quatit: quatere,to shake.
228. remigio: remigium, oarage, set of oars; Ovid’s use of this term for Icarus’ wings deliberately anticipates the boy’s fall from the sky into the sea.
percipit: percipere,to receive, catch.
229. ora…aqua (230): the complex interlocking order (ABCACB) suits Ovid’s violent and pathetic image of the youth’s drowning.
caerulea: lit., sky-blue, mirroring the caelum (224) from which Icarus has fallen; similarly excipiuntur aqua in 230 is an ironic echo of percipit auras in 228, as the boy who cannot quite catch hold of the air through which he “sails” is himself caught up by the water in which he drowns.
231. nec iam pater: i.e., since Icarus had just perished in the sea.
Icarus’ youthful impetuosity precipitates his destruction.
“The Fall of Icarus” Carlo Saraceni, ca. 1608 Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy
Scala/Art Resource, NY.
Et iam Iunonia laeva parte Samos (fuerant Delosque Parosque relictae), dextra Lebinthos erat fecundaque melle Calymne, cum puer audaci coepit gaudere volatu deseruitque ducem caelique cupidine tractus 225 altius egit iter. Rapidi vicinia solis mollit odoratas, pennarum vincula, ceras. Tabuerant cerae; nudos quatit ille lacertos, remigioque carens non ullas percipit auras, oraque caerulea patrium clamantia nomen 230 excipiuntur aqua, quae nomen traxit ab illo. At pater infelix, nec iam pater, “Icare,” dixit; “Icare,” dixit “ubi es? Qua te regione requiram?” “Icare,” dicebat. Pennas aspexit in undis, devovitque suas artes, corpusque sepulcro 235 condidit; et tellus a nomine dicta sepulti.
233. dicebat: Ovid’s shift to the impf. here (he kept calling), after dixit…dixit, and his triple repetition of Icarus’ name add to the pathos of the passage; and the repetition also of nomen/nomen/nomine underscores the story’s point that Icarus gave his name to both the Icarian Sea (quae no-men traxit ab illo, 230) and the island of Icaria (the tellus, land, of 235).
234. devovit: devovere, lit., to vow away = curse.
sepulcro: sepulcrum,tomb, sepulcher.
235. sepulti: sepelire, to bury; set at line’s end to echo its cognate sepulcro and punctuate the narrative’s grim conclusion.
1. inde: adv., thence, from there; i.e., from Crete, where the marriage god Hymenaeus had attended a wedding (in the story preceding this one at the end of Metamorphoses 9).
croceo:saffron yellow, the color of a bride’s veil, and so a color naturally enough worn by the god of marriage.
velatus: velare,to veil, cover, cloak; the word is surrounded by croceo…
amictu, producing a WORD-PICTURE.
amictu: amictus,robe, cloak.
2. Ciconum: the Cicones, a people in Thrace, which was a district north of the Aegean Sea and the homeland of Orpheus.
oras: ora,coast, shore.
3. Orphea: adj., of Orpheus. A mythical poet, singer, and musician and son of the Muse Calliope, Orpheus was given a lyre by Apollo and instructed by the god; his skill was so great that he could charm with his music not only men and beasts but even trees and stones.
nequiquam: because of the unhappy end of the marriage.
4. sollemnia: religious, festive, customary.
6. fax: torch. An attribute of Hymenaeus, torches were carried in the wedding procession; it was a bad omen for a torch not to burn with a bright flame.
stridula:hissing, sputtering.
7. motibus: with its movement; i.e., the torch did not flame up even when waved through the air to ignite the sparks.
8. exitus: outcome, result; sc. erat.
auspicio: auspicium,omen.
nupta…nova (9):the new bride; i.e., Eurydice, who is curiously not named until line 31.
9. Naiadum: Nais, Naiad (a water nymph).
comitata: comitare,to accompany.
vagatur: vagari,to wander, roam.
10. talum: talus, ankle, heel; in…recepto seems an odd circumlocution and is taken by some readers, along with other curiosities in the narrative, as an intentional deflation of the story’s seriousness by way of parodying the grander version in Vergil’s Georgics (4.452–546).
11. quam: Eurydice.
Rhodopeius…vates (12):the Thracian bard; from Rhodope, a mountain of Thrace. Note the INTERLOCKED WORD ORDER with superas…auras.
12. deflevit: deflere, to weep for, bewail; modified by the rather unheroic satis.
ne non temptaret et:that he might not(ne)fail to(non)try even(et).
