When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn / Anger our huntsman

摘要

"A monster sent by the gods to ravage the vineyards" is how the Calydonian boar was described in mythologic accounts. King Oeneus did not offer proper thanks to Artemis, goddess of the hunt. In retaliation, she unleashed the monster on the fertile fi elds of Calydon, "an ornament to Greece," terrorizing adjacent communities and wreaking havoc with local agriculture. "Now it trampled the young shoots of the growing crops, now cut short the ripeness, longed-for by the mournful farmer, and scythed down the corn in ear," wrote Ovid in his Metamorphoses. "Its tusks were the size of an Indian elephant's: lightning came from its mouth: and the leaves were scorched by its breath."