, and their very king, who controls the lords of the sea.
Why is Tartarus excepted?
Why not extend your mother’s kingdom and your own? We are talking of a third
part of the world. And yet, as is evident to me, I am scorned in heaven,
and Love’s
power diminishes with mine.
‘“‘Don’t
you see how Pallas,
and the huntress Diana,
forsake me? And Ceres’s
daughter too, Proserpine, will be a virgin if we allow
it, since she hopes to be like them. But you, if you delight in our shared
kingdom, can mate the goddess to her uncle.’ So Venus spoke: he undid his
quiver, and at his mother’s bidding took an arrow, one from a thousand, and
none was sharper, more certain, or better obeyed the bow. Then he bent the
pliant tips against his knee, and with his barbed arrow struck Dis in
the heart.”
Bk
V:385-424 Calliope sings: Dis and the
rape of Proserpine
‘“Not
far from the walls of Enna,
there is a deep pool. Pergus is
its name. Caÿster does
not hear more songs than rise from the swans on its gliding waves. A wood
encircles the waters, surrounds them on every side, and its leaves act as a
veil, dispelling Phoebus’s
shafts. The branches give it coolness, and the moist soil, Tyrian purple
flowers: there, it is everlasting Spring. While Proserpine was
playing in this glade, and gathering violets or radiant lilies, while with
girlish fondness she filled the folds of her gown, and her basket, trying to
outdo her companions in her picking, Dis,
almost in a moment, saw her, prized her, took her: so swift as this, is love.
The frightened goddess cries out to her mother, to her friends, most of all to
her mother, with piteous mouth. Since she had torn her dress at the opening,
the flowers she had collected fell from her loosened tunic, and even their
scattering caused her virgin tears. The ravisher whipped up his chariot, and
urged on the horses, calling them by name, shaking out the shadowy, dark-dyed,
reins, over their necks and manes, through deep pools, they say, and the
sulphurous reeking swamps of the Palici,
vented from a crevice of the earth, to Syracuse where the Bacchiadae,
a people born of Corinth between
two seas, laid out their city between unequal harbours.
‘“Between Cyane and Pisaean Arethusa,
there is a bay enclosed by narrow arms. Here lived Cyane,
best known of the Sicilian nymphs, from whom the name of the spring was also
taken. She showed herself from the pool as far as her waist, and recognising
the goddess, cried out to Dis, ‘No’, and ‘Go no further!’ ‘You cannot be Ceres’s
son against her will: the girl should have been asked, and not abused. If it is
right for me to compare small things with great, Anapis prized
me and I wedded him, but I was persuaded by talk and not by terror.’ Speaking,
she stretched her arms out at her sides, obstructing him. The son
of Saturn could scarcely contain his wrath, and urging
on the dread horses, he turned his royal sceptre with powerful arm, and plunged
it through the bottom of the pool. The earth, pierced, made a road to Tartarus,
and swallowed the headlong chariot, into the midst of the abyss.
Bk
V:425-486 Calliope sings: Ceres searches
for Proserpine
‘“Cyane,
mourning the rape of the goddess, and the contempt for the sanctities of her
fountain, nursed an inconsolable grief in her silent heart, and pined away
wholly with sorrow. She melted into those waters whose great goddess she had
previously been. You might see her limbs becoming softened, her bones seeming
pliant, her nails losing their hardness. First of all the slenderest parts
dissolve: her dusky hair, her fingers and toes, her feet and ankles (since it
is no great transformation from fragile limbs to cool waters). Next her breast
and back, shoulders and flanks slip away, vanishing into tenuous streams. At
last the water runs in her ruined veins, and nothing remains that you could
touch.
‘“Meanwhile the
mother, fearing, searches in vain for the maid, through
all the earth and sea. Neither the coming of dewy-haired Aurora,
nor Hesperus,
finds her resting. Lighting pine torches with both hands at Etna’s
fires, she wanders, unquiet, through the bitter darkness, and when the kindly
light has dimmed the stars, she still seeks her child, from the rising of the
sun till the setting of the sun.
‘“She
found herself thirsty and weary from her efforts, and had not moistened her
lips at any of the springs, when by chance she saw a hut with a roof of straw,
and she knocked on its humble door. At that sound, an old woman emerged, and
saw the goddess, and, when she asked for water, gave her something sweet made
with malted barley. While she drank what she had been given a rash,
foul-mouthed boy stood watching, and taunted her, and called her greedy. The
goddess was offended, and threw the liquid she had not yet drunk, mixed with
the grains of barley, in his face. His skin, absorbing it, became spotted, and
where he had once had arms, he now had legs. A tail was added to his altered
limbs, and he shrank to a little shape, so that he has no great power to harm.
He is like a lesser lizard, a newt, of tiny size. The old woman wondered and
wept, and, trying to touch the creature, it ran from her and searched out a
place to hide. It has a name fitting for its offence, stellio, its
body starred with various spots.
‘“It
would take too long to tell through what lands and seas the goddess wandered.
Searching the whole earth, she failed to find her daughter: she returned to
Sicily, and while crossing it from end to end, she came to Cyane,
who if she had not been changed would have told all. But though she wished to,
she had neither mouth nor tongue, nor anything with which to speak. Still she
revealed clear evidence, known to the mother, and showed Persephone’s
ribbon, fallen, by chance, into the sacred pool. As soon as she recognised it,
the goddess tore her dishevelled hair, and beat her breast again and again with
her hands, as if she at last comprehended the rape. She did not know yet where
Persephone was, but condemned all the lands, and called them thankless and
unworthy of her gift of corn, Sicily, that Trinacria,
above all, where she had discovered the traces of her loss.
‘“So,
in that place, with cruel hands, she broke the ploughs that turned up the soil,
and, in her anger, dealt destruction to farmers, and the cattle in their
fields, alike, and ordered the ever-faithful land to fail, and spoiled the
sowing. The fertility of that country, acclaimed throughout the world, was
spoken of as a fiction: the crops died as young shoots, destroyed by too much
sun, and then by too much rain. Wind and weather harmed them, and hungry birds
gathered the scattered seed. Thistles and darnel and stubborn grasses ruined
the wheat harvest.
Bk
V:487-532 Calliope sings: Ceres asks
Jupiter’s help
‘“Then Arethusa,
once of Elis,
whom Alpheus loved,
lifted her head from her pool, and brushed the wet hair from her forehead,
saying ‘O great goddess of the crops, mother of that virgin sought through all
the earth, end your fruitless efforts, and do not anger yourself so deeply against
the faithful land. The land does not deserve it: it opened to the rape against
its will. It is not my country, I pray for: I came here as a stranger. Pisa is
my country, and Elis is my source. I am a foreigner in Sicily,
but its soil is more to me than other lands. Here is my home: here are my household
gods. Most gentle one, preserve it. A fitting time will
come for me to tell you, how I moved from my country, and came to Ortygia,
over such a great expanse of sea, when you are free of care, and of happier
countenance. The fissured earth showed me a way, and slipping below the deepest
caverns, here, I lifted up my head, and saw the unfamiliar stars.
‘“‘So,
while I glided underground down there, among Stygian streams,
with these very eyes, I saw your Proserpine. She was sad indeed, but, though
her face was fearful still, she was nevertheless a queen, the greatest one among
the world of shadows, the powerful consort, nevertheless, of the king of
hell!’ The
mother was stunned to hear these words, as if
petrified, and was, for a long time, like someone thunderstruck, until the blow
of deep amazement became deep indignation. She rose, in her chariot, to the
realms of heaven. There, her whole face clouded with hate, she appeared
before Jove with
dishevelled hair.
‘“‘Jupiter
I have come to you in entreaty for my child and for your own’ she cried. ‘If
the mother finds no favour with you, let the daughter move you, and do not let
your concern for her be less, I beg you, because I gave her birth. See, the
daughter I have searched for so long, has been found, if you call it finding to
lose her more surely, if you call it finding merely to know where she is. I can
bear the fact that she has been raped, if he will only return her! A spoiler is
not worthy to be the husband of your daughter, even if she is no longer my
daughter.’ Jupiter replied ‘Our child is a pledge and a charge, between us, you
and I. But if only we are willing to give things their right names, the thing
is not an insult in itself: the truth is it is love. He would not be a shameful
son-in-law for us, if only you would wish it, goddess. How great a thing it is
to be Jupiter’s brother, even if all the rest is lacking! Why, what if there is
nothing lacking at all, except what he yielded to me by lot? But if you have
such a great desire to separate them, Proserpine shall
return to heaven, but on only one condition, that no food has touched her lips,
since that is the law, decreed by the Fates.’
Bk
V:533-571 Calliope sings: Persephone’s
fate
‘“He
spoke, and Ceres felt
sure of regaining her daughter. But the Fates would not allow it, for the girl
had broken her fast, and wandering, innocently, in a well-tended garden, she
had pulled down a reddish-purple pomegranate fruit, hanging from a tree, and,
taking seven seeds from its yellow rind, squeezed them in her mouth. Ascalaphus was
the only one to see it, whom, it is said, Orphne bore,
to her Acheron,
in the dark woods, she not the least known of the nymphs of Avernus.
He saw, and by his cruel disclosure, prevented Proserpine’s return. Then
the queen of Erebus grieved,
and changed the informant into a bird of ill omen: she sprinkled his head with
water from the Phlegethon,
and changed him to a beak, plumage, and a pair of huge eyes. Losing his own
form he is covered by his tawny wings, and looks like a head, and long, curving
claws. He scarcely stirs the feathers growing on his idle wings. He has become
an odious bird, a messenger of future disaster, the screech owl, torpid by day,
a fearful omen to mortal creatures.
‘“He
indeed can be seen to have deserved his punishment, because of his disclosure
and his words. But why have you, Sirens,
skilled in song, daughters
of Acheloüs, the feathers and claws of birds, while still
bearing human faces? Is it because you were numbered among the companions, then Proserpine gathered
the flowers of Spring? When you had searched in vain for her on land, you
wanted, then, to cross the waves on beating wings, so that the waters would
also know of your trouble. The gods were willing, and suddenly you saw your limbs
covered with golden plumage. But, so that your song, born, sweetly, in our
ears, and your rich vocal gift, might not be lost with your tongues, each
virgin face and human voice remained.
‘“Now Jupiter,
intervening, between his brother and grieving sister, divides the turning year,
equally. And now the goddess, Persephone, shared divinity of the two kingdoms,
spends so many months with her mother, so many months with her husband. The
aspect of her face and mind alters in a moment. Now the goddess’s looks are
glad that even Dis could
see were sad, a moment ago. Just as the sun, hidden, before, by clouds of rain,
wins through and leaves the clouds.
Bk
V:572-641 Calliope sings: Arethusa’s
story
‘“Ceres,
kindly now, happy in the return of her daughter, asks what the cause of your
flight was, Arethusa,
and why you are now a sacred fountain. The waters fall silent while their
goddess lifts her head from the deep pool, and wringing the water from her
sea-green tresses, she tells of the former love of that river of Elis.
‘“‘I
was one of the nymphs, that lived in Achaia,’
she said ‘none of them keener to travel the woodland, none of them keener to
set out the nets. But, though I never sought fame for my beauty, though I was
wiry, my name was, the beautiful. Nor did my looks, praised too often, give me
delight. I blushed like a simpleton at the gifts of my body, those things that
other girls used to rejoice in. I thought it was sinful to please.
‘“‘Tired
(I remember), I was returning, from the Stymphalian woods.
It was hot, and my efforts had doubled the heat. I came to a river, without a
ripple, hurrying on without a murmur, clear to its bed, in whose depths you
could count every pebble: you would scarce think it moving. Silvery willows and
poplars, fed by the waters, gave a natural shade to the sloping banks.
Approaching I dipped my toes in, then as far as my knees, and not content with
that I undressed, and draped my light clothes on a hanging willow, and plunged,
naked, into the stream. While I gathered the water to me and splashed, gliding
around in a thousand ways, and stretching out my arms to shake the water from
them, I thought I heard a murmur under the surface, and, in fear, I leapt for
the nearest bank of the flood.
‘“‘“What
are you rushing for, Arethusa?” Alpheus called
from the waves. “Why are you rushing?” He called again to me, in a strident
voice. Just as I was, I fled, without my clothes (I had left my clothes on the
other bank): so much the more fiercely he pursued and burned, and being naked,
I seemed readier for him. So I ran, and so he wildly followed, as doves fly
from a hawk on flickering wings, as a hawk is used to chasing frightened doves.
Even beyond Orchemenus,
I still ran, by Psophis,
and Cyllene,
and the ridges of Maenalus,
by chill Erymanthus, Elis,
he no quicker than I. But I could not stay the course, being unequal in
strength: he was fitted for unremitting effort. Still, across the plains, over
tree-covered mountains, through rocks and crags, and where there was no path, I
ran. The sun was at my back. I saw a long shadow stretching out before my feet,
unless it was my fear that saw it, but certainly I feared the sound of feet,
and the deep breaths from his mouth stirred the ribbons in my hair. Weary with
the effort to escape him, I cried out “Help me: I will be taken. Diana,
help the one who bore your weapons for you, whom you often gave your bow to
carry, and your quiver with all its arrows!” The goddess was moved, and raising
an impenetrable cloud, threw it over me.
‘“‘The
river-god circled the concealing fog, and in ignorance searched about the
hollow mist. Twice, without understanding, he rounded the place, where the
goddess had concealed me, and twice called out “Arethusa,
O Arethusa!” What wretched feelings were mine, then? Perhaps those the lamb has
when it hears the wolves, howling round the high fold, or the hare, that,
hidden in the briars, sees the dogs hostile muzzles, and does not dare to make
a movement of its body? He did not go far: he could see no signs of my tracks
further on: he observed the cloud and the place. Cold sweat poured down my
imprisoned limbs, and dark drops trickled from my whole body. Wherever I moved
my foot, a pool gathered, and moisture dripped from my hair, and faster than I
can now tell the tale I turned to liquid. And indeed the river-god saw his love
in the water, and putting off the shape of a man he had assumed, he changed
back to his own watery form, and mingled with mine.
The Delian goddess
split the earth, and plunging down into secret caverns, I was brought here
to Ortygia,
dear to me, because it has the same name as my goddess, the ancient name, for
Delos, where she was born, and this was the first place to receive me, into the
clear air.’
Bk
V:642-678 Calliope sings: Triptolemus.
The Fate of the Pierides
‘“That
was as far as Arethusa went. The goddess of all that is fertile, fastened twin
dragons to her chariot, curbing them with the bit, between their teeth, and was
carried through the air, between heaven and earth. Reaching Eleusis,
by Athens,
city of Tritonian Minerva,
she gave her swift chariot to Triptolemus,
and ordered him to scatter the seeds she gave, partly in untilled soil, partly
in fields reclaimed, after lying for a long time fallow.
‘“Now
the youth was carried high over Europe and Asia. He turned his face
towards Scythia where, Lyncus was
king. He stood before the king’s household
gods. He was asked how he had come there, and the
reason for his journey, his name and his country. He said ‘Athens, the famous
city, is my home, Triptolemus, my name. I came not by ship, on the sea, or by
foot, over land. The clear air parted for me. I bring you the gifts of Ceres.
If you scatter them through the wide fields, they will give you back fruitful
harvests, and ripening crops.’ The barbarian was jealous. So that he might be
the author, of so great a gift, he received him like a guest, but attacked
Triptolemus, with a sword, while he was in deep sleep. As he attempted to
pierce the youth’s breast, Ceres turned the king into a lynx, then ordered the
youth, of Athens, the city of Mopsopus,
to drive the sacred team back through the air.”
‘So
ended the singing, from the
greatest of our singers, and the nymphs, with one
harmonious voice, said that the
goddesses of Helicon had
taken the honours. When the losers hurled abuse at us, I said “Seeing that you
deserve punishment enough for your challenge, and now add profanities to your
offence, and since our patience is not unlimited, we will move on to sentence
you, and follow where anger prompts us.”
The Emathides laughed
and ridiculed these threatening words, but as they tried to speak, and, attack
us with insolent hands, making a great clamour, they saw feathers spring from
under their nails, and plumage cover their arms. Each one saw the next one’s
mouth harden to a solid beak, and a new bird enter the trees. When they wanted
to beat their breasts in sorrow, they hung in the air, lifted by the movement
of their arms, magpies now, the slanderers of the woods. Even now, as birds,
their former eloquence remains, their raucous garrulity, and their monstrous
capacity for chatter.’
I was very disappointed by Picart's illustration in the 1732 volumes published in Amsterdam by Wetstein and Smith ... Picart's magpies fade into the distance, losing any narrative significance ... BUT there's very little meaningful action in his composition to convey any sense of the nymphs insolence ... not that it would have been easy.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1352319/f177.item.r=ovide%20metamorphosesPicart%20Picart
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/376655?ao=on&ft=Parnassus&offset=0&rpp=40&pos=40
Chretien Legouais
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b100521366.r=Pierides?rk=21459;2
