Fables

The suspicion is increased both when the traces of the interpolator are pressed upon chapter L, whose other recension is contained in chapter LI, and by the wretched condition of chapter LI itself, by which Joannes Schefferus was already led to see it as a patch sewn upon a patch. Finally, so that we may allow ourselves to be persuaded that chapters XLVIII, {L}, LI can be carried in their own place, how shall we reconcile them with LXIII, LXIV, LVII and the fable of Laius that follows immediately after? As I say that the answer to this question is not readily available, so not even the slightest arguments are present by which that fourth family of fables could be proven to be spurious. On the contrary, we will bring forward what appears to teach the opposite. First, chapters CLVII and CCXLIII look openly toward chapter LVII; second, since there is a commemoration of the Chimera in the first part of the book, it is consistent that the most famous fable should be set forth more fully in the second part; third, it is evident that he who wrote CCLXXIII also appended LXIII or had seen it with his own eyes; finally, from chapter CCXLIV, in which it is reported that Megapenthes executed the punishments of Perseus, and CCLXXVI, in which mention is made of the Perseis or the city of Midea, famous for its founder Perseus, you might conclude that in the work of Hyginus, while it was intact, more things had been added about the descendants of Acrisius and Proetus than those which have now survived in those three chapters (LXIII, LXIV, LVII). Therefore, to me considering these arguments, unless one deems that sections 49, 51, 63, 64, and 57 can be carried in their usual place, only one way seems to remain: that we investigate into what place they could be transferred and appear without offense. And of the places that can come into consideration here, one would be adjacent to chapter CLXX, which, while it is indeed sufficiently suitable for sections LXIII, LXIV, LVII, is very unfair to chapters XLVIII and LI. It happens happily that the other, which is circumscribed by sections XXVIII and XXIX, is recommended on both sides by the proximity of fables of a similar subject. For now, the Aloidae, grandsons of Canace, daughter of Aeolus, will reach very closely to Admetus, great-grandson of Aeolus, and Alcestis, daughter of Pelias, the great-grandson of the same Aeolus; because of this, you see the number of Aeolids—hitherto less frequent than just and desired—wonderfully increased. When Danae, ennobled by the theft of Jupiter, and Stheneboea, more famous for her unholy fires, follow them, the fables of the Aeolids and the Danaids are coupled not unwillingly. For neither could the life of the former be narrated unless, besides Acrisius, son of Abas, Polydectes and Dictys, the children of Magnes, son of Aeolus, were simultaneously named; nor could the crime of Stheneboea be revealed unless Proetus, son of Abas, and Bellerophon, son of Sisyphus, were commemorated together.