Cephalus

“ Yet in truth, men of Athens, so far as Aeschines is concerned, I too can make this noble boast that Cephalus made. For he has never yet preferred or prosecuted any indictment against me; so that by you at least, Aeschines, I am admitted to be no worse a citizen than Cephalus.
252 His want of feeling and his malignity may be seen in many ways, and not least in the remarks which he made about fortune. For my part, I think that, as a rule, when one human being reproaches another with his fortune, he is a fool. ”

“ Procris is the dewdrop (from Greek Prōx, 'dew') which reflects the shining rays of the sun. The "head of the day," or the rising sun, Cephalus, is also wooed by Aurora, the Dawn, but flies from her. The Sun slays the dew with the same gleaming darts that the dew reflects, or gives back to him. According to Preller, Cephalus is the morning-star beloved alike by Procris, the moon, and by Aurora, the dawn. The concealment of Procris in the forest and her death would, then, signify the paling of the moon before the approaching day. ”

“ The similarity of their name to the Greek word μύρμηξ, signifying ‘an ant,’ most probably gave occasion to the report that Jupiter had changed ants into men.
FABLE VII. Cephalus, having resisted the advances of Aurora, who has become enamoured of him while hunting, returns in disguise to his wife, Procris, to try if her affection for him is sincere. She, discovering his suspicions, flies to the woods, and becomes a huntress, with the determination not to see him again. Afterwards, on becoming reconciled to him, she bestows on him a dog and a dart, which Diana had once given her. ”

“ Sometimes he would say aloud, "Come, sweet breeze, come and fan my breast, come and allay the heat that burns me." Some one passing by one day heard him talking in this way to the air, and, foolishly believing that he was talking to some maiden, went and told the secret to Procris, Cephalus's wife. Love is credulous. Procris, at the sudden shock, fainted away. Presently recovering, she said, "It cannot be true; I will not believe it unless I myself am a witness to it." So she waited, with anxious heart, till the next morning, when Cephalus went to hunt as usual. ”

“ But the fable of Cephalus was also connected with another great temple of Apollo, which in the west of Greece looked down from the chalky cliffs of the promontory of Leucatas over the Ionian sea, and of which there are ruins still extant.1000 Now Cephalus, the hero of Thoricus, is said to have gained these regions in company with Amphitryon:1001 he is also said to have first made the celebrated leap from the rock of Leucatas.1002 This leap, doubtless, had originally a religious meaning, and was an expiatory [pg 252] rite. ”

“ Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic, not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches. ”

“ Cephalus, of Clazomenae in Ionia, the birthplace of Anaxagoras, a citizen of no mean city in the history of philosophy, who is the narrator of the dialogue, describes himself as meeting Adeimantus and Glaucon in the Agora at Athens. 'Welcome, Cephalus: can we do anything for you in Athens?' 'Why, yes: I came to ask a favour of you. First, tell me your half-brother's name, which I have forgotten—he was a mere child when I was last here;—I know his father's, which is Pyrilampes.' 'Yes, and the name of our brother is Antiphon. ”

“ If Cephalus was caught into the arms of one that was a goddess, (7) Asclepius (8) obtained yet greater honour. To him it was given to raise the dead and to heal the sick, whereby, (9) even as a god among mortal men, he has obtained to himself imperishable glory. Melanion (10) so far excelled in zest for toil that he alone of all that flower of chivalry who were his rivals (11) obtained the prize of noblest wedlock with Atalanta; while as to Nestor, what need to repeat the well-known tale? so far and wide for many a day has the fame of his virtue penetrated the ears of Hellas. ”

“ Cephalus added, his voice sinking to a whisper, "I don't blame him. Diana treated him horribly."
"I always thought so," said I. "He really wasn't to blame."
"Certainly not," observed Cephalus. "If people will go in swimming out-of-doors, it's their own fault if chance wayfarers stumble upon them. To turn a man into a stag and then set his own dogs on him for a thing he couldn't help strikes me as rank injustice."
"Wonder to me that Jupiter doesn't interfere in this business," said I. "He could help Callisto out without much trouble." ”

“ After the eloquence of Cephalus has thus promoted the cause entrusted to him, Æacus, leaning with his left hand on the handle of his sceptre, says—
“Ask not for assistance, O Athens, but take it, and consider, beyond doubt, the resources which this island possesses, as thy own, and let all the forces of my kingdom go along with thee. Strength is not wanting. ”

“ From them all zealous and unscrupulous followers of a political chief are called by that name, down to this day. But the origin of the Myrmidons would not give one the idea of a fierce and bloody race, but rather of a laborious and peaceful one.
Cephalus, king of Athens, arrived in the island of Ægina to seek assistance of his old friend and ally Æacus, the king, in his war with Minos, king of Crete. Cephalus was most kindly received, and the desired assistance readily promised. “I have people enough,” said Æacus, “to protect myself and spare you such a force as you need.” ”

“ As it was, the clerks were all of them engaged in occupations which were remote from official work. The eldest of them, Cephalus by name—a man who was distinguished from the others by a certain refined sobriety both in his dark dress and in his quiet demeanour—was reading a treatise on algebra; the second, Theophilus, a musician, whose tunic was as bright as his flaming hair, was mending a small organ; and the third, Rufinus, a rather pale, short-sighted, and untidy youth, was scribbling on a tablet. The scribes were busy sorting old records and putting them away in their permanent places. ”

“ There is no creature known to prey upon the spawn of the cephalus, so that the species is exceedingly numerous; when, however, the is full-grown it is preyed upon by a number of fishes, and especially by the acharnas or bass. Of all fishes the mullet is the most voracious and insatiable, and in consequence its belly is kept at full stretch; whenever it is not starving, it may be considered as out of condition. When it is frightened, it hides its head in mud, under the notion that it is hiding its whole body. The synodon is carnivorous and feeds on molluscs. ”

“ Her motion occasioned rustling among the leaves of a bush that concealed her; and as Cephalus listened, he thought it to be a wild beast, and he let fly his unerring dart. ♦Procris was struck to the heart, and instantly expired in the arms of her husband, confessing that ill-grounded jealousy was the cause of her death. According to Apollodorus, there were two persons of the name of Cephalus; one, son of Mercury and Herse, carried away by Aurora, with whom he dwelt in Syria, and by whom he had a son called Tithonus. ”

“ A very subtle idea, making the victories of the old Romans depend more upon their own bravery than on the friendly aid of their founder. Nevertheless, “non liquet.”
Note 18, p. 51. “Till I got acquainted with these Auræ (or sylphs) ,” says Spence (Polymetis, dial. xiii.) , “I found myself always at a loss in reading the known story of Cephalus and Procris in Ovid. I could never imagine how Cephalus crying out, ‘Aura venias’ (though in ever so languishing a manner) , could give anybody a suspicion of his being false to Procris. ”

“ And the sea cestreus he subdivides into two species—the cephalus and the nestis. But the cestreus, which is like the sea-urchin about the head, he calls sphondylus. And he says "that the cephalinus differs from the cephalus, and that this last is also called the blepsias." But Aristotle says, in the fifth book of his treatise on the Parts of Animals, "But of the different kinds of cestreus, the chellones begin to be pregnant in the month Poseideon; so does the sargus and the fish called the myxus; and so does the cephalus: and they go thirty days with young. ”

“ Cephalus. Cf. § 219. He was an orator and statesman of the early part of the fourth century. (The best account of him is in Beloch, Attische Politik, p. 117.)
§ 258. the attendants' room. The 'attendants' are those who escorted the boys to and from school—generally slaves.
§ 259. the books, &c. Cf. § 129 and notes. The books probably contained the formulae of initiation, or the hymns which were chanted by some Dionysiac societies. The service described here is probably that of the combined worship of Dionysus-Sabazios and the Great Mother (Cybele) . ”

“ And this being so, what epithet was it fitting or just that Ctesiphon should apply to my actions? Was it not that which he saw applied by the People, and by juries on their oath, and ratified by Truth in the judgement of all men?
{251} 'Yes,' he replies, 'but Cephalus' [n] boast was a noble one—that he had never been indicted at all.' True, and a happy thing also it was for him. But why should one who has often been tried, but has never been convicted of crime, deserve to incur criticism any the more on that account? ”

“ In this temple it was usual for despairing lovers to make their vows in secret, and afterwards to fling themselves from the top of the precipice into the sea. For it was an established opinion, that all those who were taken up alive, would immediately be cured of their former passion. Sappho tried the experiment, but perished in the attempt. Some write that she was the inventress of this custom; but Strabo tells us, that those who understood antiquity better, have reported, that one Cephalus first made the desperate descent from that fatal precipice, called the Lovers Leap. ”

“ She fell back in my arms and her last faint strength fled with her blood. So long as she could look at anything she looked at me and breathed out her unhappy spirit on my lips. But she seemed to die content and with a happy look upon her face." This story the hero told with many tears, And now Aeacus came in with his two sons and his new levied band of soldiers, which Cephalus received with their valiant arms. ”

“ He is made to admit that justice is a thief, and that the virtues follow the analogy of the arts (i. 333 E) . From his brother Lysias (contra Eratosth. p. 121) we learn that he fell a victim to the Thirty Tyrants, but no allusion is here made to his fate, nor to the circumstance that Cephalus and his family were of Syracusan origin, and had migrated from Thurii to Athens.
The ‘Chalcedonian giant,’ Thrasymachus, of whom we have already heard in the Phaedrus (267 D) , is the personification of the Sophists, according to Plato’s conception of them, in some of their worst characteristics. ”

“ Procris was shot, told her tale, and died.—Ovid, Art of Love, iii.
(Cephalus loves Procris, i.e. "the sun kisses the dew." Procris is killed by Cephalus, i.e. "the dew is destroyed by the rays of the sun.")
Ceras'tes (3 syl.) , the horned snake. (Greek, keras, "a horn.") Milton uses the word in Paradise Lost, x. 525 (1665) .
Cerberus, a dog with three heads, which keeps guard in hell. Dantê places it in the third circle.
Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange,
Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog ... ”

“ Ovid and other writers have spoken only of the son of Deïoneus, who was carried off by Aurora, and having left her, according to them, returned to Procris.
289 VII. 796-818 FABLE VIII. Procris, jealous of Cephalus, in her turn, goes to the forest, which she supposes to be the scene of his infidelity, to surprise him. Hearing the rustling noise which she makes in the thicket, where she lies concealed, he imagines it is a wild beast, and, hurling the javelin, which she has formerly given to him, he kills her. ”

“ Station 206, depth 2100 fathoms.
16. Dictyocephalus hispidus, Ehrenberg.
Dictyocephalus hispidus, Ehrenberg, Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin; Abhandl. d. k. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, 1872, p. 289, Taf. v. fig. 18.
Shell rough, thin-walled, with deep collar stricture. Length of the two joints = 3 : 4, breadth = 3 : 5. Cephalis subspherical, spiny, with the same irregular, roundish pores as the funnel-shaped or nearly ovate thorax. Mouth truncate, little narrower than the thorax, without ring-like peristome. ”

“ When thus his eloquence had com S17 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VII mended his cause, Aeacus, his left hand resting on the sceptre's hilt, exclaimed: "Ask not our aid, but take it, Athens; and boldly count your own the forces which this island holds, and all things which the state of my afairs supplies. Warlike strength is not lacking; I have soldiers enough for myself and for my enemy. Thanks to the gods, the times are happy, and without excuse for my refusal." "May it prove even so," said Cephalus, " and may your city multiply in men. ”

“ Length of the three joints = 2 : 3 : 16, breadth = 3 : 6 : 16. Cephalis hemispherical, with few small pores. From its apex arises vertically a very long three-sided prismatic horn with denticulate edges, three to four times as long as the shell. An inner thin prolongation of the horn descends vertically nearly to the mouth, and bears on its basal end three verticils of branched spines, each verticil with three divergent forked spines (fig. 1a) . Pores regular, circular, in the subspherical abdomen three times as large as in the hemispherical thorax. ”