Kalliope’s Comments (group member since Aug 28, 2018)

Kalliope’s comments from the Ovid's Metamorphoses and Further Metamorphoses group.

Roman Clodia wrote: "Beth wrote: "The story of Hecuba's vengeance appears earlier than Ovid, in Hecuba by Euripides. I read it last year. After I finish the Met there are some other Greek plays I want to read. I've nev..."

Apart from the Aeneid I am coming out of this read wanting to take up the tragedies again...

Peter wrote: "As a natural scientist I have known the element Palladium (atomic number 46, just in front of silver) for a long time. Others may also know it for its usage in jewelry. But I have never bothered to..."

I didn't know this either. Thanks Peter...

Roman Clodia wrote: "I have to disagree with the Aeneid being tedious - it's wonderful! But is dependent on a decent translation (the original Latin is beautiful - but dense, I've only managed a few key books)."

RC, which edition of the Aeneid would you recommend? I have the Fitzgerald.

Elena wrote: "The 13th book opens with a debate club rhetorical exercise, brawn vs brain. Of course Ulysses wins... Apparently the trope of the wily coyote appears in folklore all over the world, Europe, America..."

I also took the initial debate as one between braw ad brain, and this being written by Ovid, of course it would have to be the brains which would win.

I have always seen Uysses as a cunning personality. From Homer onwards.

I found this wonderful painting, in the National Gallery. We have the battle in the background, with its setting clearly indicating a sort of classical 'pick-nick' and in the foreground the loving couple of Cyllary and Hylonome.


Pietro di Cosimo. Lapiths and Centaurs. Ca. 1487.

And a detail of the couple.

My edition also underlines the sort of competition between young Achilles, he doer of deeds and the old Nestor the speaker of words. The latter almost as effective as the first. The latter wins with 350 lines devoted to his story and in which he points at Achilles' ignorance (his own father had been present in the episode Nestor narrates), and Caeneus was from the same town as Achilles.

Desirae wrote: "The conflict of the wedding is a prelude to Troy's destruction; Nestor's recount was a battle between civil and natural order. As the new Lapith king, he married Hippodamia to justify a new age; ye..."

The notes in my book draw attention to the parallel between the two epics caused by an episode of women-staling.

To me the battle of the centaurs seemed a comic take up of the Troy battles - a parody win which household items substituting real arms and weaponry.

Roman Clodia wrote: "Steve wrote: "But still, why the (to my relatively unintiated non-classical mind) the largely unnecessary digression? And why the excessive blood and seemingly endless fascination with death? And w..."

Thank you for this post, RC. As always, a great help, at least for me to get closer to the Roman mentality - so close and so far from ours.

Jim wrote: "For a thoroughly 21st century take on the Iphigenia story, I would refer to The Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth."

Thank you for this, Jim. I will keep it in mind.

Roman Clodia wrote: "Haha, Elena, I read the centaur love story as a riff on Virgil's Nisus and Euryalus episode in book 9 of the Aeneid (worth a google if you're not familiar with it): another pair of lovers who die t..."

I have not read the Aeneid.. May be a plan for 2020.

Elena wrote: "Steve wrote: "i.e. Disney romance interrupts a slasher drama interrupts a sword-and-sandal epic?!?! (respectively, a centaur love story, the slaughter of centaurs by Lapiths and the Trojan war) I h..."

Yes, the structure and the transitions for me has been the most fascinating and challenging part of the read. That's why I had to work on a kind of Index for myself, which got more and more complicated. I have stopped but plan to reread this and continue what I had been doing, but now that I am trying to catch up with you all, I just cannot do that at the moment.

But it is the most baffling element for me.

My favourite part in this early section of the book is the description of 'Rumour'.

I loved this - with Gullibility, Error, baseless Joy, frantic Fears, fresh Faction and Whispers...




Johann Wilhelm Baur. 1709.

On the structure - again from my notes - Ovid's Iliad accounts a bit more than a 10% of the entire boo, while his Aeneid for 8 % - so a total of 18% dedicated to the 'imitation' of 'two earlier epics with which the Metamorphose has virtually nothing in common except length and the dactylic hexameter'.

So, as I said above, I hope that this 'imitative' section offers an added dimension. It seems it is humour and parody. The fight with the third swan of the book - presented as joke on the heroic?.. it seems that strangling is not heroic.

Jim wrote: "Reading Ovid's version of the Iphigenia tale brought to mind the Canadian Opera Compay's production a few years back of Gluck's opera. It could only be described as stark, the stage totally black. ..."

Those must have been wonderful operas to watch, Jim.

I must say that even though it will be very interesting to see how Ovid changes Homer, and later Virgil, I preferred the work until now - with the gods. May be because I am more familiar with the stories we are dealing now.

Roman Clodia wrote: "So, to Book 12... the quandary Ovid must have faced is how to retell a story that is already told in one of the foundational texts of classical literature, and which has been extensively mined in G..."

The notes in my edition trace the various sources from which Ovid created his own version of the Iliad. They mention the 'Cypria' - a poem in the no longer surviving collection known as the Epic Cycle (how do the academics know this?)

The version of Iphigena being saved at the last minute seems to be the version in Cypria. While in Aeschylus Agamemnon and in de Rerum Natura she is killed.

Very confusing.

I have just read in Book 12 until the death of Cycnus... which, when he first appeared confused me since we've met a couple of Cycnuses before - Book 2 and 7, I believe.

I have not found a good, or specific image to Cycnus and Achilles.

Roman Clodia wrote: "To whet our appetite for Book 12 which we're starting to discuss this weekend, here's a link to a mouthwatering exhibition on Troy at the British Museum this autumn: https://www.britishmuseum.org/w..."

Oh, my... I would love to go...

Elena wrote: "Reading Miller's "Circe," .... didn't expect to like it as much as I do..."

Thank you, Elena.. I will keep it in mind. I recently read Ali Smith's Girl Meets Boy

I am moving to Book 12 then.