At the end of the appalling story of Callisto’s abuse, Ovid returns to the image of Juno riding high in her chariot with peacocks adorned with the eyes of dead Argus. This leads on to one of the more intricate and interwoven sections of the Metamorphoses, with the overall theme of the penalties of gossip about others.
This first section starts with the story of how the raven was changed from white to black, and in the course of that Ovid embeds the stories of Minerva and Ericthonius changed into a crow, Nictimene’s incest, and Apollo killing Coronis. Added as a sequel to the end is the related story of Ocyroe and Aesculapius, bringing a total of six myths and four transformations in less than 150 lines of Latin verse.
The outermost story starts with the raven, then white and devoted to Apollo, learning that Coronis, who was Apollo’s lover, had been unfaithful to the god. The raven then rushes off to tell Apollo, only to be chased by an inquisitive crow. The raven tells the crow about Coronis, to which the crow cautions the raven from reporting it to the god, telling the raven that it was her ‘faithful’ reporting of such incidents that resulted in her own downfall.
The crow then tells the raven part of the myth of Ericthonius, who had arisen without a mother (from the spilled semen of Hephaestus when he tried to rape Minerva). Minerva had left a small basket containing the infant Ericthonius in the care of three maiden sisters, the daughters of Cecrops, named Herse, Pandrosos, and Aglauros, who had strict instructions not to open the basket.
Aglauros couldn’t resist the temptation, and discovered that the basket contained the baby and a snake.
Rubens, the most prolific painter of myth, saw the opportunity for two versions of Erichthonius Discovered by the Daughters of Cecrops, of which this, from about 1616, is the better. Aglauros has just given way to temptation and taken the top off the basket entrusted to the sisters by Minerva, revealing the infant Ericthonius and a small snake inside.
To the right is a fountain in honour of the Ephesian Artemis (Roman Diana), distinctive with her multiple breasts, each of which is a source of water. At the left, in the distance, is a herm, at the foot of which is a peacock, suggesting that Juno isn’t far away, although this myth concerns a crow and Minerva, neither of which are visible.
The crow saw Aglauros’ revelation, and hurried off to Minerva, who promptly stopped protecting the crow, and downgraded her in the order of birds to be below an owl.
The crow then reveals that she was originally the beautiful daughter of Coroneus, king of Phocis. One day she was pursued by Neptune, who intended to rape her. When she called for divine assistance, Minerva responded by changing her into a crow, and adopting her. The crow explains that Minerva’s owl had been created when Nictimene committed incest with her father: her punishment was to be changed into an owl.
The raven dismisses the crow, and hastens off to tell Apollo, who immediately flies into a rage, picks up his bow, and looses an arrow into the breast of Coronis, his unfaithful lover.
Foggini’s fine pen and ink drawing of Apollo and Coronis, probably from around 1690-1700, shows a moment just after Apollo’s arrow has left his bow. His lyre is at his feet, dropped in haste and anger at the message brought by the raven, who is flying above him. Coronis holds her hands up in self-defence, and the arrow is presumably in mid-flight.
This superb section of fresco by Domenichino, showing Apollo slaying Coronis, from 1616-18, depicts the couple a moment later, with Apollo’s arrow embedded deep in Coronis’ chest. This fresco was originally in the garden pavilion of the Villa Aldobrandini, in Frascati, Italy.
Adam Elsheimer’s Apollo and Coronis from 1606-08 now appears very dark, and its details are clearer in a contemporary copy (below) attributed to Johann König, a follower of Elsheimer. Coronis, who is visibly pregnant but hardly at full term, is laid out naked at the left, Apollo’s arrow having been extracted and left on the ground. Next to her is a tiger. Apollo is bent down, picking herbs from a bed of plants which have wilted and are dying. A small party of satyrs is busy in the distance, making a funeral pyre on which to place the body of Coronis.
As she lies dying, Coronis reveals that she is pregnant with Apollo’s child. He is filled with remorse, but unable to revive his lover, whose funeral pyre is already built. The god then rescues the unborn baby from the body of Coronis, and carries the child to Chiron the Centaur for him to look after. Apollo vents his anger on the raven, turning his white feathers to black, and forbids him from perching with white birds.
With the stories of the raven and the crow complete, Ovid leads us straight into the next, about Ocyroe, the beautiful daughter of Chiron the Centaur. Centaurs have the upper body (head, arms and chest) of a human, and the body including both forelegs and hindlegs of a horse, giving them a total of six limbs.
Ocyroe has the gift of ‘second sight’, and as soon as she sees Aesculapius, the infant son of Apollo and his dead lover Coronis, Ocyroe pronounces that the baby will grow to bring health to the world (he became god of medicine), but would be destroyed by Jupiter before being returned as a god. She also warns her father, Chiron, that he would be tormented by the blood of a serpent to the point of imploring his death, as granted by the Fates.
These prophecies are not welcomed by the Fates, who take away her second sight and her power of speech, and she is transformed into a mare as punishment.
Throughout these intertwined stories, Ovid not only threads the consequences of gossip, but also plays on names: Coronis and Coroneus are derived from the Greek root for crow and raven, for example the noun κοράκι (koráki) which can include both birds. Latin uses a related root starting in cor-, still found today in English corvid. In contrast, English crow and raven have Germanic origins.