184 Ulisse Aldrovandi

...oblivion, falling out when she stands up. Indeed, this opinion of Festus is further strengthened by another adage which goes: *Never trust a woman, not even a dead one.* This proverb warns that women are so cunning that they even pretend to be dead. For there is the well-known story of the Stepmother who, even after being buried, killed her stepson when a funeral monument collapsed onto the boy's head.

Thus we might rightly utter another adage: *The ruin of women.* This applies to those who perish miserably, as women are held to be the authors of almost all calamities. Another is: *A woman does not enter the seat of Hercules.* This is said of those who take up a duty they do not deserve. The proverb originates from the religion of the ancients, who excluded women from the temple of Hercules. *A Thessalian woman.* This is directed at sorceresses and those skilled in the dark arts, since the people of Thessaly were notorious for their poisonings and witchcraft. *The old woman dances.* This is said of someone who acts inappropriately.

Very similar is: *The old woman plays the Bacchant.* This is pronounced of one who, due to age, behaves with unseemly lewdness, since the license of the Bacchanalia is permitted only to the young. *The old woman, like a horse, shall have a deep ditch.* This applies to those who are utterly rejected as useless. Just as aging horses are cast into deep pits in the earth, so too a woman once loved is loathed by all when her beauty has faded.

METAMORPHOSES

Since the Great Architect of all things has shown some transfigurations of the human race to be above the order of nature, while nature herself has produced others, and poets have fashioned still more, we shall for now first record the fabled ones. Once these are understood, the serious and true metamorphoses may shine forth more clearly.

Ovid encompassed these fictional transformations, from the beginning of the world to the death of Julius Caesar, in fifteen books. Thus, in the first book, after explaining the origin of the world and of mankind, and the driving of Saturn from his empire, he describes Jove reigning. Jove, resenting the insult of the Giants—who piled mountain upon mountain in an attempt to expel him from his celestial homeland—finally defeated them with a lightning bolt. He likewise relates how Lycaon, the tyrant of Arcadia—who cruelly slaughtered guests he had welcomed with honorable hospitality—was transformed into a wolf by Jove, who was pained by the crime. Thus Ovid sings:

Not content with this, Jove, wishing to strike the human race with immense fear, gathered such a vast quantity of water from every side that, as the highest mountains were inundated by a deluge, all people perished by drowning—except for Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha.

These two, distinguished by their exceptional piety, escaped unharmed from the waters by divine permission. After the flood, at Jove's command, they restored the human race by casting stones behind their backs. The stones thrown by Deucalion were turned into men, and those by Pyrrha into women. Thus the poet sings:

Among the women of that age, the maiden Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus in Thessaly, shone with beauty. She was spotted by Apollo and eventually beloved by him. But since she could be moved by neither prayers nor promises to comply with Phoebus's will, she implored her father for help and was transfigured into a Laurel tree. From this, we gather the reason why the laurel is sacred to Phoebus. Ovid introduces her speaking thus: