Ovid

1. Ovid Metamorphoses

2. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 5 things: • Title: Metamorphoses (“changes”) • Author: PubliusOvidiusNaso (43bc-ad18) • Date: 1bc / ad1 • Language: Latin • Place: Rome

3. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 1: • Proem: first 4 lines: a piece that’s important because it marks Ovid’s place in the literary tradition, his own (a change from elegy, love poetry, to epic) and the larger picture (Callimachean literary concerns: he’s going to unite epic a la Virgil’s Aeneid and shorter, more refined pieces of poetry a la Theocritus, Callimachus, et al.; in other words he’s going to write the most original poem ever by honoring the heroic/historical/cyclic epic tradition of the best epicist ever (Homer) and the didactic/catalogic epic tradition of the best of the self-conscious muse (Hesiod), all in very beautiful poetry, and telling a history of the world (starting and ending with cosmogonic/theogonic perspective) and the entire wealth of human history / mythology along the way.

4. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 1. Cosmogony 1.4-150: An interesting beginning, much like Hesiod’s Theogony; more like Aratus’ Phaenomena in that it is explaining the order of the universe. “God or better nature” (1.21 or so) is the cause of this order … Ovid’s prime mover is not one of the pantheon, and that may say something about his “theology.” Prometheus is somehow involved in the creation of man (cf. Hesiod again), which leads us to the ages of man, a clear signal to Hesiod’s Works and days. Instead of Hesiod’s digression to the age of heroes, though, this is where Ovid gives us a “gigantomachy” (which we’ll hear sung in poetic form again in Book 5 by the Pierides in their contest with the muses).

5. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 2. Gigantomachy 1.151-176. This is again a signal to ancient Greek epics (Hesiod et al.). It serves to introduce the divine machinery that will run the show from now on, Jupiter and his fellow gods (who especially are meddling with this new world in Books 1-5). • 3. The picture of the Palatine 1.170 ff. This piece is particularly Roman topographical: Jupiter is Augustus here; his fellow gods are his imperial retinue or senate. Jupiter will destroy mankind in flood, a divine do-over particularly related to the sin of Lycaon’s unholy feast of human flesh – Jupiter tells the story to the gods (and they react like pious Romans did when Caesar got assassinated!), and Lycaon’s transformation into Wolf is just the tip of the iceberg: all humankind will pay for their abrogation of xenia.

6. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 4. 1.244ff: the flood. Gods need people, and Jupiter assuages the concerns of the other divinities. We see a massive undoing of what took 150 lines to put together; again this is epic in form. Divine machinery, including the winds and the sea gods (including Neptune), transform earth and sea into just sea … the world is drowned and Ovid’s reversals highlight the chaos of the event (dolphins brush by oak trees, etc.; notice bronze age people leaving their plows and homes for boats and the tops of trees). Everyone is dead or dying soon.

7. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 5. 1.313-415: Deucalion and Pyrrha. These are the old couple who piously obey the gods’ commands to repopulate the earth. Not knowing how, they pray to Themis (ancient prophetic goddess of justice) and throw “their mother’s bones” (stones, the bones of their mother earth) over their shoulders, and they divinely become new people: the Deucalionids, descended from Deucalion. Our rocky origins are where humans get their hardiness. Get it? • 6. 1.415-438 Mud and muck makes new things – ah, Pythagorean and Heraclitean genesis! And one of those things is ….

8. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 7. 1.438-472 Epic monster Python. Not only do the giants get put down (supra) but now Apollo gets gloriously to defeat the Python! And from this we get the Pythian, the site of Apollo’s oracles at Delphi, etc. This is an important epic battle. But his victory is not to last because Ovid’s epic has an elegiac interruption here: Cupid will steal some glory and infect Apollo with love (just like the first song of Ovid’s Amores, where Cupid, laughing, steals one of Ovid’s poetic line’s feet, making it not an epic, but a lilting love poem – Ovid goes on in Amores 1.1 to abuse Cupid, saying, who gave you this power, what if every god changed their place, Aphrodite went hunting, Athena went on the prowl for men, where would the world be then? But alas, the poet is infected with love and must do as Cupid demands …) so it is with Ovid’s epic Apollo here in Met 1. He sees Peneus’ daughter Daphne and must have her. This is rape scene number 1.

9. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 8. 1.473-567 Apollo and Daphne. Celebrated 100-line episode, nice rhetoric here (notice the apostrophe) – notice the similes (Gallic hound and a hare). And the elegiac formulae (the blazon, her unkempt look, etc.). Even after transformation she belongs to him … it’s his tree (laurel garland, award of the Pythian games). Interesting result of a rape, no?

10. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 9. 1.568-721 Io and Jupiter. Still in Thessaly (Haemonia), the part of northern Greece where the flood ended and near Delphi, Jupiter sees a virgin he wants to rape, seduces her away from her father the river Inachus, and rapes her. Juno is jealous and forces Jupiter’s hasty decision to turn Io into a heifer and hand her over as a gift; Juno is not fooled; she guards the poor girl with the 100-eyed monster Argus so she cannot escape. Heavy pathos in the scene with her dad – all she can do is moo and scratch her name in the sand with her hooves. Mercury is sent to kill the monster, and how does he do it?

11. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • By telling a story (the auto-deictic force of this narrative move is obvious … we have a storyteller telling a story about storytelling – poetry and song no less – and a story we’ve heard before, about a god who sees a maiden and decides on rape, yadayadayada. Bored yet? Argus is. So bored he falls asleep – all 100 of his eyes!). Incidentally, these eyes will end up on the peacock’s feathers (which we hear about in Book 2). This is one of those points that keeps you reading and rereading Ovid’s Met – there are points of connection in so many of these stories. Callisto (Book 2) for example is of the line of Lycaon. But how can this be, since the flood wiped out everyone … ah, isn’t mythology fun?

12. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 10. 722-779 Io restored and Phaethon introduced. She keeps the heifer’s whiteness and is worshiped in Egypt as Isis – many images show her retaining the heifer’s horns, too, by the way. The story leads to the son, Epaphus, whose friend Phaethon has a problem: born of the sun-god/titan Helios, Epaphus doesn’t believe his parentage. So Phaethon goes to the palace of the Sun to prove it.

13. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 2 • 2.1-30: Major ecphrasis of the Palace of the Sun (one of several in Ovid – palace of Sleep, Palace of Fama (rumor), and one other I can’t recall off the top of my head. It’ll come. So we have a nice picture here also of some problems of TIME in Ovid – it is, after all, an HISTORICAL epic, and we have hours, seasons, and all manner of things here on and in the palace. And time itself is about to get wacky with Phaethon’s joy ride. And I’ve already mentioned time being wacky as regards geneaology (Lycaon/Callisto) … it’s worth asking whether Ovid’s got a point to all this. I think he does: to unite many traditions in a playful, but ever thoughtful (and even scientific, think natural-scientific a la Lucretius, Aratus, king-list chronologies, etc.) way.

14. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 2.31-149 Phaethon and Phoebus/Sol/Helios. This is great stuff. Gods should NOT swear on the river Styx – bad shit always happens, because they can’t go back on their word. But you’ll see it happen again way too many times in this epic. Also, notice the Sun’s warnings: the middle path, that’s what to aim for (cf. sophrosyne in Greek philosophy; this’ll come up again in the Icarus/Daedalus myth, and it’s certainly rife through the Greek poetic tradition and Horace too).

15. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 2.150-300 Joyride: this is a mirror image of the flood – notice some of the same rhetorical turns that Ovid includes; we’ve even got an Ethiopian ethnography in there. • 2.301-328 Phaethon’s death: Jupiter finally blasts him from the sky, again, he’s keeping order in the world. • 2.329-401 Phaethon’s funeral: a nice aetiology of the poplars and the first ever swan … but there are 2 OTHER Cycni (swans) in the Metamorphoses – it seems that there were more than just one Cycnus myth in the ancient world, and they were all too good to pass up treatment somewhere in Ovid’s magnum opus. Sol finally gets along with his task again.

16. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 2.401-507 Callisto. Thank goodness there’s still sunlight, because it allows Jupiter to find his next rape victim, a maiden from Diana’s fold. Diana’s a virgin huntress goddess, and this is important – she’s a vicious bitch when she’s crossed, even by Jupiter. She kicks out Callisto when she’s found to be with child, and Juno turns her into a bear – her child with Jupiter ends up hunting her (Arcas), and they both get catasterized (big dipper, little dipper)

17. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 2.508-533 Juno’s vengeance: that’s why the big dipper never dips below the horizon! Love this aetiology stuff. And this is where we hear the nod to Argus’ eyes ending up on the peacock. Speaking of birds ….

18. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 2.533-633 Crow, Raven, etc. This is a convoluted series of stories, like Chinese boxes all stacked and folded. Here’s the deal: Raven is going to tell Apollo that Corone (whose name means crow-lady) has been sleeping around on him; Crow (another bird) catches up with Raven to say, hey, don’t be a blabbermouth. It’s gotten me into trouble. I tattled to Athena once, and she repaid her messenger by banishing me from the Parthenon! Observe, please, how Ovid is moving geographically now to Athens. Anyhow, Crow then goes on to tell of her attempted rape by Neptune, her transformation into a crow, and complains about the Owl getting better treatment than her, even though she was involved with incest.

19. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • By the way, in the ancient sources, this Owl was not a willing victim – Crow is just being kind of bitchy here, spreading smut about someone else – sour grapes about being out of favor with Athena. In any case, Raven doesn’t listen, goes to Apollo and blabs about Corone, Apollo gets angry, shoots the girl, and turns the Raven from white to black. All this is a firm warning about the power of the vox, human speech (report, rumor, gossip, and its interesting parallel in storytelling, the craft of poetry, etc.). Corone is carrying Aesculapius, by the way – a very important deity for the history of Rome – and so we get another pretty complicated bit about his prophecy, which won’t be fulfilled until Book 15 and 293bc!

20. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 2.633-675 Aesculapius prophecy: this is the bit where we hear about how Aesculapius will heal the people of Rome (notice substitution agenda of Ovid), and Ocyrhoe gets turned into a horse.

21. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 2.676-751 Mercury. This is the stuff from the Homeric hymn to Hermes, the story of the stolen cattle. Another story about the power of the vox– Battus gets turned into the flint. But not just epic or hymnic; once again, Ovid makes it elegiac, with Mercury falling in love with Herse, one of the three sisters, daughters of Cecrops, who by the way are involved with a basket with Ericthonius inside it – this is ancient Athenian stuff, with references to the Panathenaic festival and all.

22. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Remember this story? Hephaistos/Vulcan tried to rape Athena, she avoided him, he Onanized his man-goo on her thigh, it fell to the dust and Athena put the snaky-embryo in a box and gave it to the sisters for safekeeping, saying, Don’t open the box. (By the way, when they opened the box, guess who tattled on them? The CROW, that’s who. That’s why she told that story 300 lines earlier.) So anyhoo, that’s why Athena gets mad at Aglauros also, and we have to go down to the house of Envy (is THAT the other ecphrasis I was thinking of?)

23. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 2.752-832 Envy. Yup, this is the other major “palace” ecphrasis in the Met. It’s an ugly place, and Athena (Minerva) gets Invidia (Envy) to poison Aglauros as a punishment for viewing the snaky baby Erichthonius. Wonderful personification here, no? Aglauros then envies Herse her sister, the object of Mercury’s affection, and is therefore cursed by Mercury and eventually turns to stone (all this again relating to the power of the human voice).

24. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 2.833-875 Europa. If there’s a major rape of Jupiter, this one’s it. He turns into a bull and carts her off to Crete. This is where the line of Minos comes from. Funny how bulls work into that mythology too…

25. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 3 • … Which leads us to the Theban cycle, because Cadmus has to find his sister. • 3.1-49 Cadmus has to find his sister, but founds Thebes instead • 3.50-137 Cadmus founds Thebes. He kills a dragon and sows its teeth – a nice chthonic myth (much like the snaky Athenians) … notice once again how we’ve shifted geographies? Notice also the prophecy that Cadmus and Harmonia (his wife) will become snakes at the end of their life. And the internecine warfare that marks the first citizens of this new city bodes ill for the rest of the Theban cycle – this is tragedy waiting to happen.

26. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 3.138-252 Actaeon. Again, Diana is a bitch, even when it’s an accidental stumbling into the girl’s locker room. Notice the brilliant catalogue of hunting hounds and these great names of the dogs, and the pathos of the sparagmos and omophagia of this poor unlucky seed of Cadmus. • 3.253-315 Semele. Again, gods shouldn’t swear on the river Styx. And Jupiter can’t keep it in his pants. One wonders whether Ovid isn’t trying to make some sort of comment on the human side of a rather capricious divine machinery – Semele was sort of doomed from the start. Besides this, Bacchus is extremely important to the Theban cycle – he is the “new god” who runs the Pentheus myth at the end of Book 3. Notice that Ino (Semele’s sister) is given charge of the new god.

27. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 3.316-338 Tiresias. The context of the next bit (Narcissus) is the Apollonian “know thyself,” and so we have this delightful bi-sexual story. • 3.339-510 Narcissus and Echo. The celebrated episode, rife with psychoanalytic possibilities. I leave you to your own devices – this one pretty much teaches itself. One further note – this is the point at which we would expect to see a mention of the Oedipus myth. Instead we get this (Ovidian, and inventive) substitution.

28. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 3.511-733 Pentheus. Speaking of sparagmos and omophagia, the delightful story of Pentheus, control versus the wild side of human nature, and the triumph of Dionysus (with the inset tale of Acoetes to drive the point home). It follows the basic tale from Euripides’ Bacchae, and is a disturbing tragedy. Don’t eff with Bacchus.

29. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 4 • 4.1-54 The power of Bacchus continued. Again, the theme is don’t eff with Bacchus, but now we have a mise-en-abyme wherein we will hear tales from the Minyades, as they spin (notice the auto-deictic storytelling metaphor) and tell tales that are rather obscure, a veritable catalogue of metamorphoses.

30. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 4.55-166 Pyramis and Thisbe. Delightful elegiac tragedy (wherefore Shakespeare’s Romeo and the nod in Midsummer). This is probably invented by Ovid. Notice here and through the Minyades’ stories the recusationes – a chance for Ovid to signal various myths treated here and there by other Alexandrian poets (much like the geographical catalogue of Medea in Book 7).

31. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 4.167-273 Various stories. Mars and Venus is the famous one; Leucothoe and Clytie are interesting too. Notice these are elegiac fancies once again. • 4.274-388 Hermaphroditus. Weird, right? • 4.389-415 Don’t eff with Bacchus. The Minyades become bats. Maybe better than getting your head ripped off by your mom?

32. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 4.416-562 Madness. Ino goes mad, so does Athamas, they kill their son. Yikes! This is one of the most painful pieces in the Met. Ick. By the way, there are other kids in this story that end up being important: Helle and Phrixus, who escape on the back of a flying golden ram (the product of Neptune and a girl who turned herself into a sheep to escape his rape); they fly east, though, over the Black Sea (that’s where Helle fell off, hence Hellespont), but Phrixus made it to Colchis, sacrificed the ram (the constellation Aries), and gave the Golden Fleece to Aeetes of Colchis. Remember Jason and the Argonauts? We’ll hear about them in Book 7.

33. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 4.563-603 The end of Thebes (at least of Cadmus). What a pain, looking at your sons, daughters, and grandchildren, and seeing that they’re all a bunch of failures who are punished by the gods. Nothing left but to become snakes and leave. • 4.604-803 The Perseid. The wonderful story of Perseus. Have fun! Notice how we’ve gone now from Thebes to Argos.

34. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 5 • The Perseid continued and concluded • 5.1-249 The Perseid concluded. This is a great battle scene and lots of people turn to stone. The most interesting bits of this book follow though.

35. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 5.250-293 Helicon. So mount Helicon is growing fast like an erect phallus, until Pegasus (born from Medusa’s head-severed corpse) flies over to it and bashes its vulgar phallic top with his divine hoof. Helicon stops growing, and an inspirational stream flows from the top, and there’s babbling brook, flowers, nice shade, all the things that make a locus amoenus, just the spot you’d expect to find HESIOD (that’s where he’s from) and of course, the muses. So that’s where Athena goes and finds the muses and asks about the garrulous jackdaws, and the muses get to tell the story about a poetic contest.

36. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • The rest of this book is devoted to the poetic contest. • 1. The Pierides sing about the Gigantomachy – notice how the gods take the forms of Egyptian animal totems. • 2. The muses sing about the rape of Proserpina, the myth recounted in the Homeric hymn to Demeter. The details of the hymn comprise the song in Ovid, and they are also the details recounted in the mysteries of Demeter at Eleusis (the “Eleusinian Mysteries”).

37. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • 3. It’s a rape – Dis (Hades) steals Proserpina, daughter of Ceres (Demeter) • 4. She searches far and wide, ends up in Eleusis, various things happen • 5. Proserpina ate some pomegranate seeds, has to spend some time in Hades, some up top. Wonderful myth to describe death/life cycle, etc. • Inset story of Arethusa • Story ends, the muses punish the Pierides, and now they chatter.

38. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Athena goes on from here to Book 6 where she wants to do some punishing herself with Arachne.

39. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 6: • Athena vsArachne • Contest with Poseidon • Catalogue of amours • Niobe and her 14 children • Leto and the Lycians (frogs) • Marsyas (satyr) defeated by Apollo • Procne, Tereus, and Philomela • Boreas and Orithyia (Calais and Zetes = Boreads)

40. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 7 • Argonautica: major points (Phineus, harpies, Colcis, Fleece, Phrixus, Medea: soliloquy) • Bronze bulls, chthonic enemies, dragon guardian • Aeson and Pelias • Flight and rest in Athens • Hymn to Theseus • Minos, avenging his son Androgeos, demands alliances in war against Attica • History of Aegina (Aeacus and the Myrmidons) • Cephalus, Aurora, and Procris; Laelaps, the Teumessian fox, and Aura

41. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 8 • Scylla and Nisus of Megara (the Ciris myth) • Daedalus’ labyrinth: Theseus, Minotaur, Ariadne and Bacchus • Daedalus and Icarus • Daedalus and Perdix • Calydonian Boar hunt: major points (Meleager, the generation of Argonauts including Heracles, Atalanta, Althaea’s brothers, the burning brand)

42. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 8 • Achelous and Theseus, Pirithous, and Lelex • Perimele; Pirithous doesn’t believe it • Lelex’s proof: Baucis and Philemon of Phrygia (an oak and a lime-tree entwined) • Achelous tells of shapeshifters: Proteus, Mestra (Erysichthon’s daughter)

43. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 9 • Achelous and Hercules wrestle for Deianeira • Nessus the centaur, the rumor about Iole, and Deianeira’s decision • Agony and death of Hercules • Hercules’ birth and Galanthis • Dryope and Amphissus • A sequence of events that refers to old age and death: a harbinger of the end of an age (the predecessor of the age of Trojan heroes) • Byblis and Caunus (brother and sister incest) • Iphis and Ianthe (Cymbeline)

44. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 10 • Orpheus and Eurydice • Catalogue of trees • Cyparissus, Ganymede, and Hyacinthus, the Propoetides • Pygmalion and Galatea; Cinyras and Myrrha • Venus and Adonis, Hippomenes and Atalanta

45. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 11 • Orpheus dies; Maenads transformed to oaks • Silenus, Midas, and the golden touch • Pactolus river turns yellow; Pan loses to Apollo according to Mt. Tmolus; Apollo gives Midas ass’s ears • Apollo and Neptune help Laomedon build Troy • Peleus and Thetis • Peleus goes to Ceyx, hears about Daedalion and Chione (and Apollo and Mercury, and Philammon and Autolycus)

46. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 11 • The wolf from the Nereid Psamathe • Psamathe appeased by prayers of Thetis • Peleus finally wanders to Magnesia and is absolved of Phocus’ murder there • Ceyx and Alcyone; the house of Sleep • Morpheus • Aesacus, brother of Hector

47. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 12 • Iphigenia at Aulis • House of Rumor: the Trojans are ready • Achilles versus Cycnus • Nestor tells of Caeneus / Caenis; Lapiths and Centaurs; Periclymenus • Neptune and Apollo help Paris kill Achilles

48. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 13 • The debate over the arms: Ajax, Ulysses (rhetoric wins the day); Ajax turns into a Hyacinth (AIAI) • Fall of Troy; the Trojan women • Polydorus, Polyxena, and Hecuba’s fate • Aurora and the Memnonides • Aeneas goes to Delos (Anius and the Aniads) • Ecphrasis of the cup of Anius • Excursus: Sicilian tales (Acis and Galatea and Polyphemus; Glaucus and Scylla part 1)

49. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 14 • Glaucus and Scylla part 2: Circe • From Sicily to Cumae: the Sibyl • Macareus (Greek) recognizes Achaemenides (Greek); recounts the story of Ulysses (Polyphemus and Circe); the story of Picus and Canens • War in Latium (Turnus); Diomedes cannot help Turnus (story of Acmon) • The Messapian nymphs and the wild olive tree

50. Ovid’s Metamorphoses • Book 14 • Aeneas’ ships burn and are transformed into Naiads • Ardea burns and turns into a heron • Aeneas is deified as Indiges, the Roman national deity • Alban kings coming out of Ascanius • Vertumnus and Pomona; Iphis and Anaxarete • Romulus reinstates Numitor in Alba Longa; founds Rome; conquers Sabines • Romulus is deified with Hersilia his wife (Quirinus and Hora)