Metamorphoses Quotes

“We ate the birds. We ate them. We wanted their songs to flow up through our throats and burst out of our mouths, and so we ate them. We wanted their feathers to bud from our flesh. We wanted their wings, we wanted to fly as they did, soar freely among the treetops and the clouds, and so we ate them. We speared them, we clubbed them, we tangled their feet in glue, we netted them, we spitted them, we threw them onto hot coals, and all for love, because we loved them. We wanted to be one with them. We wanted to hatch out of clean, smooth, beautiful eggs, as they did, back when we were young and agile and innocent of cause and effect, we did not want the mess of being born, and so we crammed the birds into our gullets, feathers and all, but it was no use, we couldn’t sing, not effortlessly as they do, we can’t fly, not without smoke and metal, and as for the eggs we don’t stand a chance. We’re mired in gravity, we’re earthbound. We’re ankle-deep in blood, and all because we ate the birds, we ate them a long time ago, when we still had the power to say no.”
― Margaret Atwood

“In the make-up of human beings, intelligence counts for more than our hands, and that is our true strength.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Nothing retains its original form, but Nature, the goddess of all renewal, keeps altering one shape into another. Nothing at all in the world can perish, you have to believe me; things merely vary and change their appearance. What we call birth
is merely becoming a different entity; what we call death is ceasing to be the same. Though the parts may possibly shift
their position from here to there, the wholeness in nature is constant.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“For it cannot be denied that all over the world and in all ages there are beings who are perceived to be extraordinary, charming, and appealing, and whom many honor as benevolent spirits, because they make one think of a more beautiful, a freer, a more winged life than the one we lead.”
― Hermann Hesse, Pictor's Metamorphoses and Other Fantasies

“My vessel is launched on the boundless main and my sails are spread to the wind ! In the whole of the world there is nothing that stays unchanged. All is in flux. Any shape that is formed is constantly shifting.
Time itself flows steadily by in perpetual motion. Think of a river: no river can ever arrest its current, nor can the fleeting hour. But as water is forced downstream
by the water behind it and presses no less on the water ahead, so time is in constant flight and pursuit, continually new. The present turns into the past and the future replaces the present; every moment that passes is new and eternally changing.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“I am prepared for any crime, my sister, / To burn the palace, and into the flaming ruin / Hurl Tereus, the author of all evils. / I would cut out his tongue, his eyes, cut off / The parts which brought you shame...”
― Ovid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Books 6-10

“As I opened my eyes and witnessed the whites; my world transformed and I looked at everything in a different light!”
― Archana Chaurasia Kapoor

“Gifts Iphis promised when she was a maid
transformed into a boy he gladly paid.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“When thro' Earth's caverns I a-while have roul'd
My waves, I rise, and here again behold
The long-lost stars; and, as I late did glide
Near Styx, Proserpina there I espy'd.
Fear still with grief might in her face be seen;
She still her rape laments; yet, made a queen,
Beneath those gloomy shades her sceptre sways,
And ev'n th' infernal king her will obeys.

This heard, the Goddess like a statue stood,
Stupid with grief; and in that musing mood
Continu'd long; new cares a-while supprest
The reigning of her immortal breast.
At last to Jove her daughter's sire she flies,
And with her chariot cuts the chrystal skies;
She comes in clouds, and with dishevel'd hair,
Standing before his throne, prefers her pray'r”
(Ovid, Metamorphoses (Translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al).

„ქვესკნელში ვწვეთავ, მივიწყებულ ვარსკვლავთა შევცქერ.
მიწისქვეშეთა სტიქსის მორევს როს მივდიოდი,
ვიხილე შენი პროზერპინა ჩემი თვალებით.
თუმცა იურვის, აქამომდე კრთომა აქვს სახეს,
დედოფალია მაინც. დიდი, ბნელი სამეფოს
უფლებამორჭმულ ცოლად უზის ქვესკნელის ტირანს.

მეხდაცემული იყო დიდხანს, მაგრამ როს ურვამ
განდევნა დიდი გონდაბინდვა, ამხედრდა ეტლზე,
ეთერს აიჭრა და სახეზე ნისლმობურული
იუპიტერის წინ წარმოდგა გაშლილი თმებით“
(პუბლიუს ოვიდიუს ნაზონი, მეტამორფოზები (ლათინურიდან თარგმნეს: ნ. მელაშვილმა, ნ. ტონიამ, ი. გარაყანიძემ), თბ., 1980, 143).”
― Ovid

“The shade of Orpheus now fled below,
and recognized all he had seen before;
and as he searched through the Elysian Fields,
he came upon his lost Eurydice,
and passionately threw his arms about her;
here and now, they walk together, side by side,
or now he follows as she goes before,
or he precedes, and she goes after him;
and now there is no longer any danger
when Orpheus looks upon Eurydice.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Our bodies, too, are always incessantly changing, and what we were, or are, is not what we will be tomorrow.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Every transformation precedes the letting go of your previous state.”
― Levi Ramos

“...happy the spear that his hand grasped, she thought, / and happy the reins that lay within his grip.”
― Ovid

“But why do I linger over others' tales
of metamorphoses? Often, young friends,
I have myself turned into something else,
although my choices have been limited:
at times I seem to be as I am now,
at other times I coil into a snake,
and sometimes as the leader of the herd,
a bull with potent horns...”
― Ovid

“I may still win my bliss and end my pain,
and nothing to lose means only much to gain.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“I should have checked which way the wind was blowing
before I set my sails out, to be safe;
I set them out too soon; a wind came up
and now I have been driven on the rocks;
the whole force of the ocean overwhelms me,
and I have no way to regain my course.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“She starts and stops. Sets down -- and then condemns.
Adds and deletes. Doubts; finds fault with; approves.
She throws the tablet down, then picks it up!”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“The ties that bind in piety were overcome by fear, and he surrendered them for punishment: a brother's pardonable cowardice.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Nothing persists without changing its outward appearance,
for Nature is always engaged in acts of renewal,
creating new forms everywhere out of the old ones;
nothing in all of the cosmos can perish, believe me,
but takes on a different shape; and what we call birth is
when something first changes out of its former condition,
and what we call death is when its identity ceases;
things may perhaps be translated hither and thither;
nevertheless, they stay constant in their sum total.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses