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    Metamorphoses
    Metamorphoses
    Metamorphoses
    Ebook450 pages10 hours

    Metamorphoses

    By Ovid

    4/5

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    The epic poem by one of the canonical poets of Latin literature: “A self-conscious tour de force of poetic ingenuity” (Apollo).
     
    Through a panoply of the most famous Roman myths, Metamorphoses tells the story of the creation of the world. It is one of the most inspirational works in Western culture, stirring the imagination of such artists and writers as Mantegna, Botticelli, Titian, Velázquez, Shakespeare, and Salmon Rushdie.
     
    “It is astonishing for its sheer compendiousness. Running ab origine mundi right up to the time of Julius Caesar, Ovid’s epic weaves around 250 different myths together into a single ‘unbroken song.’ No other classical text comes close. To medieval readers it looked like ‘nothing less than the Bible and theology of the pagans’—the master key to all their culture and knowledge. . . . [Ovid’s] epic is always pushing at the boundaries of what can and cannot be told; pushing his way into new methods of unfolding old tales. In its quest to do this, Ovid’s narration weaves back and forth through mythic time, nesting tales within tales, and tellers of tales within tellers of tales, to the level where a given story might be occurring within as many as five sets of other stories.” —Apollo
     
    “Ovid had the power to illuminate disturbing aspects of our contemporary culture. . . . In the same year that he was exiled, Ovid began the Metamorphoses, whose teeming chaos evokes the uncertain, shape-shifting mood of a country—a world—that is reimagining its sexual mores.” —The New Yorker
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateApr 21, 2020
    ISBN9781504062589
    Author

    Ovid

    Ovid (43 BC-17/18 AD) was a Roman poet. Born in Sulmo the year after Julius Caesar’s assassination, Ovid would join the ranks of Virgil and Horace to become one of the foremost poets of Augustus’ reign as first Roman emperor. After rejecting a life in law and politics, he embarked on a career as a poet, publishing his first work, the Heroides, in 19 BC. This was quickly followed by his Amores (16 BC), a collection of erotic elegies written to his lover Corinna. By 8 AD, Ovid finished his Metamorphoses, an epic narrative poem tracing the history of Rome and the world from the creation of the cosmos to the death and apotheosis of Julius Caesar. Ambitious and eminently inspired, Metamorphoses remains a timeless work of Roman literature and an essential resource for the study of classical languages and mythology. Exiled that same year by Augustus himself, Ovid spent the rest of his life in Tomis on the Black Sea, where he continued to write poems of loss, repentance and longing.

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    Reviews for Metamorphoses

    4/5

    1,473 ratings29 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Metamorphoses by Ovid is a captivating collection of myths. Am I the only person to wish for a flow chart of events and relationships? I loved it, however, I found myself obsessed with researching many of the stories on the internet. Not that I ever have a problem with this but it started to feel compulsive. So many brutalities due to spurned god love.
    • 4/5
      I can't find the original version that I read in my classical civilization course. This is still the same. Ovid is an excellent writer and this compendium of translated "stories" is a beautiful read for those looking for a slice of classical mythology. My favorite is still Orpheus and Eurydice.
    • 5/5
      The classic work in mythology, comprising the original iteration of many of the now-cliche forms of Greek (and Roman) myths. This is not to say that these myths are in their original form, Ovid (a Roman author) tends toward the romanticized versions of Greek myths, but in general delivers quick, accessible reads, all based loosely on the theme of metamophosis from one form to another, like nymphs turning into trees. Flows better than my favorite collection (Hamilton's Mythology) for those who are more interested in reading myths for the sake of literature, but probably not recommended for scholars unless they are serious about the scholarship. If you simply want a collection of myths for reference, quick study, or random reading, go with Edith Hamilton.
    • 1/5
      Were Metamorphoses contemporary it would be a tv clip show called "World's Most Amazing Transformations!", would be aired during the graveyard slot on a Tuesday night, and would be narrated by Jamie Theakston or some other washed up has-been whose one marketable quality lies in having a voice people might recognise. What's more, it would still be a thousand times better than this horrible book.
    • 4/5
      A great classical work. How gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines are transformed according to the ancient myths.
    • 3/5
      I read parts of this in high school, where we translated many of the texts from this book. As this is a different kind of experiences, focusing on reconstructing the sentences anew, I would like to take up Metamorphoses at another time, in order to experience it more as a reader and to get a better idea of the stories within.
    • 5/5
      The half star missing in this review is a self rebuke, rather than any problem with the work. I feel, with every word that I read, the lack of ability to read the original. This is a wonderful translation, thankfully offered in sympathetic text, rather than cod rhyme but, the original must be so much better.Having showed my ignorance, let's get back to the book itself: this is an amazing collection of stories; some new to me and many the prototypes for stories made popular by later authors. There is an early version of Romeo and Juliet, Icarus' forbear and many others that have echoes in more modern fables.I find it intriguing how the gods are worshipped, but often not respected by their acolytes. Gods are cruel, vain but unbeatable. There is not a single story in which the gods come off worse, at the hands of humanity, although, there are occasions whereby a higher god takes pity and issues retribution for cruelty (not that many cases admittedly).Now all I need to do is learn to read ancient Greek poetry, and I'll be able to appreciate Ovid to the full.
    • 4/5
      An elegant, easy-to-read translation in unobtrusive iambic pentameter. Maybe not for purists, as the translator sometimes adds asides within the text (always in square brackets) and he turns the song of the daughters of Pierus into a rap (which I happen to think is a stroke of genius). If you're studying Ovid, this may not be the edition for you. But if you want to read Ovid for pleasure, in consistently articulate, poetic and vivid language, which brings the ancient myths to life, I'd thoroughly recommend this translation. It's also received critical acclaim: it won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.
    • 3/5
      Unieke en originele verwerking van het hele Griekse en Romein¬se mythologische materiaal. Vele pareltjes.Favoriet van het postmodernisme. Amorele sfeer, en vandaar verwondering lof Augustus (die toch familiewaarden wilde herstellen). Mijn favoriet: Philemon en Baucis
    • 4/5
      It seems to me that reading Metamorphoses at least once is worthy of the effort, if only to be exposed to this grand writing, and learn the origin stories of things we already know in our contemporary lives. Black ball, Midas touch, hyacinth and Pygmalion come to mind.There’s so much going on in this work. It is grand and sweeping, and sometimes choppy and even more difficult. I would like to have a better grounding in the literature of the time so that I could understand the allusions and homages more easily. Romans loved their blood and guts and adventure tales.In fact, Metamorphoses is rife with violence, gruesome in its detail and astonishing in the litany of names of characters involved in all the “stabbity-stab-stab.” Rape is another prevalent topic, as is punishment by the gods and goddesses.This is not a nice, tidy look at the story of Rome, fiction or not. There were numerous times when I had to stop and remind myself that Metamorphoses was written for an audience who had certain expectations for a great story, and for whom violence was nothing to be squeamish about.The attitudes towards women are difficult, but again, this was written in first century CE, when the very idea of women speaking up for themselves and showing agency was frowned upon at best, punishable at worst. Ancient Rome was a very stratified society, even wealthy women were held to be barely better than the slave class. So it is no surprise this found its way into the literature.There’s so much to enjoy, and revile, in Metamorphoses, it’s impossible to recount them in any way that makes sense. I could comb back through each book’s commentary and look for things to write about here. But I won’t.What I will say is that reading Metamorphoses was a journey worth taking. One which I am just as happy to have completed, leaving me to move on to less complicated books in my stacks. One lasting effect I am sure of, nothing I see or read will ever be the same since reading it.
    • 3/5
      I read 228 out of 554 pages of Charles Martin's translation of "Metamorphoses" by Ovid before deciding not to finish the book. Ovid was a Roman poet (roughly 43 BC to 17 AD), but his "Metamorphoses" is essentially a book of Greek myths originating hundreds of years before Ovid's time. The entire work is in hexameter poetry, and Charles Martin does an excellent job with this. I particularly love his incorporation of certain modern phrases and wording (e.g. Book V, Line 63: "The crowd went totally ballistic, then") and when the daughters of Pierus challenge the Muses to a poetry contest, and their poetry is rendered in rhyming couplets full of modern urban slang (Book V, Lines 449-495). Martin is clearly very talented, and he's done a brilliant job. I can't envision a translator doing better, at least until English has evolved and a more modern update is in order.So, if I liked Martin's poetry, why didn't I finish the book? Well, I didn't like Ovid's part. Scores of Greek myths are told in a perplexing order, without apparent chronology or sequence. Sometimes a myth is set up as a framing story for another myth (e.g. "So-and-so began to tell her tale, thus:"), and then the book never returns to the framing story, instead proceeding as if the sub-tale were the main tale. Ovid assumes the reader already knows about the most famous mythological figures (e.g. Jason, Perseus, etc.) and jumps to particular, lesser-known episodes in these heroes' lives, omitting their greatest adventures. Inconsistencies in the way certain figures are presented in different parts of the book (e.g. the Sun god) makes it feel like a work written by multiple authors over a long time period. The result is that the book is probably best appreciated as a bunch of tidbits without a larger coherent structure or plot.They myths are filled with cruel, vain, and vindictive gods and the suffering they inflict upon hapless mortals- and sometimes on others, such as when Latona's son (i.e. Apollo) defeats a satyr in a pipe-playing contest and then, as the satyr "cries, the skin is stripped from his body/until he's all entirely one wound:/blood runs out everywhere, and his uncovered/sinews lie utterly exposed to view;/his pulsing veins were flickering, and you/could number all his writhing viscera/and the gleaming organs underneath his sternum" (Book VI, Lines 555-560). Roughly every other story involves a punishment (typically permanent transformation into a plant or animal, but occasionally violent death) that seems like a total perversion of justice. If a book anything like "Metamorphoses" were written today in modern language, it would not be published, and it might be considered the work of a psychopath."Metamorphoses" feels like a confusing blur of stories of cruelty, vindictiveness, and injustice. The excellent poetry cannot ultimately save a story that is so fundamentally unpleasant to read. I understand that "Metamorphoses" is a cultural artifact and a window into the myths of the ancient Greeks, and thus it has value beyond the enjoyment a reader may get from the plot and characters. But Ovid's omission of the most culturally important stories means his work is only suitable for people already versed in the myths. "Metamorphoses" would be a good choice for Greco-Roman scholars or aficionados. Most people would do better with a collection like "D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths," a beautifully-illustrated volume that was my own childhood introduction to the Greek myths (and which inspired wonder and enduring love of these stories in a way that Ovid does not).
    • 5/5
      Gods and their love affairs. Gods and their love affairs with mortals. Fate, covetousness, allegiance, brutalities, treachery and chastisements metamorphosing from the cocoon of mighty love. The discordant waves of love dangerously destabilizing romantic notions; overwhelming morality and raison d'être of Gods and mortals alike. Ovid makes you want to write intense poetry and feel affectionate to the idea of love as a device of alteration for better or worse. Love does not conquer all; it destroys and alters everything it touches. That is the best part in Ovid’s poems. They do not have happy endings. Lust or romantic love or ardent worship, acquired in any form changes a person, landscapes, communities mutating elements of fate and tragedies.

      Metamorphoses elucidates the consequence of origin and transformation in its entirety.

      My soul is wrought to sing of forms transformed to bodies new and strange! Immortal Gods inspire my heart, for ye have changed yourselves and all things you have changed! Oh lead my song in smooth and measured strains, from olden days when earth began to this completed time!

      Ovid commences his poems by showing appreciation to God (which he says is yet unknown) for carving a loose mass of earth into a picturesque bounty of nature. The amorphous chaos changed into a convex ecstasy of pathless skies, terrains, rivers, the color and prototypes of birds and animals came through a process of love and hate. Ovid represents the mythical world of story telling and repeating fables with morality lessons. The justifications of rape or incest in Ovid’s works segregate the idea of faithful devotion from the viciousness of powerful acquisition that overcomes delusional love. Betrayals are penalized and loyalties are commended. The treatment of love is sagacious and didactic in this book as compared to his other works in the relating genre. It moves onto a broader scenario, becoming a defining factor in wars, altering powers between constituencies, breaking and making of civilizations. Ovid intends the reader to see the probable metaphoric significance of change as a crucial and homogeneous factor in life itself.

      And now, I have completed a great work, which not Jove's anger, and not fire nor steel, nor fast-consuming time can sweep away. Whenever it will, let the day come, which has dominion only over this mortal frame, and end for me the uncertain course of life. Yet in my better part I shall be borne immortal, far above the stars on high, and mine shall be a name indelible. Wherever Roman power extends her sway over the conquered lands, I shall be read by lips of men. If Poets' prophecies have any truth, through all the coming years of future ages, I shall live in fame.

      As he concludes this epic of transforming love, he credits the survival of Rome to his own prominence making it one of the most influential and renowned works over centuries. Metamorphoses is translated frequently by several modern poets and literary elites.
    • 4/5
      The Metamorphoses is not a modest work in scope: in his 12,000-line epic, Ovid tells us that he's attempting nothing less than to give us the history of the world from its creation out of Chaos right up to the time of Julius Caesar. The opening section is a grand, orchestral description of the creation in the spirit of Epicurean philosophy, and the final section includes a long speech by Pythagoras exposing a number of his scientific ideas (and arguments for vegetarianism), but what everyone remembers - and what gives the poem its usual title - is the material that fills the middle 13 books, a vast and unruly collection of stories of sex, violence and magical transformation gleaned from authors like Hesiod, Vergil and Homer (or simply made up on the spot by Ovid himself). Gods (of either sex) lust for mortals (of either sex) and have their wicked way or are frustrated; mortals lust for the wrong other mortals; individuals make rash promises or accidentally find themselves in the wrong place; revenge and jealousy get out of hand; or there is simply too much testosterone and alcohol about. And when things go wrong or a god gets peeved, then it's usually the unfortunate mortal who gets changed into an animal, tree, or rock, according to taste. According to Bernard Knox, there are over 250 transformations in the course of the poem (and that's presumably not counting the unnumbered myrmidons and dragon's teeth...). Most of them seem to end unhappily for the mortal in question - in a few cases the transformation saves someone from an imminent danger of rape, but then they are stuck as a tree for the rest of their life. Iphis and Ianthe are the one couple who seem to profit long-term - Iphis is turned into a boy on the eve of the wedding so that they don't violate the Cretan same-sex marriage ban in force at the time. (This is the story Ali Smith uses in Girl meets boy.)One moral that really comes out of the story is that we should be very careful not to give our children names that sound like animals or plants. That's just asking for trouble. Especially if they happen to be called "Cycnus" - there are three separate characters with this name, in Books II, VII and XII, and they all get turned into swans. Nominative determinism gone crazy...!Of course, Ovid being such an accessible source for subsequent poets, painters, dramatists, opera librettists and others, many of the stories are very familiar, but what is really striking when you read the whole thing is the pace. Ovid rarely lingers over descriptions (when he does, he's usually making some sort of satirical point), but hammers through the story at maximum speed, and segues into a new and quite different story - connected or not - as soon as he gets to the climax of the previous one. Or inserts a story in the middle of another one, down to two or three levels (not quite as much deep recursion as the Panchatantra, though). From the Big Bang to the moment when "terra sub Augusto est", the music never stops. Even the transition from one book to the next is usually just the flick of an eye - Ovid knows all about cliffhangers and doesn't hesitate to use them.The speed and efficiency of his storytelling come across most obviously in Books XII-XIV, where we cover essentially everything Ovid thinks we need to know about the Iliad, Odyssey and Aenead. The Iliad, in particular, is masterfully handled as a single "brain vs. brawn" debate between Ajax and Ulysses, in which the two of them make speeches as if in court to justify their respective contributions to the war effort. In case we hadn't guessed it already from all the scenes where Ovid gleefully shows us muscle-bound heroes acting like dangerous idiots, the poet is firmly on the side of Ulysses. Ovid enjoys himself making gentle fun of the conventions of Big Epic and can't resist teasing Vergil about some small continuity errors in the Aenead. But it's all quite respectful fun - Ovid isn't suggesting for a moment that we don't need to read these great poets. Working out where Ovid himself stands isn't easy at this distance. And he presumably doesn't want it to be easy either - he's writing at the height of Augustus's somewhat hypocritical clampdown on the morals of the Roman upper classes, and whatever he thinks himself, he certainly doesn't want to say anything that counts as explicit blasphemy or corrupting public morals. He's only reporting well-known bits of Greek mythology, after all. It's all the fault of our own dirty minds if we get the impression that the gods and goddesses as portrayed in Ovid are a pretty rotten lot, with only one important claim on our piety, their power to harm us if we annoy them (rather like Augustus, in fact...). And it's for us to decide whether a belief in petulant supernatural interventions is compatible with the logical Epicurean world-view set out in Book I or the Pythagorean pantheism gently mocked in Book XV. From this distance, we can't really know what Ovid expected his sophisticated Roman readers to think, but on the whole I'm inclined to suspect that there's more mockery than piety going on.The Charles Martin translationMy Latin is just about good enough to work my way through Ovid in the Loeb parallel text, but when I tried that it quickly became obvious that I couldn't possibly keep up with Ovid's frenetic narrative pace, so I switched to the Charles Martin translation, mostly because of the few that came to hand, it seemed the best compromise between closeness to the text and readability. Martin chooses to translate Ovid's hexameters into a loose and free-running version of English blank verse (which is based on the iambic pentameter line, of course). This turns out to be a really good choice. It's a form with a very solid track-record, of course, and we're so used to hearing it that it reads very naturally. It does mean that the book gets longer, though - it seems to take Martin about 30-40% more lines than Ovid to say something, so it's not easy to go backwards and forwards between translation and original. The language Martin uses occasionally looks alarmingly modern and American, but he avoids gratuitous anachronisms, and is conscientious about not putting anything in that doesn't have a proper basis in the original text. The one place where he really lets himself go is in the contest between the Muses and the daughters of Pierus in Book V, which he reads as a satire on bad poetryWe’ll show you girls just what real class isGive up tryin’ to deceive the massesYour rhymes are fake: accept our wagerLearn which of us is minor and which is majorThere’s nine of us here and there’s nine of youAnd you’ll be nowhere long before we’re through {...}So take the wings off, sisters, get down and jamAnd let the nymphs be the judges of our poetry slam!...and even that isn't very far from what it says in the Latin, and Martin apologises for it in the introduction and tells us he couldn't help it.Here and there he gives us an editorial interjection if it's needed to explain something like a pun that is only obvious in Latin, but he always marks them off clearly with square brackets. The text also comes with short and unpedantic notes and a very handy index/glossary of names and places that you will need for all those times when you really can't work out whether Jupiter is that person's grandfather, father-in-law, or uncle - or all three. An oddity in this book is that the publishers have used as Introduction an essay Bernard Knox published in the NYRB in 1998, in which he compares the currently-available translations of Ovid and finds them all wanting, except for the work-in-progress by Martin, whose completion he eagerly awaits. Of the current ones, Ted Hughes gets most points for style, but not many for accuracy. That feels almost like the Elizabethan habit of binding favourable blurbs from other poets as part of your book!
    • 4/5
      This is THE Metamorphoses translation to read. Others can't even hold a candle to it (I know, I read some side by side to compare). Beautiful, touching, amazing.

      Rereading bits of this at work 6/11. So good.
    • 5/5
      The Metamorphoses is a poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature. The recurring theme, as with nearly all of Ovid's work, is love—be it personal love or love personified in the figure of Amor (Cupid). Indeed, the other Roman gods are repeatedly perplexed, humiliated, and made ridiculous by Amor, an otherwise relatively minor god of the pantheon, who is the closest thing this putative mock-epic has to a hero. Apollo comes in for particular ridicule as Ovid shows how irrational love can confound the god out of reason. The work as a whole inverts the accepted order, elevating humans and human passions while making the gods and their desires and conquests objects of low humor.I read this both with the Sunday Morning Group and as the text for a University of Chicago weekend retreat. Not unlike many works of classical literature this has been a rich cultural resource ever since including authors from Chaucer and Shakespeare to, more recently Ted Hughes, and composers from Gluck and Offenbach to Britten. Ovid based these tales on Greek myths, albeit often with stylistic adaptations.
    • 5/5
      History of the world
    • 4/5
      Short version: loved the writing, got a bit worn out by the subject matter.Ovid is one of the great writers of Western literature and that's pretty obvious from reading The Metamorphoses. I don't know how well Allen Mandelbaum's translation conveys the original Latin, but I enjoyed it. J.C. McKeown's introduction was enough to orient me to the poem and give it some historical context without being overwhelming. (FYI for those who care: beyond that introduction and an afterword in the Everyman's Library edition, there are no other explanatory notes.)I have a lifelong interest in Greek and Roman mythology and many of these stories were not new to me—and many of them were, and that was wonderful. I appreciated Ovid's ability to pull all these stories together (Wikipedia helpfully tells me that there are more than 250 myths involved) into one narrative, with stories nested within other stories. Many retellings of myths focus on plot rather than character: A happened, then B happened, and it ended at C. Ovid gives the characters time to reflect on their desires or actions, to waver in their decisions, to almost save themselves. Even as I was figuratively glaring at Juno while she plotted the destruction of still yet another of Jove's victims/lovers, I enjoyed seeing her point of view.But, well, it's over 500 pages of stories with mostly unhappy endings. Very few people are changed into something else except as a punishment. Love, for so many of the gods and men, was interchangeable with rape. Even when a couple found mutual love, it often ended in death or unwanted transformation. None of this was new to me; it was just wearying reading so much of it at once. So while I loved this book, it'll be a while before I consider rereading it.
    • 2/5
      #2 on the 1,001 Books to Read list. 999 to go. The takeaway was that I'm now properly prepared for the Jeopardy! category of Roman Gods, should I ever get on the show, and should that come up. Absent that, I was in a fog most of the time, barely able to follow the narrative, which read much like Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews, in that it took fragmented, eclectic tales and fashioned them into a linear story. The violence was a bit disturbing at times, Blood Meridian style, and I did enjoy learning a bit more about these myths I knew vaguely, but honestly, I was just happy to be done so I could move on to the next book.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely love this Renaissance translation. The long lines are quite a workout, but the beautiful language makes it completely worth it. When using Ovid as a reference, this is definitely the translation to use for eloquence.
    • 5/5
      Important Note: This review is for the edition translated by Z. Philip Ambrose. Seeing as the review focuses mainly on the translation, this will not work for all copies of the book. You have been warned.Introduction:Right of the bat, I'll admit I'm slightly biased. The translator for this version, Ambrose, was my professor for my greek and roman mythology class I took at UVM. This was a required text and took me about five minutes to realize he was the translator once I got into class. That automatically made the class special. Of all the ancient translations I've read, I can finally say I've known the translator. Just keep this in mind as I continue my review.Content:Ovid is great, pure and simple. I love his stories and the way he writes them. Every time once of my friends asks for a story when we're bored I immediately go to my memories of Ovid and pick out one of my favorites stories. Usually this is the tale of Narcissus and Echo or Atremis and Actaeon.Translation and Notes:If anyone is interested in reading Ovid they already know the value of his works and what they contain (if you don't, then the rest of this review may not be as important to you). Henceforth, that is not the primary focus of my review and will, instead, focus on the translation, notes, and diagrams included in this edition. There is a formidable Table of Contents that lists each story for easy reference. At the end there contains an index/glossary that is near sixty pages in length, chronicling each place, god, and mortal, who they are and when they appear. This is much more handy that it first sounds and I've used it constantly. The introduction, which for me is normally boring and overly long, gives a brief synopsis of each book and the tales included within. That helped me to no end when studying for a test!Notes in the book were on the bottom of the page and usually helped the reader with synonyms (like Abantaides is Perseus), places, and names. Easy and very important.The two most important things in this edition are the illustrations and the translation itself. The illustrations, of which there are many, added greatly to the events depicted in each tale. I found that I used these illustrations as landmarks for individual tales more than the Table of Contents or the Index. For these alone I would recommend this edition yet we have not even touched upon the translation! Fortunately, the translation was just what I wanted: readable and very true to the original Latin. When I first read this translation as a sophomore, I thought it fun to read. Not necessarily easy (for I think poetry and classical texts should be a brain-working experience and require a decent amount of effort put into it) but still fun. When I revisited the text as a senior and translated the original Latin I developed a new appreciation for Ovid and Ambrose. Ovid's Latin was great (of course) and Ambrose did his utmost best to stay true to the original. I used Ambrose's work as a 'cheat sheet', if you will, as I read the Latin for class. The translation was almost word for word, line for line, and a young Latin student's gift from the gods. Until you've tried translating for yourself you can't imagine how great this was, to have each line match up with the original. Just...superb!However, I must note that I have not read a different translation. Overall, I don't think it would matter. Penguin comes out with decent translations (and they have the most, by far) and Oxford World Classics give even better translations with awesome notes except I found both these translations lacking something special when I glanced over them in the bookstores. Perhaps because they didn't have those wonderful illustrations or they aren't set-up as neatly, I still have no desire to further explore my dislike. Take this new bit of information as you will, my view of this translation will certainly not change.Conclusion:A great literal, but definitely readable, translation of Ovid's well-known work of stories and myths, complete with illustrations. Great for the beginner and Latin student alike. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      I would've given this book four stars if it's more organized. The frequent jumps from one story to another really annoyed me. I think I like Bulfinch's Mythology better.Anyway, the title is damn right accurate since many people/deities here were turned into birds, rivers, stones, etc whether as forms of punishments or pity from the gods. Speaking about the gods, yes, I should repeat this: they're a bunch of vengeful, petty, envious rapists/douche bags. I don't think I can find any favorite. Definitely don't wanna live in a world full of those scumbags.Some stories are great, some are downright boring, if not repetitive. But, still worth to read, I guess.
    • 4/5
      Enertaining, enlightening, but ultimately light.All the known myths and stories from the Greek/Roman world, with the exception of a few from Homer and Virgil are contained in this lengthy poem to unending transformation.Ovid's boast in the epilogue, "Thoughout all ages, if poets have vision to prophesy the truth, I shall live in my fame." is certainly true.A note on this translation: I have only a smattering of Latin, but found this text to be far superior to the clunky Charles Martin translation, despite Bernard Knox's enthusiasm. The notes were especially helpful. The unnumbered notes are contained in the back of the book so a reader needs two bookmarks. Notes are for the convience of the reader, why put them at the back instead of the foot of the page? and unnumbered too?
    • 5/5
      Sex, violence, and humor are often painted as low and primitive: the signs of a failing culture. Yet it is only in cultures with a strong economy and a substantial underclass that such practices can rise from duty to pastime. As Knox's introduction reminds us, Ovid's time was one of pervasive divorce, permissive laws, and open adultery, and our humble author participated in all of them.Eventually, the grand tyrant closed his fist over the upper classes, exerting social controls and invoking the moral standard of an imagined 'golden age' in order to snatch power and discredit his rivals. Though already a popular and influential author and speaker, Ovid was exiled for being both wanton and clever.Both he and Virgil were sent to the extremities of the empire by Augustus, and both wrote epics from their solitude that would equal Homer's. While Virgil's was a capitulation to the emperor, honoring his fictitious lineage and equating heroism with duty, Ovid's was a sly, labyrinthine re-imagining of classic tales, drawing equally on the gold of Olympus brow and the muck between a harlot's toes.Ovid remained more coy about his dirt than Apuleius or Seneca, maintaining plausible deniability with irony and entendre throughout the complex work. Every view, vision, and opinion is put forth at some point, and very rarely are they played straight. Ovid's characters are remarkable creations, each one a subversion of the familiar legend that surrounds them. Of course, by this point many of us are more familiar with Ovid's versions than the ones he was making light of.Virgil inspired the proud, righteous men of words: Dante, Tasso, Milton. Ovid created a style for the tricksters and the conflicted: Petrarch, Donne, Shakespeare, Ariosto, Rabelais. Each of Ovid's myths was a discrete vision, not only by plot, but by theme. His tales were not simply presentations of ideas, but explorations that turned back on themselves over and over.The metaphysical poets would come to adopt this style, creating short works that explored themes, even ritualizing the idea's reversal in the sonnet's volta. The active, visual nature of Ovid was a progression from the extended metaphors of the philosophers to what could be called a true conceit: a symbolic representation at once supportive of and in conflict with the idea it bears.Each of Ovid's tales flows, one into the next, building meaning by relations, counterpoints, repetition, and structure. Each small part builds into a grander whole. Just as all the sundry stories become a mythology, the many symbolic arguments become a philosophy.Instead of the Virgilian heroic mode, where one man wins, thereby vindicating his philosophy, Ovid shows a hundred victories and losses, creating an aggregate meaning. That isn't to say that there isn't depth and conflict between characters and ideas in Virgil, but his centralized, political theme deprives him of the freedom to move from one idea to the next.This lack of freedom is a boon for most authors. The most structured style is the one which most benefits an unskilled author, because it gives tangible boundaries and tools with which to create. With no boundaries, the author has no way to judge himself, and nowhere to start.Imagine a man is given all the parts to a lawnmower. He can build little else than a lawnmower, but his chances of being successful are fairly high. Now give the same man all the uncut materials and tools in a shop. He could now make nearly any small machine, but it would take much more knowledge and skill.Likewise, it's easier to write good poetry when the rhyme scheme, scansion, and meter are pre-determined than to create a beauty and flow in blank verse. Yet Ovid deconstructed his stories, starting and stopping them between books and moving always back and forth. He provided himself with absolute freedom, but maintained his flow and progression, even without the crutches of tradition.While his irony and satire are the clearest signs of his remarkable mind, the most impressive is probably this: that he flaunted tradition, style, and form, but never faltered in his grand work.Virgil knew what he did when he attached himself to Augustus' train; likewise Ovid recognized how his simultaneous praise and subversion of Augustus' legacy would play: none could openly accuse him of treason, but anyone with a solid mind would see the dangerous game Ovid played with his king and patron.He did not shy from critiquing Augustus even as he wrote for him, for his nation, and for history. Ovid's parting shot is the famous assertion that as long as Rome's name is spoken aloud, so will be Ovid's. This has been echoed since by Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, so that what Ovid realized we would never doubt today.Even banished to the wilderness, out of favor, the only way to silence the artist is to kill him, and this must be done long before he has an audience. Augustus got his month, but his empire fell. Ovid's empire grows by books and minds each year, and its capital is still The Metamoprhoses.I researched long trying to decide on a translation. Though there are many competent versions out there, I chose Martin's. I recall seeing the cover and coveting it, but distrusting the unknown translation. Imagine my surprise after my research turned up my whim.I enjoyed Martin's translation for the same reason I appreciate Fagles': the vibrancy, wit, and drive of the language. Both are poetic, exciting, risk-taking, but also knowledgeable and deliberate. Every translation is a new work of art, all it's own, and I respect translators who don't pretend otherwise.The translators of the fifties were more staunchly academic, capturing meaning and precision, but in enshrining the classics, they fail to take the sorts of risks that make a work bold. Contrarily, the early translators, like Pope, recreated the work in their own vernacular, not merely as a translation, but as a new work, as Shakespeare's plays are to Plutarch's Lives.Martin (and Fagles) take the more modern approach, championed by the literary style of T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, whose works are solidly grounded in their tradition, deliberately and knowledgeably drawn, but with the verve and novelty of the iconoclast. There is something particularly fitting in this, since Ovid himself was an iconoclast who mixed formalized tradition with subversion and irony.Martin proved himself utterly fearless in the altercation between the Pierides and the Muses. Martin styles their competing songs as a poetry jam, drawing on the vocal forms of rap music. I must admit I was shocked at first, and unable to reconcile, but as I kept reading, I came to realize that it was not my place to question.For translation is the adaptation of one style to another, one word or phrase or invocation to something more familiar. In his desire to capture the competition and skill of song in these early contests, he drew on what may be the only recognizable parallel to modern man. What is remarkable is not how different the two styles are from one another, but how similar.It is comical, it is a bit absurd, but he is altering the original purpose less than Pope, who translated all of the poetry into anachronism. I never thought I would prefer a translation of Ovid which contained the word 'homie', but if Martin can be true enough to the poetry to write it, I can be brave enough to laud it.I still laugh, but only because Martin has revealed to me something of the impossibility and oddity inherent to translation. This certainly isn't your grandfather's Ovid, but then, your grandfather's Ovid wasn't the real one, either.I also appreciated Knox's introduction in both Martin's and Fagle's work, though Knox's Homeric background is stronger. I found the end-notes insightful and useful, though they are never quite numerous to suit me, but such is the nature of reading in translation.
    • 4/5
      Ovid's "Metamorphoses" is one of the those classics that I probably would have never bothered to read if not for my pursuit of the 1,001 list. I'm glad I finally picked it up to read it though, even if most of the stories were somewhat familiar from other reading.I really enjoy mythology and found A.D. Melville's translation fairly easy to follow. Ovid flits through Greek and Roman mythology to highlight stories that feature a transformation of some kind... (lots of trees and birds result from these transformations.) He skips some of the major plot points of some myths just to get to the transformation stuff, which I found odd (and it knocked off a star for me.) This is definitely a must-read for those who enjoy mythology... (but if you're one of those people, you've probably already read it anyway!)
    • 5/5
      To fully investigate the entirety of Greek and Roman mythology would take a lifetime. Luckily, Ovid did all the heavy lifting two thousand years ago. Every mythological figure you can think of is in here—from Jupiter to Perseus to Jason to Pygmalion to Romulus. Ovid’s history start at the creation of the universe and goes up to the Caesars of Rome and paints the chronology as a series of changes. In fact, the first lines have the poet saying “My soul would sing of metamorphoses.” Also playing a heavy part is the role of the love god Amor, who is constantly affecting the course of history. I can in no way speak to whether this is a faithful or true translation of Ovid’s work, but I can say that Mandelbaum’s translation is eminently readable and flows well. In some ways, I don’t care if the translation is good or not. It’s the story that matters. Many works of literature and art created since this reference these gods and goddesses, and it was nice to get back to the source material. It’s in Chaucer, in Dante, in Shakespeare, and even in modern jazz (see Patricia Barber and Branford Marsalis). This one may take a while, but it’s well worth the effort. A truly epic book.
    • 4/5
      I love Metamorphoses -- it's on my list of books everyone should read. I generally prefer the Greek writers over the Romans, but Ovid is one you don't want to miss. The myths included range from the popular tales that we all know and love to more obscure events that are like gems to mythology buffs. I do have to say, though, that the Penguin Classics version that I have is a prose translation, and I don't care for that at all. It's one clunky paragraph after the next, and I find it hard to read. I recommend finding a more verse-like translation.
    • 5/5
      Was Ovid the most talented poet of all time? Who outdid him?
    • 4/5
      A surprisingly pacey read; whilst somewhat lacking in structure, there is at least some overall thematic cohesion, and the writing itself is superb. If girls being turned into trees is your thing, then this is the epic poem for you. Also, rape.
    • 4/5
      Seemingly dozens of rape stories, and the only prevention mechanism was to be morphed into a laurel tree, cow, toaster oven, you name it. And sometimes even that didn't stop these twisted deities. There were many other snippets of the well known stories of Perseus, Theseus, Icarus, Jason, etc., as well as some "new" takes on Aeneas and Ulysses. I was intrigued by the brief comments about natural history (ie, spontaneous generation).The stories and characters are many; it can get confusing. Also, I don't think I caught much of Ovid's humor. I listened to the Blackstone Recording and Mr. Kraft is an excellent, dramatic reader. Sometimes however he did sound like the possessed Rick Moranes character in the first Ghostbusters movie.Overall, it was a very fanciful and worthwhile experience.

    Book preview

    Metamorphoses - Ovid

    Ovid_Metamorphoses.jpg

    Metamorphoses

    Ovid

    Contents

    Publisher’s Note

    Book I

    The Argument

    Fable I: God reduces Chaos into order.

    Fable II: God gives form and regularity to the universe.

    Fable III: The Golden Age

    Fable IV: The Silver Age. The Brazen Age. The Iron Age.

    Fable V: The Giants:

    Fable VI: Jupiter determines to destroy the world.

    Fable VII: Lycaon changes into a wolf.

    Fable VIII: Jupiter resolves to extirpate mankind by a universal deluge.

    Fable IX: Neptune appeases the angry waves. Deucalion and Pyrrha are the only persons saved from the deluge.

    Fable X: Deucalion and Pyrrha re-people the earth.

    Fable XI: Apollo institutes the Pythian games.

    Fable XII: Apollo and Daphne.

    Fable XIII: Jupiter and Io.

    Fable XIV: Jupiter changes Io into a cow; the watchful Argus.

    Fable XV: Pan and Syrinx.

    Fable XVI: Juno places Argus’s eyes in the peacock’s tail.

    Fable XVII: Io stops in Egypt, under the name of Isis.

    Book II

    Fable I: Phaëton guides Apollo’s chariot.

    Fable II: Phaëton falls into the river Eridanus.

    Fable III: The sisters of Phaëton.

    Fable IV: Cycnus is transformed into a swan.

    Fable V: Jupiter and Calisto.

    Fables VI and VII: Calisto is transformed into a Bear. Calisto and Arcas become the Great and the Little Bear. The raven is changed from white to black.

    Fable VIII: Ericthonius enclosed in a basket.

    Fable IX: Nyctimene transformed into an owl.

    Fable X: Ocyrrhoë, the daughter of Chiron, transformed into a mare.

    Fable XI: Mercury steals the oxen of Apollo.

    Fable XII: Mercury and Herse.

    Fable XIII: Aglauros and Envy.

    Fable XIV: Jupiter and Europa.

    Book III

    Fable I: Cadmus founds Bœotia.

    Fable II: Cadmus and the dragon’s teeth. Cadmus founds Thebes.

    Fable III: Actæon transformed into a stag.

    Fable IV: Jupiter and Semele.

    Fable V: Birth of Bacchus. Tiresias decides a dispute between Jupiter and Juno.

    Fable VI: Echo and Narcissus.

    Fable VII: Narcissus changed into a flower.

    Fable VIII: Pentheus is torn to pieces by the Bacchantes.

    Book IV

    Fable I: The daughters of Minyas. Pyramus and Thisbe.

    Fable II: Mars and Venus. The Sun and Leucothoë.

    Fable III: Clytie buried alive.

    Fable IV: Daphnis; Scython; Celmus; Crocus and Smilax; the Curetes.

    Fable V: Salmacis and Hermaphroditus.

    Fable VI: The daughters of Minyas.

    Fable VII: Athamas and Ino.

    Fable VIII: Cadmus leaves Thebes.

    Fable IX: Perseus kills Medusa.

    Fable X: Perseus and Andromeda. Medusa’s hair.

    Book V

    Fable I: Perseus’s marriage feast.

    Fable II: Minerva and the Muses.

    Fable III: The song of Calliope.

    Fable IV: Pluto and Proserpina.

    Fable V: Ceres searches for Proserpina.

    Fable VI: Arethusa is changed into a fountain.

    Fable VII: Lyncus is changed into a lynx; the Pierides are changed into magpies.

    Book VI

    Fable I: Arachne and Minerva.

    Fable II: Niobe and her children.

    Fable III: Latona and the frogs.

    Fable IV: Marsyas is flayed alive.

    Fable V: Tereus, Progne and Philomela.

    Fable VI: Progne’s son Itys.

    Fable VII: Boreas and Orithyïa.

    Book VII

    Fable I: Jason, the Golden Fleece and Medea.

    Fable II: Medea restores Æson to youth. The daughters of Pelias.

    Fable III: Medea in Corinth.

    Fable IV: Hercules chains Cerberus. Theseus and Medea.

    Fable V: Minos at Ægina. Cephalus at Ægina.

    Fable VI: The Myrmidons.

    Fable VII: Procris becomes a huntress. Œdipus and the Sphinx.

    Fable VIII: Cephalus accidentally kills Procris.

    Publisher’s Note

    Long before they were ever written down, poems were organized in lines. Since the invention of the printing press, readers have become increasingly conscious of looking at poems, rather than hearing them, but the function of the poetic line remains primarily sonic. Whether a poem is written in meter or in free verse, the lines introduce some kind of pattern into the ongoing syntax of the poem’s sentences; the lines make us experience those sentences differently. Reading a prose poem, we feel the strategic absence of line.

    But precisely because we’ve become so used to looking at poems, the function of line can be hard to describe. As James Longenbach writes in The Art of the Poetic Line, Line has no identity except in relation to other elements in the poem, especially the syntax of the poem’s sentences. It is not an abstract concept, and its qualities cannot be described generally or schematically. It cannot be associated reliably with the way we speak or breathe. Nor can its function be understood merely from its visual appearance on the page. Printed books altered our relationship to poetry by allowing us to see the lines more readily. What new challenges do electronic reading devices pose?

    In a printed book, the width of the page and the size of the type are fixed. Usually, because the page is wide enough and the type small enough, a line of poetry fits comfortably on the page: What you see is what you’re supposed to hear as a unit of sound. Sometimes, however, a long line may exceed the width of the page; the line continues, indented just below the beginning of the line. Readers of printed books have become accustomed to this convention, even if it may on some occasions seem ambiguous—particularly when some of the lines of a poem are already indented from the left-hand margin of the page.

    But unlike a printed book, which is stable, an ebook is a shape-shifter. Electronic type may be reflowed across a galaxy of applications and interfaces, across a variety of screens, from phone to tablet to computer. And because the reader of an ebook is empowered to change the size of the type, a poem’s original lineation may seem to be altered in many different ways. As the size of the type increases, the likelihood of any given line running over increases.

    Our typesetting standard for poetry is designed to register that when a line of poetry exceeds the width of the screen, the resulting run-over line should be indented, as it might be in a printed book. Take a look at John Ashbery’s Disclaimer as it appears in two different type sizes.

         

    Each of these versions of the poem has the same number of lines: the number that Ashbery intended. But if you look at the second, third, and fifth lines of the second stanza in the right-hand version of Disclaimer, you’ll see the automatic indent; in the fifth line, for instance, the word ahead drops down and is indented. The automatic indent not only makes poems easier to read electronically; it also helps to retain the rhythmic shape of the line—the unit of sound—as the poet intended it. And to preserve the integrity of the line, words are never broken or hyphenated when the line must run over. Reading Disclaimer on the screen, you can be sure that the phrase you pause before the little bridge, sigh, and turn ahead is a complete line, while the phrase you pause before the little bridge, sigh, and turn is not.

    Open Road has adopted an electronic typesetting standard for poetry that ensures the clearest possible marking of both line breaks and stanza breaks, while at the same time handling the built-in function for resizing and reflowing text that all ereading devices possess. The first step is the appropriate semantic markup of the text, in which the formal elements distinguishing a poem, including lines, stanzas, and degrees of indentation, are tagged. Next, a style sheet that reads these tags must be designed, so that the formal elements of the poems are always displayed consistently. For instance, the style sheet reads the tags marking lines that the author himself has indented; should that indented line exceed the character capacity of a screen, the run-over part of the line will be indented further, and all such runovers will look the same. This combination of appropriate coding choices and style sheets makes it easy to display poems with complex indentations, no matter if the lines are metered or free, end-stopped or enjambed.

    Ultimately, there may be no way to account for every single variation in the way in which the lines of a poem are disposed visually on an electronic reading device, just as rare variations may challenge the conventions of the printed page, but with rigorous quality assessment and scrupulous proofreading, nearly every poem can be set electronically in accordance with its author’s intention. And in some regards, electronic typesetting increases our capacity to transcribe a poem accurately: In a printed book, there may be no way to distinguish a stanza break from a page break, but with an ereader, one has only to resize the text in question to discover if a break at the bottom of a page is intentional or accidental.

    Our goal in bringing out poetry in fully reflowable digital editions is to honor the sanctity of line and stanza as meticulously as possible—to allow readers to feel assured that the way the lines appear on the screen is an accurate embodiment of the way the author wants the lines to sound. Ever since poems began to be written down, the manner in which they ought to be written down has seemed equivocal; ambiguities have always resulted. By taking advantage of the technologies available in our time, our goal is to deliver the most satisfying reading experience possible.

    Book I.

    THE ARGUMENT.

    My design leads me to speak of forms changed into new bodies.¹ Ye Gods, (for you it was who changed them,) favor my attempts,² and bring down the lengthened narrative from the very beginning of the world, even to my own times.³

    1 Forms changed into new bodies.]—Ver. 1. Some commentators cite these words as an instance of Hypallage as being used for ‘corpora mutata in novas formas,’ ‘bodies changed into new forms;’ and they fancy that there is a certain beauty in the circumstance that the proposition of a subject which treats of the changes and variations of bodies should be framed with a transposition of words. This supposition is perhaps based rather on the exuberance of a fanciful imagination than on solid grounds, as if it is an instance of Hypallage, it is most probably quite accidental; while the passage may be explained without any reference to Hypallage, as the word ‘forma’ is sometimes used to signify the thing itself; thus the words ‘formæ deorum’ and ‘ferarum’ are used to signify ‘the Gods,’ or ‘the wild beasts’ themselves.

    2 Favor my attempts.]—Ver. 3. This use of the word ‘adspirate’ is a metaphor taken from the winds, which, while they fill the ship’s sails, were properly said ‘adspirare.’ It has been remarked, with some justice, that this invocation is not sufficiently long or elaborate for a work of so grave and dignified a nature as the Metamorphoses.

    3 To my own times.]—Ver. 4. That is, to the days of Augustus Cæsar.

    FABLE I.

    God reduces Chaos into order. He separates the four elements, and disposes the several bodies, of which the universe is formed, into their proper situations.

    At first, the sea, the earth, and the heaven, which covers all things, were the only face of nature throughout the whole universe, which men have named Chaos; a rude and undigested mass,⁴ and nothing more than an inert weight, and the discordant atoms of things not harmonizing, heaped together in the same spot. No Sun⁵ as yet gave light to the world; nor did the Moon,⁶ by increasing, recover her horns anew. The Earth did not as yet hang in the surrounding air, balanced by its own weight, nor had Amphitrite⁷ stretched out her arms along the lengthened margin of the coasts. Wherever, too, was the land, there also was the sea and the air; and thus was the earth without firmness, the sea unnavigable, the air void of light; in no one of them did its present form exist. And one was ever obstructing the other; because in the same body the cold was striving with the hot, the moist with the dry, the soft with the hard, things having weight with those devoid of weight.

    To this discord God and bounteous Nature⁸ put an end; for he separated the earth from the heavens, and the waters from the earth, and distinguished the clear heavens from the gross atmosphere. And after he had unravelled these elements, and released them from that confused heap, he combined them, thus disjoined, in harmonious unison, each in its proper place. The element of the vaulted heaven,⁹ fiery and without weight, shone forth, and selected a place for itself in the highest region; next after it, both in lightness and in place, was the air; the Earth was more weighty than these, and drew with it the more ponderous atoms, and was pressed together by its own gravity. The encircling waters sank to the lowermost place,¹⁰ and surrounded the solid globe.

    EXPLANATION.

    The ancient philosophers, unable to comprehend how something could be produced out of nothing, supposed a matter pre-existent to the Earth in its present shape, which afterwards received form and order from some powerful cause. According to them, God was not the Creator, but the Architect of the universe, in ranging and disposing the elements in situations most suitable to their respective qualities. This is the Chaos so often sung of by the poets, and which Hesiod was the first to mention.

    It is clear that this system was but a confused and disfigured tradition of the creation of the world, as mentioned by Moses; and thus, beneath these fictions, there lies some faint glimmering of truth. The first two chapters of the book of Genesis will be found to throw considerable light on the foundation of this Mythological system of the world’s formation.

    Hesiod, the most ancient of the heathen writers who have enlarged upon this subject, seems to have derived much of his information from the works of Sanchoniatho, who is supposed to have borrowed his ideas concerning Chaos from that passage in the second verse of the first Chapter of Genesis, which mentions the darkness that was spread over the whole universe—’and darkness was upon the face of the deep’—for he expresses himself almost in those words. Sanchoniatho lived before the Trojan war, and professed to have received his information respecting the original construction of the world from a priest of ‘Jehovah,’ named Jerombaal. He wrote in the Phœnician language; but we have only a translation of his works, by Philo Judæus, which is by many supposed to be spurious. It is, however, very probable, that from him the Greeks borrowed their notions regarding Chaos, which they mingled with fables of their own invention.

    4 A rude and undigested mass.]—Ver. 7. This is very similar to the words of the Scriptures, ‘And the earth was without form and void,’ Genesis, ch. i. ver. 2.

    5 No Sun.]—Ver. 10. Titan. The Sun is so called, on account of his supposed father, Hyperion, who was one of the Titans. Hyperion is thought to have been the first who, by assiduous observation, discovered the course of the Sun, Moon, and other luminaries. By them he regulated the time for the seasons, and imparted this knowledge to others. Being thus, as it were, the father of astronomy, he has been feigned by the poets to have been the father of the Sun and the Moon.

    6 The Moon.]—Ver. 11. Phœbe. The Moon is so called from the Greek φοῖβος, ‘shining,’ and as being the sister of Phœbus, Apollo, or the Sun.

    7 Amphitrite.]—Ver. 14. She was the daughter of Oceanus and Doris, and the wife of Neptune, God of the Sea. Being the Goddess of the Ocean, her name is here used to signify the ocean itself.

    8 Nature.]—Ver. 21. ‘Natura’ is a word often used by the Poet without any determinate signification, and to its operations are ascribed all those phenomena which it is found difficult or impossible to explain upon known and established principles. In the present instance it may be considered to mean the invisible agency of the Deity in reducing Chaos into a form of order and consistency. ‘Et’ is therefore here, as grammarians term it, an expositive particle; as if the Poet had said, ‘Deus sive natura,’ ‘God, or in other words, nature.’

    9 The element of the vaulted heaven.]—Ver. 26. This is a periphrasis, signifying the regions of the firmament or upper air, in which the sun and stars move; which was supposed to be of the purest fire and the source of all flame. The heavens are called ‘convex,’ from being supposed to assume the same shape as the terrestrial globe which they surround.

    10 The lowermost place.]—Ver. 31. ‘Ultima’ must not be here understood in the presence of ‘infima,’ or as signifying ‘last,’ or ‘lowest,’ in a strict philosophical sense, for that would contradict the account of the formation of the world given by Hesiod, and which is here closely followed by Ovid; indeed, it would contradict his own words,—’Circumfluus humor coercuit solidum orbem.’ The meaning seems to be, that the waters possess the lowest place only in respect to the earth whereon we tread, and not relatively to the terrestrial globe, the supposed centre of the system, inasmuch as the external surface of the earth in some places rises considerably, and leaves the water to subside in channels.

    FABLE II.

    After the separation of matter, God gives form and regularity to the universe; and all other living creatures being produced, Prometheus moulds earth tempered with water, into a human form, which is animated by Minerva.

    When thus he, whoever of the Gods he was,¹¹ had divided the mass so separated, and reduced it, so divided, into distinct members; in the first place, that it might not be unequal on any side, he gathered it up into the form of a vast globe; then he commanded the sea to be poured around it, and to grow boisterous with the raging winds, and to surround the shores of the Earth, encompassed by it; he added also springs, and numerous pools and lakes, and he bounded the rivers as they flowed downwards, with slanting banks. These, different in different places, are some of them swallowed up¹² by the Earth itself; some of them reach the ocean, and, received in the expanse of waters that take a freer range, beat against shores instead of banks.

    He commanded the plains,¹³ too, to be extended, the valleys to sink down, the woods to be clothed with green leaves, the craggy mountains to arise; and, as on the right-hand side,¹⁴ two Zones intersect the heavens, and as many on the left; and as there is a fifth hotter than these, so did the care of the Deity distinguish this enclosed mass of the Earth by the same number, and as many climates are marked out upon the Earth. Of these, that which is the middle one¹⁵ is not habitable on account of the heat; deep snow covers two¹⁶ of them. Between either these he placed as many more,¹⁷ and gave them a temperate climate, heat being mingled with cold.

    Over these hangs the air, which is heavier than fire, in the same degree that the weight of water is lighter than the weight of the earth. Here he ordered vapors, here too, the clouds to take their station; the thunder, too, to terrify the minds of mortals, and with the lightnings, the winds that bring on cold. The Contriver of the World did not allow these indiscriminately to take possession of the sky. Even now, (although they each of them govern their own blasts in a distinct tract) they are with great difficulty prevented from rending the world asunder, so great is the discord of the brothers.¹⁸ Eurus took his way¹⁹ towards the rising of Aurora and the realms of Nabath²⁰ and Persia, and the mountain ridges exposed to the rays of the morning. The Evening star, and the shores which are warm with the setting sun, are bordering upon Zephyrus.²¹ The terrible Boreas invaded Scythia,²² and the regions of the North. The opposite quarter is wet with continual clouds, and the drizzling South Wind.²³ Over these he placed the firmament, clear and devoid of gravity, and not containing anything of the dregs of earth.

    Scarcely had he separated all these by fixed limits, when the stars, which had long lain hid, concealed beneath that mass of Chaos, began to glow through the range of the heavens. And that no region might be destitute of its own peculiar animated beings, the stars and the forms of the Gods²⁴ possess the tract of heaven; the waters fell to be inhabited by the smooth fishes;²⁵ the Earth received the wild beasts, and the yielding air the birds.

    But an animated being, more holy than these, more fitted to receive higher faculties, and which could rule over the rest,²⁶ was still wanting. Then Man was formed. Whether it was that the Artificer of all things, the original of the world in its improved state, framed him from divine elements;²⁷ or whether, the Earth, being newly made, and but lately divided from the lofty æther, still retained some atoms of its kindred heaven, which, tempered with the waters of the stream, the son of Iapetus fashioned after the image of the Gods, who rule over all things. And, whereas other animals bend their looks downwards upon the Earth, to Man he gave a countenance to look on high and to behold the heavens, and to raise his face erect to the stars. Thus, that which had been lately rude earth, and without any regular shape, being changed, assumed the form of Man, till then unknown.

    EXPLANATION.

    According to Ovid, as in the book of Genesis, man is the last work of the Creator. The information derived from Holy Writ is here presented to us, in a disfigured form. Prometheus, who tempers the earth, and Minerva, who animates his workmanship, is God, who formed man, and ‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.’

    Some writers have labored to prove that this Prometheus, of the heathen Mythology, was a Scriptural character. Bochart believes him to have been the same with Magog, mentioned in the book of Genesis. Prometheus was the son of Iapetus, and Magog was the son of Japhet, who, according to that learned writer, was identical with Iapetus. He says, that as Magog went to settle in Scythia, so did Prometheus; as Magog either invented, or improved, the art of founding metals, and forging iron, so, according to the heathen poets, did Prometheus. Diodorus Siculus asserts that Prometheus was the first to teach mankind how to produce fire from the flint and steel.

    The fable of Prometheus being devoured by an eagle, according to some, is founded on the name of Magog, which signifies ‘a man devoured by sorrow.’ Le Clerc, in his notes on Hesiod, says, that Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus, was the same with the Gog of Scripture, the brother of Magog. Some writers, again, have exerted their ingenuity to prove that Prometheus is identical with the patriarch Noah.

    11 Whoever of the Gods he was.]—Ver. 32. By this expression the Poet perhaps may intend to intimate that the God who created the world was some more mighty Divinity than those who were commonly accounted Deities.

    12 Are some of them swallowed up.]—Ver. 40. He here refers to those rivers which, at some distance from their sources, disappear and continue their course under ground. Such was the stream of Arethusa, the Lycus in Asia, the Erasinus in Argolis, the Alpheus in Peloponnesus, the Arcas in Spain, and the Rhone in France. Most of these, however, after descending into the earth, appear again and discharge their waters into the sea.

    13 He commanded the plains.]—Ver. 43. The use here of the word ‘jussit,’ signifying ‘ordered,’ or ‘commanded,’ is considered as being remarkably sublime and appropriate, and serving well to express the ease wherewith an infinitely powerful Being accomplishes the most difficult works. There is the same beauty here that was long since remarked by Longinus, one of the most celebrated critics among the ancients, in the words used by Moses, ‘And God said, Let there be light, and there was light,’ Genesis, ch. i. ver. 3.

    14 On the right-hand side.]—Ver. 45. The right hand here refers to the northern part of the globe, and the left hand to the southern. He here speaks of the zones. Astronomers have divided the heavens into five parallel circles. First, the equinoctial, which lies in the middle, between the poles of the earth, and obtains its name from the equality of days and nights on the earth while the sun is in its plane. On each side are the two tropics, at the distance of 23 deg. 30 min., and described by the sun when in his greatest declination north and south, or at the summer and winter solstices. That on the north side of the equinoctial is called the tropic of Cancer, because the sun describes it when in that sign of the ecliptic; and that on the south side is, for a similar reason, called the tropic of Capricorn. Again, at the distance of 23½ degrees from the poles are two other parallels called the polar circles, either because they are near to the poles, or because, if we suppose the whole frame of the heavens to turn round on the plane of the equinoctial, these circles are marked out by the poles of the ecliptic. By means of these parallels, astronomers have divided the heavens into four zones or tracks. The whole space between the two tropics is the middle or torrid zone, which the equinoctial divides into two equal parts. On each side of this are the temperate zones, which extend from the tropics to the two polar circles. And lastly, the portions enclosed by the polar circles make up the frigid zones. As the planes of these circles produced till they reached the earth, would also impress similar parallels upon it, and divide it in the same manner as they divide the heavens, astronomers have conceived five zones upon the earth, corresponding to those in the heavens, and bounded by the same circles.

    15 That which is the middle one.]—Ver. 49. The ecliptic in which the sun moves, cuts the equator in two opposite points, at an angle of 23½ degrees; and runs obliquely from one tropic to another, and returns again in a corresponding direction. Hence, the sun, which in the space of a year, performs the revolution of this circle, must in that time be twice vertical to every place in the torrid zone, except directly under the tropics, and his greatest distance from their zenith at noon, cannot exceed 47 degrees. Thus his rays being often perpendicular, or nearly so, and never very oblique, must strike more forcibly, and cause more intense heat in that spot. Being little acquainted with the extent and situation of the earth, the ancients believed it uninhabitable. Modern discovery has shown that this is not the case as to a considerable part of the torrid zone, though with some parts of it our acquaintance is still very limited.

    16 Deep snow covers two.]—Ver. 50. The two polar or frigid zones. For as the sun never approaches these nearer than the tropic on that side, and is, during one part of the year, removed by the additional extent of the whole torrid zone, his rays must be very oblique and faint, so as to leave these tracts exposed to almost perpetual cold.

    17 He placed as many more.]—Ver. 51. The temperate zones, lying between the torrid and the frigid, partake of the character of each in a modified degree, and are of a middle temperature between hot and cold. Here, too, the distinction of the seasons is manifest. For in either temperate zone, when the sun is in that tropic, which borders upon it, being nearly vertical, the heat must be considerable, and produce summer; but when he is removed to the other tropic by a distance of 47 degrees, his rays will strike but faintly, and winter will be the consequence. The intermediate spaces, while he is moving from one tropic to the other, make spring and autumn.

    18 The brothers.]—Ver. 60. That is, the winds, who, according to the Theogony of Hesiod, were the sons of Astreus, the giant, and Aurora.

    19 Eurus took his way.]—Ver. 61. The Poet, after remarking that the air is the proper region of the winds, proceeds to take notice that God, to prevent them from making havoc of the creation, subjected them to particular laws, and assigned to each the quarter whence to direct his blasts. Eurus is the east wind, being so called from its name, because it blows from the east. As Aurora, or the morning, was always ushered in by the sun, who rises eastward, she was supposed to have her habitation in the eastern quarter of the world; and often, in the language of ancient poetry, her name signifies the east.

    20 The realms of Nabath.]—Ver. 61. From Josephus we learn that Nabath, the son of Ishmael, with his eleven brothers, took possession of all the country from the river Euphrates to the Red Sea, and called it Nabathæa. Pliny the Elder and Strabo speak of the Nabatæi as situated between Babylon and Arabia Felix, and call their capital Petra. Tacitus, in his Annals (Book ii. ch. 57), speaks of them as having a king. Perhaps the term ‘Nabathæa regna’ implies here, generally, the whole of Arabia.

    21 Are bordering upon Zephyrus.]—Ver. 63. The region where the sun sets, that is to say, the western part of the world, was assigned by the ancients to the Zephyrs, or west winds, so called by a Greek derivation because they cherish and enliven nature.

    22 Boreas invaded Scythia.]—Ver. 64. Under the name of Scythia, the ancients generally comprehended all the countries situate in the extreme northern regions. ‘Septem trio,’ meaning the northern region of the world, is so called from the ‘Triones,’ a constellation of seven stars, near the North Pole, known also as the Ursa Major, or Greater Bear, and among the country people of our time by the name of Charles’s Wain. Boreas, one of the names of ‘Aquilo,’ or the ‘north wind,’ is derived from a Greek word, signifying ‘an eddy.’ This name was probably given to it from its causing whirlwinds occasionally by its violence.

    23 The drizzling South Wind.]—Ver. 66. The South Wind is especially called rainy, because, blowing from the Mediterranean sea on the coast of France and Italy, it generally brings with it clouds and rain.

    24 The forms of the Gods.]—Ver. 73. There is some doubt what the Poet here means by the ‘forms of the Gods.’ Some think that the stars are meant, as if it were to be understood that they are forms of the Gods. But it is most probably only a poetical expression for the Gods themselves, and he here assigns the heavens as the habitation of the Gods and the stars; these last, according to the notion of the Platonic philosophers being either intelligent beings, or guided and actuated by such.

    25 Inhabited by the smooth fishes.]—Ver. 74. ‘Cesserunt nitidis habitandæ piscibus;’ Clarke translates ‘fell to the neat fishes to inhabit.’

    26 Could rule over the rest.]—Ver. 77. This strongly brings to mind the words of the Creator, described in the first chapter of Genesis, ver. 28. ‘And God said unto them—have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’

    27 Framed him from divine elements.]—Ver. 78. We have here strong grounds for contending that the ancient philosophers, and after them the poets, in their account of the creation of the world followed a tradition that had been copied from the Books of Moses. The formation of man, in Ovid, as well as in the Book of Genesis, is the last work of the Creator, and was, for the same purpose, that man might have dominion over the other animated works of the creation.

    FABLE III.

    The formation of man is followed by a succession of the four ages of the world. The first is the Golden Age, during which Innocence and Justice alone govern the world.

    The Golden Age was first founded, which, without any avenger, of its own accord, without laws, practised both faith and rectitude. Punishment, and the fear of it, did not exist, and threatening decrees were not read upon the brazen tables,²⁸ fixed up to view, nor yet did the suppliant multitude dread the countenance of its judge; but all were in safety without any avenger. The pine-tree, cut from its native mountains, had not yet descended to the flowing waves, that it might visit a foreign region; and mortals were acquainted with no shores beyond their own. Not as yet did deep ditches surround the towns; no trumpets of straightened, or clarions of crooked brass,²⁹ no helmets, no swords then existed. Without occasion for soldiers, the minds of men, free from care, enjoyed an easy tranquillity.

    The Earth itself, too, in freedom, untouched by the harrow, and wounded by no ploughshares, of its own accord produced everything; and men, contented with the food created under no compulsion, gathered the fruit of the arbute-tree, and the strawberries of the mountain, and cornels, and blackberries adhering to the prickly bramble-bushes, and acorns which had fallen from the wide-spreading tree of Jove. Then it was an eternal spring; and the gentle Zephyrs, with their soothing breezes, cherished the flowers produced without any seed. Soon, too, the Earth unploughed yielded crops of grain, and the land, without being renewed, was whitened with the heavy ears of corn. Then, rivers of milk, then, rivers of nectar were flowing, and the yellow honey was distilled from the green holm oak.

    EXPLANATION.

    The heathen poets had learned, most probably from tradition, that our first parents lived for some time in peaceful innocence; that, without tillage, the garden of Eden furnished them with fruit and food in abundance; and that the animals were submissive to their commands: that after the fall the ground became unfruitful, and yielded nothing without labor; and that nature no longer spontaneously acknowledged man for its master. The more happy days of our first parents they seem to have styled the Golden Age, each writer being desirous to make his own country the scene of those times of innocence. The Latin writers, for instance, have placed in Italy, and under the reign of Saturn and Janus, events, which, as they really happened, the Scriptures relate in the histories of Adam and of Noah.

    28 Read upon the brazen tables.]—Ver. 91. It was the custom among the Romans to engrave their laws on tables of brass, and fix them in the Capitol, or some other conspicuous place, that they might be open to the view of all.

    29 Clarions of crooked brass.]—Ver. 98. ‘Cornu’ seems to have been a general name for the horn or trumpet; whereas the tuba was a straight trumpet, while the ‘lituus’ was bent into a spiral shape.

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