Ovid's Metamorphoses and Further Metamorphoses discussion

For the first book.

“Of bodies chang’d to various forms, I sing” 1717
“My soul would sing of metamorphoses.” Allen Mandelbaum
The world is a constant change… Everything moves and one thing always changes into the other.

“When he—whichever god it was—arrayed
that swarm, aligned, designed, allotted, made
each part into a portion of a whole
then he, that earth might be symmetrical,
first shaped its sides into a giant ball.” Allen Mandelbaum

“Thus when the God, whatever God was he,
Had form’d the whole, and made the parts agree,
That no unequal portions might be found,
He moulded Earth into a spacious round:
Then with a breath, he gave the winds to blow;
And bad the congregated waters flow.” 1717

In Russian edition it is “God Unknown”.

Creation of the world is described much more thoroughly and poetically than in the Genesis…
And I was surprised to read that the earth was made as a sphere…
I liked Samuel Garth’s edition of 1717 better than the other ones – it is more poetical and impressive.

“Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet’s angry sound:
Nor swords were forg’d; but void of care and crime,
The soft creation slept away their time.” – 1717

The Golden Age was a perfect utopia and man lived like in Eden before the fall.

“…now streams of milk, now streams of nectar flowed, and from the green oak, golden honey dripped.” – Charles Martin

“And streams of milk and streams of nectar flowed,
and golden honey dripped from the holm oak.” – Allen Mandelbaum

“From veins of vallies, milk and nectar broke;
And honey sweating through the pores of oak.” – 1717

Charles Martin’s version seems to be the most prosaic though, probably, closest to the original.

Vit,

Thank you for the comments but we may not have made it clear that we are starting the discussion on November 5th. We wanted prospective members to have some time to think about it, finish other reads, and get their chosen copy of the Met.

I will come back to your comments when we begin the actual read.

Sorry for not having made this more clear.

Thank you, Kalliope. I'm so sorry, somehow I missed the date. Now I fall silent.

Kalliope, could you tell me if you are same Kalliope who is the chief of Muses presides over eloquence and epic poetry or a different person? If you are same Kalliope as Ovid's Kalliope you will have an advantage over the other group members.

Czarny wrote: "Kalliope, could you tell me if you are same Kalliope who is the chief of Muses presides over eloquence and epic poetry or a different person? If you are same Kalliope as Ovid's Kalliope you will ha..."

Haha... No, I am the 'little silly spirally kalliope' who has The True Kalliope as her muse...

Vit wrote: "Thank you, Kalliope. I'm so sorry, somehow I missed the date. Now I fall silent."

We had not put it in the title of the thread, partly because we have not assigned dates for the subsequent Books.

I had included the date in the invitation, but that could be easily missed.

Kalliope, this is just to tell that I will not be able to start on the first designated date of November 5, solely because I am still holidaying (in Spain) and have to wait till I am back in Amsterdam to purchase the book and start reading. So I will join as soon as I can.

Hanneke wrote: "Kalliope, this is just to tell that I will not be able to start on the first designated date of November 5, solely because I am still holidaying (in Spain) and have to wait till I am back in Amster..."

Don't worry, Hanneke... As we are giving plenty of time for each Book, you will be able to catch up easily once you are back and have purchased your copy. I look forward to seeing you around in the discussions then.

Reading the first two or three paragraphs of Book 1, I felt like I was reading the opening verses of Genesis. Was the Hebrew writer (supposedly Moses) of the Pentateuch cribbing from Ovid, or was Ovid aware of the religion of the Jews (he was born 43 B.C.,which certainly makes him a pre-Christian, and lifted the 'divided the earth from the seas and the heavens from the earth' from it? Or are 'creating order out of chaos' myths so general that Genesis and MET evolved completely independently of one another?

Interesting questions and I've never really understood the place of the bible against classical literature and thought - maybe someone else here can help.

But I would suggest that in textual terms it sounds like your translator is deliberately echoing Genesis: Ovid's Latin is nam caelo terras et terris abscidit undas | et liquidum spisso secrevit ab aere caelum, 'so the land was cut away from the sky and the waves from the land, and the clear sky separated from the dense air/atmosphere'.

This is a good example of where translators might write their own allusions and interpretations into 'their' Met. I'm sure we'll see more in our journey through the poem.

According to the introduction to my edition (by Mary Innes 1953), from the 12th to the 14th century, the most common versions of the MET were those which appended substantial 'interpretations' of Ovid's stories to these stories to explain what they really meant in a Christian context. For instance ' the story of the flood is first equated with the Biblical one, and then given an allegorical interpretation as the flood of sin, in which all men drown.'

It would seem that, just as Ovid drew from many sources to suit his needs, so later 'editors' have used his work for theirs.

I think there's a degree of commonality to creation out of chaos myths. The Akkadian and Sumerian myths have a similar preoccupation with separating sky from earth and the 'celestial dome' from the atmosphere/air.

Yes, absolutely. The first French translation of the Met., for example, from the C14th century was called the 'Ovid Moraliseé' or 'Ovid Moralised' and does exactly what you say, Christianises the 'pagan' text and reads it allegorically.

The same reading strategies were applied to Virgil's Aeneid, which was generally read allegorically in the medieval period as man's journey through life.

Further Ovidian-Christian parallels from Book I:

The initial Golden Age, during which abundant sustenance issues forth from the Earth without any labor involved surely seems like the Garden of Eden.

The attack on Lycaon by Jupiter for his defiance has strong Miltonian overtones of the banishing of Lucifer, who becomes the Devil in contradistinction to Lycaon being transformed into a wolf.

The flood, brought on by Jupiter's command of the winds and Neptune's cooperation in raising the seas, only to have the goodness of Deucalion and Pyrrha rewarded by the receding waters certainly follows (or served as a percursor to?) the Biblical flood and the role played therein by Noah.

Deucalion and Pyrrha throwing rocks behind them is in charming and fanciful variance to Noah's taking animals in two-by-two.

The two stories are so similar, excepting of course the polytheism of Ovid and the monotheism of The Bible. Did the Romans add Gods, or did the Christians subtract them?

Wait, so are we starting discussion already or waiting until 5th November?

Iset wrote: "Wait, so are we starting discussion already or waiting until 5th November?"

The read officially begins on November 5th.

sorry....

Steve wrote: "sorry...."

Nothing to be sorry for, Steve. We had not made it clear at the beginning.

We were giving about a month for people to decide whether to join, finish other readings, and get their copies.

But I am delighted that the discussion is getting ready for a good start...

Thanks for the clarification - I'd commented the day before and people had responded, so I was kind of shocked when my comment yesterday received the feedback it got.

Btw, I'd like my daughter to join - does she need to be invited or can she sign up on her own?

I think she can join on her own. It is a public group. Otherwise ask her to befriend me and then I can send her an invitation.

Wonderful!!

Yes, sorry for the confusion, Steve - I'm partly to blame here! But yes, let's hold our thoughts till Nov 5th as I need to re-read Book 1. And delighted to welcome your daughter as well.

I so look forward to November 5!

Thank You for inviting me to the group, Kalliope! I finally received my copy of this book in the mail. I look forward to participating and learning 😀

We have a few hours before the discussion officially starts in Europe (it is early evening here), and already there is a lot to think about. I was thinking of making the Genesis parallel my own first post, but will confine myself to two commentlets:

• Are the Latin and Hebrew sources the only two with similar Creation myths? I assume the Roman one was developed out of something Greek. But what about similar myths in non-Western cultures?

• It is a very timely reminder that translators are affected by the literature they themselves have read, and can assume their readers also have ringing in their ears. Is there any way of doing a cross-check on that? Has the Met been translated into any non-Western language, Arabic for instance, and what are the cultural resonances there? R.

Reading the section of the ordering of the world out of Chaos and possible paintings. The outside wings of Bosch's triptych of The Garden of Earthly Delights, shows a daunting round world with strange formations. No animals and certainly no humans yet.

Granted, Bosch's is a Christian world with a god in the left upper corner (when closed), but he is very small and somewhat isolated.

How lovely, Kalliope! I know the inside of the triptych well enough, of course, but if I have looked at the outside, it was only to forget it immediately. We should add some other creations to the gallery. R.

Roger wrote: "How lovely, Kalliope! I know the inside of the triptych well enough, of course, but if I have looked at the outside, it was only to forget it immediately. We should add some other creations to the ..."

Yes, it is often not reproduced. Now the triptych has been put on an 'island' somewhat off the wall with the idea that people can see the outside covers, although this still makes the guards somewhat uneasy when one walks behind the 'island'. Before the outer wings were too close to the wall to be able to admire well these amazing half pictures.

The creation myths from ancient Assyria and Babylon have similar elements to Ovid and Genesis, so the idea of an original "chaos" must have been circulating for hundreds of years before Ovid, and not just among the ancient Hebrews. The first chapter of Genesis is stately and grand, the second chapter of Genesis has the alternative creation story with potentially comic elements like divine surgery to remove a rib and a talking snake ... so glad Ovid went with the stately and grand version, his humor kicks in later...

Yes, I was recently at a lecture on the element of 'Fantasy' in Ancient Egypt and although their theory of Creation was not specifically discussed, their conception of their Cosmos (with the differentiated place of where the common mortals and the kings went after death) was one of the points elaborated. As their theory of Creation comes from the same texts as those of their Cosmos, it was indirectly referred to.


Here is some material.

https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhi...

Kalliope, you got me looking at other illustrations of the Creation myth. Here are four more, the first three specifically from Ovid, the fourth general. R


Hendrik Goltzius, plate 1 from 1589 Dutch edition. A very paternal Creator figure and a couple of Renaissance putti, so clearly influenced by Christian painting. But I am impressed nonetheless by his success in depicting the emergence of form from chaos.


Antonio Tempesta, 17th century. This seems to refer to line 100 or thereabouts, which describes the creation of the plants and animals. It is a rather charming link to 17th-century landscape painting in general, and depictions of Eden in particular. I sense more Genesis here than Ovid.


Opening page of the Garth/Dryden translation, 1717. Whoa, what a mishmash! The artist (do we know who?) seems to have combined moments from the entire sequence, including the construction of quite elaborate buildings. He needed a whole wall to paint on, not a book page!


Ivan Aivazovsky, Creation of the World, 1864. Although Aivazovsky painted a number of sacred works, this interests me for its lack of religious specificity; it could as well be Ovid as Genesis. The artist apparently specialized in seascapes.

In Maya mythology the world is also created out of chaos. So the archetype of creation is universal.

From The Creation to Golden to Silver to Brazen to Iron Age…

Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook:
Fraud, avarice, and force, their places took.

The ancient ones saw the progress as the deterioration of the mores and human nature.
The analogous motifs can be seen in the Bible as well.

The illustration to the Garth/Dryden translation above (# 32) reminds me of the George Sandys translation from the C17th which included a full-page engraving at the head of each book which summarised all the stories in that book - I wonder of the engravings have been reused?

A couple of comments to throw into the mix here:

On the proem, or 4-line introduction: we should note that the text to follow is described as 'one continuous poem' (perpetuum... carmen) testament to the fact that Ovid didn't envisage the Met. becoming a kind of handbook of classical myth, the way it is sometimes read today: he wanted it to be read in the way we read The Aeneid or Homer, as a single poem. We can look, as we progress, how the text itself might challenge this statement and literary agenda.

The narrator, also in this proem, talks about how his own 'things' ('undertakings' in Loeb; 'my art' in Raeburn) has also been transformed or metamorphosed: all of Ovid's other works are in elegiac metre (elegiac couplets), the Met. is the only text of his in hexameters, the traditional metre of epic. It poses the question of genre: to what extent is this an epic poem? How does it situate itself in relation to Virgil's 'Aeneid', *the* great Roman epic?

Fionnuala wrote: "In a kind of reverse parallel, isn't it interesting how the biblical creation story echoes Ovid's account of the creation of the world in Book 1, even to the flood and the couple who survived it."

For sure. It's also interesting to note the variations: the Met. doesn't name a god who organised the world out of chaos, and the Latin implies that the 'god' might be just nature (or Nature): hanc deus et melior... natura, 'this god or better/kindlier nature' - but it seems to be left deliberately ambiguous.

The other important classical account of the creation comes in Hesiod's Theogony from c.725 BCE. Hesiod's version seems to turn on spontaneous generation:

From Chaos came black Night and Erebos. | And Night in turn gave birth to Day and Space | Whom she conceived in love to Erebos. | And Earth bore starry Heaven, first, to be | An equal to herself, to cover her | All over

Interesting to note the sexualised language in Hesiod's version.

I think, though I've never read it, that there might be a creation scene in Lucretius' On the Nature of the Universe (De Rerum Natura)

Has anyone read Ted Hughes' version of the creation in his Tales from Ovid? I'm going to look at it tomorrow.

I found the 'Golden Age' description quite fascinating. Some of it is obviously fantastical, such as the notion that it was always springtime, but a lot of other details describe the palaeolithic quite well. I wonder how much cultural memory was passed down.

"There were no deep ditches enclosing towns, no straight trumpets of war or horns of curving brass, no swords or helmets. People passed the time in gentle leisure and security, with no need for troops. The earth itself, also free and untouched by hoes, not yet carved up by any ploughs, produced all things spontaneously, and men, content with food which grew without duress"

Ditch enclosures come in with the Neolithic, if not earlier, but it's an accurate statement about the Palaeolithic. Security is questionable - several hypotheses of sedentism postulate that it was the security of crops which made a settled lifestyle attractive - but the leisure time of hunter-gatherer societies is well-documented. There is some limited evidence for conflict in the Neolithic, and I have to think that violence did occur in the Palaeolithic, but again it is technically accurate in saying there was no need for troops, for specialised fighting forces, of state-endorsed large-scale units.

Then when describing the 'Silver Age', Ovid almost takes us backwards in time, not forward:

"Then, for the first time, air glowed white, scorched with blazing arid heat, and ice hung down, congealed by wind. Then men first moved to houses. Their homes were caverns, dense thickets, and brushwood bound with bark. Then they began to bury Ceres’ seeds in lengthy furrows, and young bullocks groaned, straining at the yoke."

It is tempting to read Ovid describing the earth's natural climate cycles, and the earliest humans living in caves, before jumping ahead to Mesolithic events.

Finally he comes to the criminal enterprises of the bronze and iron ages, and again I am tempted to read how hierarchical society and the concept of possession and inheritance provided an incentive to this criminal activity, and the collapse of the bronze age in Ovid's description of the lawlessness.

In Book One, we have two concepts of change between god's and mortal's alike. Nature's creation of the world gave hope for humanity's existence by Prometheus himself. However, Jupiter's visit to Lycaon's kingdom decreed mankind's destruction; such evil grew alongside within the Four Ages. During the Golden Age, humanity was righteous and in harmony; until, Jupiter usurped Saturn's throne. From Silver to Iron Age humanity must: work, live and survive at all costs; even the Giants challenged Jupiter's authority.

As the assembly of immortals progressed, they applauded because they cannot die; let humanity suffer the consequences of defying Jupiter. But, their power is derived upon mortality's faith; so who will remember Athena's great wisdom? Deucalion and Pyrrha's "new race" of humanity solidified their divine rule. The Olympian's are powerful, but have many vices; like humans, they can be jealous and use their powers for selfish means. Daphne became a target out of Apollo's hubris; Cupid wanted revenge and used her as a pawn.

Poor Io, became Jupiter's many consort's despite rejecting his advances; being married to Juno gave way for a series of unfortunate events. Juno has experience with Jupiter's infidelities, yet it's met out upon the ladies instead of her husband. Mercury's slaying of Argus symbolized Jupiter's abuse of authority; he can do whatever he wants because he's ruler of Olympus. As for Phaeton, that will be a serious problem; until then, see you in Book Two everyone!!

Wow, Iset, that's a fascinating reading in terms of archaeological periods - I'd never have realised that by myself.

Great summary, Desirae. I'm sure we'll be picking up your points as we move through Book 1.

Roger wrote: "

Hendrik Goltzius, plate 1 from 1589 Dutc..."

These are great, Roger... I have been somewhat engaged with Goltzius lately, so I have enjoyed your choice.

Love the opening page of the Garth/Dryden edition.

I did not know about Aivazovsky.

Some paintings came to mind when the Milky Way is mentioned, although at least this section does not deal with the origins of the Way. It is just the path the the gods follow up in the Heavens.

Rubens's composition on the 'Origins of the Milky Way' came to my mind immediately.



From around 1637, it was commissioned by the King of Spain, Philip IV, for decoration of his hunting lodge 'Torre de la Parada'. Now in the Prado.

But then there is the earlier Tintoretto version from 1575. Now in the London National Gallery although it may have been sent to the current exhibition in Venice.

Iset wrote: "I found the 'Golden Age' description quite fascinating. Some of it is obviously fantastical, such as the notion that it was always springtime, but a lot of other details describe the palaeolithic q..."

I very much appreciated your post, Iset... It helps in understanding how the real pre- and historical processes filtered somewhat parallely into the mythical accounts of various cultures.

Vit, Elena, Iset, and Desirae (and anyone else I have somehow missed), thank you. Your comments greatly enrich the discussion. I am already reeling! R.

Re TED HUGHES:

I have indeed read the Hughes version, and reviewed it here. Part of this is a demonstration of how Hughes, as well as slimming Ovid down, feels equally free to fatten him up; I quote ten lines added to the Age of Iron.

For those that haven't dipped into Hughes, here is a brief sample, showing how completely he transforms the text by abandoning any hint of long hexameters, and feeling entirely free to call upon concepts that would have been unknown in classical times. Although he retells less than a quarter of the book, I find him marvelous for what he does.

Before sea or land, before even sky
Which contains all,
Nature wore only one mask—
Since called Chaos.
A huge agglomeration of upset.
A bolus of everything—but
As if aborted.
And the total arsenal of entropy
Already at war within it.

And picking up on RC's remark on the ambiguity of the God figure, here is Hughes:

God, or some such artist as resourceful,
Began to sort it out.
Land here, sky there,
And sea there,
Up there, the heavenly stratosphere.
Down here, the cloudy, the windy,
He gave to each its place,
Independent, gazing about freshly.
Also resonating—
Each one a harmonic of the others,
just like the strings
That would resound, one day, in the dome of the tortoise.

Hughes' "or some such artist as resourceful" reminds me a bit of Mark Twain saying that the Iliad was written either by Homer or some other poet of the same name.

Hughes' remarks upon harmonics, though, are an expansion of a single word in the original—concordi—another example of how he both trims and elaborates at the same time. R.

Heat makes the middle zone unlivable,
and the two outer zones are deep in snow;
between these two extremes, he placed two others
of temperate climate, blending cold and warmth.
      —Book I, 69–72, tr. Martin

A query. What was known of the Earth in Ovid's time? Their own temperate zone they would have known. Also, I suppose, that it gets colder as you go North and hotter as you approach the equator. But had anyone really seen even the Arctic, let alone the sub-equatorial zones?

And one more. The preamble to this says something like "just as heaven is divided into five zones, so this structure is repeated on earth." What is the heavenly division that Ovid is talking about? R.

SEDUCTIONS/RAPES

I had not realized that we would plunge into the various seduction (or more often rape) stories quite so soon. Yet here, at the end of Book I, we get three of them back to back. Besides the obvious factors linking them, though, there are some interesting differences.

• Apollo and Daphne. This, as I think someone said earlier, is not really Apollo's fault, but the mischief of Cupid. It is also the one I am least sure about labeling as attempted rape, since both Apollo's lust and Daphne's resistance are sparked by Cupid, since his language is pretty close to that of a wooer, and since he continues to worship her even after her transformation. [However, there is that interesting little aside after she vows virginity that "her comeliness conflicted with her vow," which sounds awfully like that old canard of rape-justification that anyone who looks/dresses like that is asking for it.]

• Jupiter and Io. This is the most complex of the three stories, with four or five distinct episodes. Here there is no doubt about either the lust or the rape; the Latin has rapuitque pudorem, or "raped her modesty." It is different from most other of Jove's conquests, in that not only is the god transformed (into a cloud), but so (when Juno finds out) is the victim (into a heifer). And finally, that the transformation (though not of course the rape) is reversible; Io regains her form and voice, though she is pregnant. A little bit of humor here, wittily rendered by Charles Martin:

She had some trouble getting her legs back,
and for a time feared speaking lest she moo.
as so quite timidly regained her speech.

• Pan and Syrinx. Another clear scenario of attempted rape; there is no Cupid to inflame Pan's lust. But here too there is a kind of silver lining. Being denied the nymph, Pan settles for the next best thing, and takes the gift of music. [Is there an implication that the invention of pan-pipes (the syrinx) is the invention of music also?] Debussy wrote an evocative piece for solo flute called Syrinx. The story is interesting also in that it is a tale within a tale, told by Mercury to distract Argus, so that he could rescue Io.

I shall be posting works of art based on these three stories as I get the time to do so. R.

DAPHNE.


Pollaiuolo. Around 1475. Unusually early for an Ovidian subject.


Bernini. Around 1625. Already posted in the Images folder.


Chasseriau. 1845. Interesting for Apollo's post-change adoration.


Unknown. I found this in researching the Richard Strauss opera Dafne.

Thanks for those posts and images, Roger. That last one reminds me of an art installation I once saw in Alsace in France. They were called Les Arborigenes, and they were figures made from living vegetable matter, that had been grafted onto trees in a park :

Roger wrote: "SEDUCTIONS/RAPES

I had not realize that we would plunge into the various seduction (or more often rape) stories quite so soon. Yet here, at the end of Book I, we get three of them back to back. Be..." Origins: With Pan and Apollo we seem to get the origins of art and music in some sort of sublimated desire...Jove's un-sublimated desire seems to set the stage for comedy...