Métamorphoses
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Ovid
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Lifespan: b. 43 BCE (Italy), d. 17 BCE
First Published: 1488 by Antonius Nebrissensis
First Composed: Between c. 2-8
Original Language: Latin
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“Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which assembles some two hundred and fifty stories from classical antiquity into one continuous narrative, is a mythological history of the world, begging with the Creation and ending with the foundation of Rome and the apotheosis of Julius Caesar. The constant questioning of tradition and power is something encountered in many of Ovid’s narratives: Arachne challenges the goddess Athene to a tapestry-making contest; Phaethon insist on taking the reins of the sun chariot from his father; Daphne escapes from Apollo’s clutches by praying to a river god, who changes her into a tree. When Ovid retells stories of heroism, it is in a comic, deflating way, reminiscent of mock-epic. Whenever Perseus kills his enemies by turning them to stone with the head of the Medusa which he carries in a bag, it is not the heroic that we see, but the use of a disproportionate force not unlike employing nuclear weapons in a pub brawl.
The Metamorphoses’ incorporation of dialogue within a narrative, along with its wit, playfulness, and sheer sense of fu, exemplifies much of what we now associate with the novel. Today Ovid’s work continues to be metamorphosed, and has had an impact on a dazzling array of contemporary novelists, from Salman Rushdie and A.S. Byatt, to Cees Nooteboom and Marina Warner.” (PT)
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Cygnus is transformed into a swan and Phaeton’s sisters turn into popular trees in an engraved illustration of the Metamorphoses.
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