the dead in the month of May, called Lemuria. During Lemuria the dead ancestor spirits, particularly the unburied, called lemures, emerge from their graves and visit the homes in which they had lived. It was then necessary to confront the unwelcome spirits and lure them out of one's house using specific actions and chants. According to Ovid, this includes the involvement of black beans to lure a spirit out of the home. "And after washing his (the householder) hands clean in spring water, he turns, and first he receives black beans and throws them away with face averted; but while he throws them, he says: 'These I cast; with these beans I redeem me and mine.' This he says nine times, without looking back: the shade is thought to gather the beans, and to follow unseen behind. Again he touches water, and clashes Temesan bronze, and asks the shade to go out of his house. When he has said nine times, 'Ghosts of my fathers, go forth!' he looks back, and thinks that he has duly performed the sacred rites." Perhaps the black beans carried with them connotations of warding away or dispelling bad things in general, whether it be unwelcome spirits haunting a household as seen during Lemuria, or preventing undesired gossip towards an individual as in the old hag's ritual during Feralia. Also, in the context of sacrifices, the black beans are similar to the black animals used in sacrifice to the 'chthonic deities'. It is implied through Ovid's choice of words, "hostiles linguas" and "inimicaque ora", that the ritual is intended to curb gossip about a girl's reputation. Gossip of such a nature and its consequences are the subject for the cause, which Ovid offers, of the Dea Tacita festival, which was held on the same day as the Feralia. Ovid then tells a story to explain the origins of Dea Tacitia, starting with Jupiter's untamed lust for the nymph Juturna. Juturna, aware of Jupiter's lust for her, hid within the Hazelwood forest and dove into her sisters' waters. Jupiter then gathered all the nymphs in Latium seeking their help in capturing Juturna, saying, "Your sister is spiting herself by shunning her own advantage, an entanglement with the highest god. Look out for us both. What will be a great pleasure for me will be in your sister's great interest. Block her as she flees at the