Ovid’s Metamorphoses
An “Epic” of Desire and Transformation
Metamorphoses = “Transformations”
Latin poem, circa 8 C.E.
Metamorphoses vs. Aeneid
Aeneid:
• a single, complex story
• one heroic protagonist
• subject: Roman mythic history and national identity
Metamorphoses:
• collection of (mostly mythological) tales
• many characters (and many narrators)
• subject: theme of transformation; human passions,
especially desire
Historical and Cultural Context
42 BCE
43 BCE
31 BCE
30 BCE
27 BCE
19 BCE
~19 BCE
18 BCE
~2 CE
~8 CE
8 CE
14 CE
~17 CE
Julius Caesar assassinated
Publius Ovidius Naso (“Ovid”) born
Octavian Caesar (Augustus) defeats Marc Antony
Ovid goes to Rome
Octavian takes title “Augustus”
Virgil’s Aeneid
Ovid’s first poetry published; immediate success
Julian Marriage Laws
Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris published
Metamorphoses finished
Ovid exiled to Tomis for “a poem and a mistake”
Augustus dies; succeeded by Tiberius
Ovid dies in exile
The Metamorphosis as “anti-epic” or “counter-epic”
It looks like an epic:
• epic meter (dactylic hexameter)
• epic length (15 books)
However, Ovid’s poem
• lacks a unifying heroic narrative
• deals with different themes (desire and love, rather than heroic
virtues)
• has a playful, witty tone
• pokes fun at epic seriousness
My mind now turns to stories of bodies changed
Into new forms. O Gods, inspire my beginnings
(for you changed them too) and spin a poem that extends
From the world’s first origins down to my own time.
- Book 1, lines 1-4
Some important themes in the Metamorphosis:
• Transformation of bodies
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Transformation of texts/stories/myths
Desire: a destructive AND creative force
Nature and Art
Reality and Illusion
Figure of the artist/poet/god
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now
the earth was formless and empty.
- Genesis 1:1
Before there was land or sea or overarching sky,
Nature’s face was one throughout the universe,
Chaos as they call it: a crude, unsorted mass,
Nothing but an inert lump, the concentrated,
Discordant seeds of disconnected entities.
…
Yes, there was land around, and sea and air,
But land impossible to walk, unnavigable water,
Lightless air; nothing held its shape,
And each thing crowded the other out.
- Metamorphoses Book 1, lines 5-9, 15-20
Some god, or superior nature, settled this conflict,
Splitting earth from heaven, sea from earth,
And the pure sky from the dense atmosphere.
…
Then, the god who had sorted out this cosmic heap,
Whoever it was, and divided it into parts,
First rolled the earth, so it would not appear
Asymmetrical, into the shape of a great sphere …
- Metamorphoses Book 1, lines 21-23, 32-33
Man was born, whether fashioned from immortal seed
By the Master Artisan who made this better world,
Or whether Earth, newly parted from Aether above
And still bearing some seeds of her cousin Sky,
Was mixed with rainwater by Titan Prometheus
And molded into the image of the omnipotent gods.
… And so Earth, just now barren,
A wilderness without form, was changed and made over,
Dressing herself in the unfamiliar figures of men.
- Metamorphoses Book 1, lines 79-89
My mind now turns to stories of bodies changed
Into new forms. O Gods, inspire my beginnings
(for you changed them too) and spin a poem that extends
From the world’s first origins down to my own time.
- Book 1, lines 1-4
Metamorphosis and Creation
Metamorphosis as Creation
• transformation is not just adaptation; it brings new forms into
being
• these new forms bear traces of their former selves
Creation as Metamorphosis
• Ovid’s gods do not create out of nothing; rather, they are agents
of change and re-ordering
• the world is constantly coming into being and being renewed,
there is no single “moment of creation”
Echo
a nymph who could not stay quiet
When another was speaking, or begin to speak
Until someone else had –
- Book 3, lines 388-390
He stands still, beguiled by the answering voice …
beguiled: intensely attracted
deceived, tricked
And, seeking to quench his thirst, finds another thirst,
For while he drinks he sees a beautiful face
And falls in love with a bodiless fantasy
And takes for a body what is no more than a shadow.
Gaping at himself, suspended motionless
In the same expression, he is like a statue
Carved from Parian marble.
- Book 3, lines 452-458
He desires himself without knowing it is himself,
Praises himself, and is himself what is praised,
Is sought while he seeks, kindles and burns with love.
- Book 3, lines 464-466
Gullible boy, grasping at passing images!
What you seek is nowhere. If you look away,
You lose what you love.
- Book 3, lines 473-475
Oh – that’s me! I just felt it,
No longer fooled by my image. I’m burning with love
For my very own self, burning with the fire I lit.
What should I do? Beg or be begged? Why beg at all?
What I desire I have. Abundance makes me a beggar.
Oh, if only I could withdraw from my body and –
Strange prayer for a lover – be apart from my beloved.
- Book 3, lines 507-513
Meanwhile he sculpted
With marvelous skill a figure in ivory,
Giving it a beauty no woman could be born with,
And he fell in love with what he had made.
It had the face of a real girl, a girl you would think
Who wanted to be aroused, if modesty permitted –
To such a degree did his art conceal art.
Pygmalion gazes in admiration, inhaling
Passion for a facsimile body.
… He kisses it and thinks
His kisses are returned.
- Book 10, lines 269-277, 280-281
Questions for Further Discussion:
1. The lecture observed a set of parallels between the
creative/ordering/transformative acts of divine and human
“artists.” How does the story of Daedalus and Icarus build on
these parallels? Does the fate of Icarus develop or complicate
our reading of poetic creation in the Metamorphoses?
2. It has been argued that the stories of Narcissus and Pygmalion
are “mirror images” of one another: tragic and comic versions of
a desire that creates its own object. Does reading these two
parallel stories together suggest anything to you about the
nature of desire as such? Are there important differences
between the two stories that account for their disparate
outcomes?