“‘Yet, slighting all these, he was attached to one Nymph, whom, on the Palatine hill, Venilia is said once to have borne to the Ionian Janus.[33] Soon as she was ripe with marriageable years, she was presented to Laurentine Picus, preferred by her before all others; wondrous, indeed, was she in her beauty, but more wondrous still, through her skill in singing; thence she was called Canens.[34] She was wont, with her voice, to move the woods and the rocks, and to tame the wild beasts, and to stop the course of the long rivers, and to detain the fleeting birds. While she was singing her songs with her feminine voice, Picus had gone from his dwelling into the Laurentine fields, to pierce the wild boars there bred; and he was pressing the back of his spirited horse, and was carrying two javelins in his left hand, having a purple cloak fastened with yellow gold. The daughter of the Sun, too, had come into the same wood; and that she might pluck fresh plants on the fruitful hills, she had left behind the Circæan fields, so called after her own name.
“‘Hidden by the shrubs, soon as she beheld the youth, she was astounded; the plants which she had gathered fell from her bosom, and a flame seemed to pervade her entire marrow. As soon as she regained her presence of mind from so powerful a shock, she was about to confess what she desired; the speed of his horse, and the surrounding guards, caused that she xiv. 354-389. could not approach. ‘And yet thou shalt not escape me,’ she said, ‘even shouldst thou be borne on the winds, if I only know myself, if all potency in herbs has not vanished, and if my charms do not deceive me.’ Thus she said; and she formed the phantom of a fictitious wild boar, with no substance, and commanded it to run past the eyes of the king, and to seem to go into a forest, thick set with trees, where the wood is most dense, and where the spot is inaccessible to a horse. There is no delay; Picus, forthwith, unconsciously follows the phantom of the prey; hastily too, he leaves the reeking back of his steed, and, in pursuit of a vain hope, wanders on foot in the lofty forest. She repeats prayers to herself, and utters magical incantations, and adores strange Gods in strange verses, with which she is wont both to darken the disk of the snow-white moon, and to draw the clouds that suck up the moisture, over the head of her father. Then does the sky become lowering at the repeating of the incantation, and the ground exhales its vapours; and his companions wander along the darkened paths, and his guards are separated from the king.
“‘She, having now gained a favourable place and opportunity, says, ‘O, most beauteous youth! by thy eyes, which have captivated mine, and by this graceful person, which makes me, though a Goddess, to be thy suppliant, favour my passion, and receive the Sun, that beholds all things, as thy father-in-law, and do not in thy cruelty despise Circe, the daughter of Titan.’ Thus she says. He roughly repels her and her entreaties: and he says, ‘Whoever thou art, I am not for thee; another female holds me enthralled, and for a long space of time, I pray, may she so hold me. I will not pollute the conjugal ties with the love of a stranger, while the Fates shall preserve for me Canens, the daughter of Janus.’ The daughter of Titan, having often repeated her entreaties in vain, says, ‘Thou shalt not depart with impunity, nor shalt thou return to Canens; and by experience shalt thou learn what one slighted, what one in love, what a woman, can do; but that one in love, and slighted, and a woman, is Circe.’
“‘Then twice did she turn herself to the West, and twice to the East; thrice did she touch the youth with her wand; three charms did she repeat. He fled; wondering that he sped more swiftly than usual, he beheld wings on his body; xiv. 390-419. and indignant that he was added suddenly as a strange bird to the Latian woods, he struck the wild oaks with his hard beak, and, in his anger, inflicted wounds[35] on the long branches. His wings took the purple colour of his robe. The piece of gold that had formed a buckle, and had fastened his garment, became feathers, and his neck was encompassed with the colour of yellow gold; and nothing now remained to Picus of his former self, beyond the name.
“‘In the meantime his attendants, having, often in vain, called on Picus throughout the fields, and, having found him in no direction, meet with Circe, (for now she has cleared the air, and has allowed the clouds to be dispersed by the woods and the sun); and they charge her with just accusations, and demand back their king, and are using violence, and are preparing to attack her with ruthless weapons. She scatters noxious venom and poisonous extracts; and she summons together Night, and the Gods of Night, from Erebus and from Chaos, and she invokes Hecate in magic howlings. Wondrous to tell, the woods leap from their spot; the ground utters groans, the neighbouring trees become pallid, the grass becomes moist, besprinkled with drops of blood; the stones seem to send forth harsh lowings, the dogs seem to bark, and the ground to grow loathsome with black serpents, and unsubstantial ghosts of the departed appear to flit about. The multitude trembles, astonished at these prodigies; she touches their astonished faces, as they tremble, with her enchanted wand. From the touch of this, the monstrous forms of various wild beasts come upon the young men; his own form remains to no one of them.
“‘The setting Sun has now borne down upon the Tartessian shores;[36] and in vain is her husband expected, both by the eyes and the longings of Canens. Her servants and the people run about through all the woods, and carry lights to xiv. 419-440. meet him. Nor is it enough for the Nymph to weep, and to tear her hair, and to beat her breast; though all this she does, she rushes forth, and, in her distraction, she wanders through the Latian fields. Six nights, and as many returning lights of the Sun, beheld her, destitute of sleep and of food, going over hills and valleys, wherever chance led her. Tiber, last of all, beheld her, worn out with weeping and wandering, and reposing her body on his cold banks. There, with tears, she poured forth words attuned, lamenting, in a low voice, her very woes, as when the swan, now about to die, sings his own funereal dirge.
“‘At last, melting with grief, even to her thin marrow, she pined away, and by degrees vanished into light air. Yet the Fame of it became attached to the spot, which the ancient Muses have properly called Canens, after the name of the Nymph.’ During that long year, many such things as these were told me and were seen by me. Sluggish and inactive through idleness, we were ordered again to embark on the deep, again to set our sails. The daughter of Titan had said that dangerous paths, and a protracted voyage, and the perils of the raging sea were awaiting us. I was alarmed, I confess; and having reached these shores, here I remained.”
[ EXPLANATION.]
When names occur in the ancient Mythology, of Oriental origin, we may conclude that they were imported into Greece and Italy from Egypt or Phœnicia; and that their stories were derived from the same sources; such as those of Adonis, Arethusa, Arachne, and Isis. Those that are derived from the Greek languages are attached to fictions of purely Greek origin, such as the fables of Daphne, Galantis, Cygnus, and the Myrmidons; and where the names are of Latin original, we may conclude that their stories originated in Italy: such, for instance, as those of Canens, Picus, Anna Perenna, Flora, Quirinus, and others.
To this rule there are certain exceptions; for both Greece and Italy occasionally appropriated each other’s traditions, by substituting the names of one language for those of the other. Thus it would not be safe to affirm positively that the story of Portumnus and Matuta is of Latin origin, since Greece lays an equal claim to it under the names of Leucothoë and Palæmon, while, probably, Cadmus originally introduced it from Phœnicia, under the names of Ino and Melicerta.