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8 | Metamorphoses

The Golden Age

The teeming Earth, yet guiltless of the plough,
And unprovok'd, did fruitful stores allow:
Content with food, which Nature freely bred,
On wildings and on strawberries they fed;
Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,
And falling acorns furnish'd out a feast.
(Ovid [43bce-17ce], Metamorphes, "The Golden Age")

The Story of Baucis and Philemon

One goose they had ('twas all they could allow),
A wakeful centry, and on duty now,
Whom to the Gods for sacrifice they vow:
Her with malicious zeal the couple view'd;
She ran for life, and limping they pursu'd:
Full well the fowl perceiv'd their bad intent
And would not make her master's compliment;
But persecuted, to the Pow'rs she flies,
And close between the legs of Jove she lies:
He with a gracious ear the suppliant heard,
And sav'd her life; then what he has declar'd,
And own'd the God. The neighbourhood, said he,
Shall justly perish for impiety:
(Ovid [43bce-17ce], Metamorphes, "The Story of Baucis and Philemon")

The Fable of Cyparissus

Much was the beast by Caea's youth caress'd,
But thou, sweet Cyparissus, lov'dst him best:…
…'Twas when the summer sun, at noon of day,
Thro' glowing Cancer shot his burning ray,
'Twas then, the fav'rite stag, in cool retreat,
Had sought a shelter from the scorching heat;
Along the grass his weary limbs he laid,
Inhaling freshness from the breezy shade:
When Cyparissus with his pointed dart,
Unknowing, pierc'd him to the panting heart.
But when the youth, surpriz'd, his error found,
And saw him dying of the cruel wound,
Himself he would have slain thro' desp'rate grief:
What said not Phoebus, that might yield relief!
To cease his mourning, he the boy desir'd,
Or mourn no more than such a loss requir'd.
But he, incessant griev'd: at length address'd
To the superior Pow'rs a last request;
Praying, in expiation of his crime,
Thenceforth to mourn to all succeeding time.
(Ovid [43bce-17ce], Metamorphes, "The Fable of Cyparissus")

The Pythagorean Philosophy

Of these, and things beyond the common reach,
He spoke, and charm'd his audience with his speech.
He first the taste of flesh from tables drove,
And argu'd well, if arguments cou'd move:
O mortals, from your fellows' blood abstain,
Nor taint your bodies with a food profane:
While corn, and pulse by Nature are bestow'd,
And planted orchards bend their willing load;
While labour'd gardens wholesom herbs produce,
And teeming vines afford their gen'rous juice;
Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost,
But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the frost;
While kine to pails distended udders bring,
And bees their hony redolent of Spring;
While Earth not only can your needs supply,
But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury;
A guiltless feast administers with ease,
And without blood is prodigal to please.
Wild beasts their maws with their slain brethren fill;
And yet not all, for some refuse to kill;
Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler steed,
On browz, and corn, and flow'ry meadows, feed.
Bears, tygers, wolves, the lyon's angry brood,
Whom Heav'n endu'd with principles of blood,
He wisely sundred from the rest, to yell
In forests, and in lonely caves to dwell;
Where stronger beasts oppress the weak by might.
And all in prey, and purple feasts delight.
O impious use! to Nature's laws oppos'd,
Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd:
Where fatten'd by their fellow's fat, they thrive;
Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.
'Tis then for nought, that Mother Earth provides
The stores of all she shows, and all she hides,
If men with fleshy morsels must be fed,
And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing bread:
What else is this, but to devour our guests,
And barb'rously renew Cyclopean feasts!
We, by destroying life, our life sustain;
And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obscene.
Not so the Golden Age, who fed on fruit,
Nor durst with bloody meals their mouths pollute.
Then birds in airy space might safely move,
And tim'rous hares on heaths securely rove:
Nor needed fish the guileful hooks to fear,
For all was peaceful; and that peace sincere.
Whoever was the wretch (and curs'd be he)
That envy'd first our food's simplicity,
Th' essay of bloody feasts on brutes began,
And after forg'd the sword to murder Man.
Had he the sharpen'd steel alone employ'd
On beasts of prey; that other beasts destroy'd,
Or Man invaded with their fangs and paws,
This had been justify'd by Nature's laws,
And self-defence: but who did feasts begin
Of flesh, he stretch'd necessity to sin.
To kill man-killers, Man has lawful pow'r,
But not th' extended licence, to devour.
Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
The sow, with her broad snout, for rooting up
Th' intrusted seed, was judg'd to spoil the crop,
And intercept the sweating farmer's hope:
The covetous churl, of unforgiving kind,
Th' offender to the bloody priest resign'd:
Her hunger was no plea: for that she dy'd.
The goat came next in order to be try'd:
The goat had cropt the tendrils of the vine:
In vengeance laity, and clergy join,
Where one had lost his profit, one his wine.
Here was, at least, some shadow of offence;
The sheep was sacrific'd on no pretence,
But meek, and unresisting innocence.
A patient, useful creature, born to bear
The warm, and wooly fleece, that cloath'd her murderer;
And daily to give down the milk she bred,
A tribute for the grass on which she fed.
Living, both food and rayment she supplies,
And is of least advantage, when she dies.
How did the toyling ox his death deserve,
A downright simple drudge, and born to serve?
O tyrant! with what justice canst thou hope
The promise of the year, a plenteous crop;
When thou destroy'st thy lab'ring steer, who till'd,
And plough'd with pains, thy else ungrateful field?
From his yet reeking neck, to draw the yoke,
That neck, with which the surly clods he broke;
And to the hatchet yield thy husbandman,
Who finish'd Autumn, and the Spring began!
Nor this alone! but Heav'n it self to bribe,
We to the Gods our impious acts ascribe:
First recompence with death their creatures' toil;
Then call the bless'd above to share the spoil:
The fairest victim must the Pow'rs appease
(So fatal 'tis sometimes too much to please!),
A purple fillet his broad brows adorns,
With flow'ry garlands crown'd, and gilded horns:
He hears the murd'rous pray'r the priest prefers,
But understands not, 'tis his doom he hears:
Beholds the meal betwixt his temples cast
(The fruit and product of his labours past);
And in the water views perhaps the knife
Uplifted, to deprive him of his life;
Then broken up alive, his entrails sees
Torn out, for priests t' inspect the Gods' decrees.
From whence, o mortal men, this gust of blood
Have you deriv'd, and interdicted food?
Be taught by me this dire delight to shun,
Warn'd by my precepts, by my practice won:
And when you eat the well-deserving beast,
Think, on the lab'rour of your field you feast!
(Ovid [43bce-17ce], Metamorphes, "The Pythagorean Philosophy")

1st c. | Fasti

[381] Death claims the sheep: shameless it cropped the holy herbs which a pious beldame used to offer to the rural gods. What creature is safe, when even the wool-bearing sheep and ploughing oxen lay down their lives upon the altars? (Ovid [43bce-17ce], Fasti)

[441] Ye birds, the solace of the countryside, ye haunters of the woods, ye harmless race, that built your nests and warm your eggs under your plumes, and with glib voices utter descant sweet, ye were inviolate once.
(Ovid [43bce-17ce], Fasti)

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8 CE | Ovid, "The Golden Age," "The Story of Baucis and Philemon," ""The Fable of Cyparissus," and "The Pythagorean Philosophy"in Metamorphoses, translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden et al. , (1717); Metamorphoses, translated by A. S. Kline (Online at Poetry in Translation, 2002). See also the first English translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses by Arthur Golding of 1567 and George Sandy's illustrated translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1626; 1632).

Ovid [43BCE-17CE], Fasti translated by James George Frazer, Loeb Classical Library Volume (Cambrige, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1931; Online at Theoi.com).

1883 | Howard Williams, "Publius Ovidius Naso" in The Ethics of Diet [First Edition: London & Manchester, 1883] 2nd ed. (London & Manchester, 1896; Online at Animal Rights History, 2006).

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