The Story of Pygmalion and the Statue From Book X of Ovid‟s Metamorphoses
Written 1 A.C.E.;
translated into English verse [17thC] under the direction of Sir Samuel Garth by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, William Congreve and other eminent hands Pygmalion loathing their lascivious life, Abhorr'd all womankind, but most a wife: So single chose to live, and shunn'd to wed, Well pleas'd to want a consort of his bed. Yet fearing idleness, the nurse of ill, In sculpture exercis'd his happy skill; And carv'd in iv'ry such a maid, so fair, As Nature could not with his art compare, Were she to work; but in her own defence Must take her pattern here, and copy hence. Pleas'd with his idol, he commends, admires, Adores; and last, the thing ador'd, desires. A very virgin in her face was seen, And had she mov'd, a living maid had been: One wou'd have thought she cou'd have stirr'd, but strove With modesty, and was asham'd to move. Art hid with art, so well perform'd the cheat, It caught the carver with his own deceit: He knows 'tis madness, yet he must adore, And still the more he knows it, loves the more: The flesh, or what so seems, he touches oft, Which feels so smooth, that he believes it soft. Fir'd with this thought, at once he strain'd the breast, And on the lips a burning kiss impress'd. 'Tis true, the harden'd breast resists the gripe, And the cold lips return a kiss unripe: But when, retiring back, he look'd again, To think it iv'ry, was a thought too mean: So wou'd believe she kiss'd, and courting more, Again embrac'd her naked body o'er; And straining hard the statue, was afraid His hands had made a dint, and hurt his maid: Explor'd her limb by limb, and fear'd to find So rude a gripe had left a livid mark behind: With flatt'ry now he seeks her mind to move, And now with gifts (the pow'rful bribes of love), He furnishes her closet first; and fills The crowded shelves with rarities of shells; Adds orient pearls, which from the conchs he drew, And all the sparkling stones of various hue:
Notes by Dennis G. Jerz
want = “lack” i.e. idleness leads to illness
the statue more beautiful than what Nature could make 10
modesty is a strategy (“art”)?
20
gripe = “grip”
30
40
And parrots, imitating human tongue, And singing-birds in silver cages hung: And ev'ry fragrant flow'r, and od'rous green, Were sorted well, with lumps of amber laid between: Rich fashionable robes her person deck, Pendants her ears, and pearls adorn her neck: Her taper'd fingers too with rings are grac'd, And an embroider'd zone surrounds her slender waste. Thus like a queen array'd, so richly dress'd, Beauteous she shew'd, but naked shew'd the best. Then, from the floor, he rais'd a royal bed, With cov'rings of Sydonian purple spread: The solemn rites perform'd, he calls her bride, With blandishments invites her to his side; And as she were with vital sense possess'd, Her head did on a plumy pillow rest. The feast of Venus came, a solemn day, To which the Cypriots due devotion pay; With gilded horns the milk-white heifers led, Slaughter'd before the sacred altars, bled. Pygmalion off'ring, first approach'd the shrine, And then with pray'rs implor'd the Pow'rs divine: Almighty Gods, if all we mortals want, If all we can require, be yours to grant; Make this fair statue mine, he wou'd have said, But chang'd his words for shame; and only pray'd, Give me the likeness of my iv'ry maid. The golden Goddess, present at the pray'r, Well knew he meant th' inanimated fair, And gave the sign of granting his desire; For thrice in chearful flames ascends the fire. The youth, returning to his mistress, hies, And impudent in hope, with ardent eyes, And beating breast, by the dear statue lies. He kisses her white lips, renews the bliss, And looks, and thinks they redden at the kiss; He thought them warm before: nor longer stays, But next his hand on her hard bosom lays: Hard as it was, beginning to relent, It seem'd, the breast beneath his fingers bent; He felt again, his fingers made a print; 'Twas flesh, but flesh so firm, it rose against the dint: The pleasing task he fails not to renew;
amber: associated with the sun god Apollo; tiny bits more costly than slaves 50
60 Venus to Romans, Aphordite to greeks; goddess of love Cypriots = those in Cypress (in some versions, Pygmalion is king of Cypress)
What he wanted to say… 70 …and what he said. “golden Goddess” Venus/Aphrodite hies = “hurries” beating one‟s breast = showing grief
80
Soft, and more soft at ev'ry touch it grew; Like pliant wax, when chasing hands reduce The former mass to form, and frame for use. He would believe, but yet is still in pain, And tries his argument of sense again, Presses the pulse, and feels the leaping vein. Convinc'd, o'erjoy'd, his studied thanks, and praise, To her, who made the miracle, he pays: Then lips to lips he join'd; now freed from fear, He found the savour of the kiss sincere: At this the waken'd image op'd her eyes, And view'd at once the light, and lover with surprize. The Goddess, present at the match she made, So bless'd the bed, such fruitfulness convey'd, That ere ten months had sharpen'd either horn, To crown their bliss, a lovely boy was born; Paphos his name, who grown to manhood, wall'd The city Paphos, from the founder call'd.
90
100 horns = points of crescent moon (ten lunar months = nine calendar months)
A.S. Kline‟s modern translation of Ovid‟s Latin text.
http://etext.virginia.edu/latin/ovid/trans/Metamorph10.htm#_Toc484521423
Bk X:243-297 Orpheus sings: Pygmalion and the statue „Pygmalion had seen them, spending their lives in wickedness, and, offended by the failings that nature gave the female heart, he lived as a bachelor, without a wife or partner for his bed. But, with wonderful skill, he carved a figure, brilliantly, out of snow-white ivory, no mortal woman, and fell in love with his own creation. The features are those of a real girl, who, you might think, lived, and wished to move, if modesty did not forbid it. Indeed, art hides his art. He marvels: and passion, for this bodily image, consumes his heart. Often, he runs his hands over the work, tempted as to whether it is flesh or ivory, not admitting it to be ivory. he kisses it and thinks his kisses are returned; and speaks to it; and holds it, and imagines that his fingers press into the limbs, and is afraid lest bruises appear from the pressure. Now he addresses it with compliments, now brings it gifts that please girls, shells and polished pebbles, little birds, and many-coloured flowers, lilies and tinted beads, and the Heliades‟s amber tears, that drip from the trees. He dresses the body, also, in clothing; places rings on the fingers; places a long necklace round its neck; pearls hang from the ears, and cinctures round the breasts. All are fitting: but it appears no less lovely, naked. He arranges the statue on a bed on which cloths dyed with Tyrian murex are spread, and calls it his bedfellow, and rests its neck against soft down, as if it could feel. The day of Venus‟s festival came, celebrated throughout Cyprus, and heifers, their curved horns gilded, fell, to the blow on their snowy neck. The incense was smoking, when Pygmalion, having made his offering, stood by the altar, and said, shyly: “If you can grant all things, you gods, I wish as a bride to have...” and not daring to say “the girl of ivory” he said “one like my ivory girl.” Golden Venus, for she herself was present at the festival, knew what the prayer meant, and as a sign of the gods‟ fondness for him, the flame flared three times, and shook its crown in the air. When he returned, he sought out the image of his girl, and leaning over the couch, kissed her. She felt warm: he pressed his lips to her again, and also touched her breast with his hand. The ivory yielded to his touch, and lost its hardness, altering under his fingers, as the bees‟ wax of Hymettus softens in the sun, and is moulded, under the thumb, into many forms, made usable by use. The lover is stupefied, and joyful, but uncertain, and afraid he is wrong, reaffirms the fulfilment of his wishes, with his hand, again, and again. It was flesh! The pulse throbbed under his thumb. Then the hero, of Paphos, was indeed overfull of words with which to thank Venus, and still pressed his mouth against a mouth that was not merely a likeness. The girl felt the kisses he gave, blushed, and, raising her bashful eyes to the light, saw both her lover and the sky. The goddess attended the marriage that she had brought about, and when the moon‟s horns had nine times met at the full, the woman bore a son, Paphos, from whom the island takes its name.‟
Notes and Links
On the U.Va. site for Ovid's Metamorphoses, I found a link to Pygmalion Design, a huge collection of links exploring the Pygmalion legend in all its forms. Ovid‟s Metamorphoses, written in Latin around 1AD, is a collection of short mythological tales that feature strange and miraculous changes (singular metamorphosis, plural metamorphoses). A god make take the form of an animal, or turn a human into a tree. Sometimes, as in Pygmalion‟s story, the change is a kindness offered by a god to a mortal. Sometimes the change is a punishment. Other times, the changes are torments brought about by the whims of the gods Greek gods typically represented magnified versions of human strengths and weaknesses; thus the gods would sometimes fight over the favor of particular mortals, like children tussling over a toy – one of them may hurl the toy just to get it away from the other, even if the toy is broken in the process. Since the Greek legends were oral tales, I don't think there's any such thing as a definitive version of the Pygmalion legend, but Ovid‟s Latin version is probably the most prevalent. This legend about an artist has long been popular with artists; a sequence of four paintings by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones presents 1. a solitary artist ignoring real women and contemporary statues, 2. attracted to the creation that sits on the pedestal where he carved it, 3. embracing the newly living statue, and finally 4. kneeling before her. I notice that only the third and fourth images in the series seem to be readily available online in poster form. (The images are from ABC Gallery, which unfortunately inverts the order of the third and fourth images.) By contrast, a picture by Jean-Léon Gérome has Pygmalion embracing Galatea's upper body while the rest of her is still stone. What seems to be another angle on the same scene shows Pygmalion lunging forward, his cloak trailing out behind him, while most of her body is still stone. The cynical and brilliant George Bernard Shaw took on the pretensions of the upperclass with his play Pygmalion, which, stripped of its rather bleak and realistic ending (Higgins is insufferably smug, and really does deserve his solitude) was later the inspiration for the high school musical standard My Fair Lady. The artwork for the original show features Higgins as a puppeteer, pulling the strings on Eliza, and up in the clouds a twinkly-eyed God is pulling strings on Higgins.
Discussion Questions Re-read the basic summary of the Pygmalion legend in Bulfinch's Mythology. Now consider how the pictures by Burne-Jones and the pictures by Gérome differ in their presentation. Look at the differences between the 17thC verse translation and the 20thC prose translation. How have the authors adapted the basic legend to fit the different needs of their genres? What has each author added, emphasized, de-emphasized, or cut? Where have you run into variations of the Pygmalion legend – in other literary works, in popular culture? How does the author of this feminist retelling of Pygmalion adapt the legend to suit her needs?