METAMORPHOSES

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Ovid's Epic Poem of Transformation

Metamorphoses By Ovid

A long, long time ago, there was a man named Ovid. He had a love and talent for poetry. His epic poem, Metamorphoses, confused
readers because it was a collection of stories with no main plot or protagonist. Inspired by Greek myths and legends, the stories told in
Metamorphoses may seem random, but they all share one thing…

Tiresias • Tiresias came upon snakes mating in the woods. He poked them with a stick to get them to stop. This action angered the
Goddess Hera, so she turned Tiresias into a woman. When she(he) came across the snakes again, she(he) let them be and was turned
back into a man.

Sometime later, Hera and Zeus get into an argument over who gets more pleasure out of sex: men or women. To settle the argument,
they decide to ask Tiresias, because he had experienced life as both sexes. Tiresias reveals that women get more pleasure than men
from sex. This angers Hera, for she had Zeus convinced that the men gained more pleasure from the experience. In her anger Hera
strikes Tiresias blind. Feeling bad about what had happened, Zeus gives Tiresias the gift of second sight.

Narcissus & Echo • Echo is a wood nymph who was cursed by Juno with the ability to only repeat what is spoken to her. She was in
love with a man named Narcissus, and watched him in the woods every day. • Narcissus is an arrogant, self-centered man. He is very
handsome and felt that no one was worthy of his love.

While in the woods one day, Narcissus hears footsteps. He calls out to whoever it is to reveal themselves and come join him.
Suddenly out of the woods Echo comes flying and jumps onto Narcissus. She is so happy that he asked her to join him. But Narcissus
flings her off of him and declares that he would rather die than be with Echo. • Echo runs away, embarrassed, and eventually dies of
grief. Her body becomes one with the mountains, and only her voice remains. • Angered by the behavior of Narcissus, the gods decide
to curse him to love someone who could never love him back.

One day later Narcissus comes across a pool of water. He looks into it and mistakes his reflection for a water nymph. He leans in to
kiss the nymph, but when he touches the water the image fades. Narcissus emerges from the water confused as to why the nymph will
not love him. He dies from grief, sitting by the pool of water, waiting to be loved by someone who is not real.

Arachne • Arachne was a gifted weaver. Her skills were admired by all. Observers would comment that she was so good, she must
have been trained by Athena herself. This made Arachne scoff. She declared that not even Athena could weave better than her. •
Athena got word of this declaration and decided to pay Arachne a visit, disguised as an old woman. Athena walked up to Arachne and
warned her not insult the gods. Arachne laughed and boldly stated that she welcomed a challenge from the goddess Athena and would
accept any punishment given to her.
• Upon hearing this, Athena revealed herself. Arachne stood her ground. Both weave such beautiful pieces that it is unclear who is
victorious.

• Athena was jealous and furious. She destroyed Arachne’s creation and made her feel full guilt for her actions. • The guilt was too
much for Arachne to handle, and she later hung herself. • Athena, feeling bad for what she had caused, brought Arachne back to life as
a spider, so that she and her descendants could be talented weavers forever.

Daedalus & Icarus • Daedalus and his son, Icarus, served under King Minos. One day the king asked Daedalus to build a Labyrinth
so that he could imprison the Minotaur. King Minos would pick tributes to sacrifice to the Minotaur. • One day the King of Athens,
Theseus, came to King Minos and told him he would like to volunteer to be sacrificed. He had intentions of slaying the Minotaur. The
king’s daughter, Ariadne, fell in love with Theseus and begged Daedalus to show him how to get through the Labyrinth. Daedalus
agreed and showed Theseus the way. The King of Athens slayed the Minotaur.

• King Minos found out what Daedalus had done and imprisoned him and Icarus in the Labyrinth. • To escape, Daedalus made wings
out of feathers and wax for him and his son. They would fly away. Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, for it would
melt the wax in his wings. But Icarus was overcome with the joy of flying, and flew high in the sky, close to the sun. His wings
melted, and he fell to the sea, dead. Daedalus lived and made it to Sicily. Icarus’s body washed up, and he was properly buried.

Orpheus & Eurydice • Orpheus was a talented and famous musician. He met Eurydice, and they fell in love and got married. The
God of Marriage, Hymen, attends their wedding, but offers no words of encouragement and doesn’t speak at all. • After the wedding,
Eurydice decides to take a walk in the woods. The shepherd Aristaeus appears and chases after Eurydice in lust. Not paying attention
to where she is running, Eurydice stumbles upon a viper. It bites her and she dies.

• Overcome with grief over the loss of his wife, Orpheus decides to go to the Underworld and get Eurydice back. • He uses his music
to charm the creatures and souls in the Underworld so that he can find Hades and Persephone. When he finds them, he gives a speech
and begs them to release Eurydice. Hades and Persephone agree, but there is a catch. Eurydice must walk behind Orpheus out of the
Underworld, and Orpheus is not allowed to turn and look at Eurydice until they have both existed back into the mortal world.

• Orpheus and Eurydice begin their walk out of the Underworld. Orpheus is so overcome with passion and happiness that as soon as
he exits the Underworld he turns to Eurydice. But she hasn’t fully exited the Underworld, and so she is immediately sucked back in.

All of these stories share a common theme: metamorphosis. Whether it be physical, mental, or spiritual, all the characters transform
and grow. They all learn something. When you look at the metamorphosis of the heroes in the stories, you can see that Ovid’s epic
poem, Metamorphoses, isn’t random at all. It is a poem that represents the changes that anyone can go through, the changes that the
world and humans have gone through since the beginning of time. It represents development and growth and understanding.
By Ovid By: Soliman, Julie Ann B. BSIT
 is one of the greatest poets in Rome.  also masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature.  One of the most-read of all classical
works during the Middle Ages  continues to exert a profound influence on Western culture.

Latin  Around 8 A.D  Also published in 8 A.D  Genre -love, didactic, tragic, and comic.  Have 15 books  250 stories 
Imperial Rome and Rome

Was born on 20 March 43 BC and died on AD 17/18.  was born in Sulmo (Sulmona), in an Apennine valley east of Rome. 
Roman.  He is a poet.  Genre(Elegy, drama, epic)  Ovid was very popular at the time of his early works, but was later exiled by
Augustus in AD 8.

Jupiter  The king of the gods. Saturn  Jupiter’s father. Juno  Jupiter’s wife. Neptune and Dis  Jupiter’s brother.

The Metamorphoses consists of fifteen books. They can be divided into six sections. First, the narrator prays to the gods for
inspiration, lays out his theme (metamorphosis). Second, the narrator describes the creation of the world. The third section spans five
books. In this section, Ovid focuses on the gods and their interactions with mortals. He begins with the theme of divine rape. In the
fourth section, Ovid moves into the realm of heroes and heroines. The fifth section moves us closer to the Trojan War. In the sixth
section, which comprises the epilogue, Ovid prophesies a glorious Roman future and the immortality of his work.

Themes  Metamorphoses is an exploration of transformations of all kinds, from the pedestrian and obvious to the literary and
oblique. Motifs  Punishment and Reward Symbols  Lost Speech

“I know what I am about to do; ignorance of truth will not deceive me, but love”

 In 1613, Spanish poet Luis de Góngora wrote an illustrious poem titled La Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea that retells the story of
Polyphemus, Galatea and Acis found in Book XIII of the Metamorphoses.  In 1625, sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini finished his piece
entitled Apollo and Daphne, taken from the episode in Book 1 in which Apollo, pierced by a love-inducing arrow from Cupid, pursues
the fleeing nymph Daphne. This episode furthermore has been treated repeatedly in opera, notably by Jacopo Peri (Dafne) in 1597 and
Richard Strauss (Daphne, with a libretto that deviates significantly from Ovid's account) in 1938.

 Metamorphoses was a considerable influence on English Shakespeare'sRomeo and Juliet is influenced by the story of Pyramus and
Thisbe (Metamorphoses Book 4) playwright William Shakespeare.

Ovid metamorphoses book II

Characters • Jupiter (Jove): Chief of the gods and a son of Saturn and husband of Juno. • Juno: The queen of the gods, sister and
wife of Jove. • Vulcan (Hephaestus): Husband of Venus and god of fire, the blacksmith god. • Phaethon: Son of Clymene and Phoebus,
the sun god • Clymene: Phaethon's mother • Heliades: Phaethon's sisters • Cycnus: Phaethon's kinsman and friend • Naiads: Water-
nymphs • Callisto: She is a nymph follower of Diana. • Arcas: He is the son of Callisto

• When Phaethon reaches the palace, he heads straight to see the Sun. • The Sun greets him, calling him his son. But Phaethon still
demands proof. • The Sun reassures him that he is his father; he says, "Here's what, to prove it to you, ask me for anything and I'll give
it to you" • In response to this, Phaethon says, " Let me drive the chariot of the sun for one day." • The Sun says, "I really wish I hadn't
made that promise. You don't even have your sun-chariot learner's permit yet! I know, kids your age, they always think they're
immortal – but trust me, you're not. I'm the only one who can drive this chariot – not even the other gods can do it! Please, ask for
something else."

• But Phaethon insists, and his dad has to keep his word. • The Sun leads him over to where the golden chariot is waiting, and helps
him get ready. • Then, just before it's time for Phaethon to head out, the Sun gives him some advice. He tells him not to whip the
horses; they'll be eager enough to be going. Also, he tells him to steer a middle course through the sky, and to keep his altitude at a
medium level. • At the last minute, Phoebus tries once more to convince Phaethon to back down from his madness, but Phaethon
doesn't answer. Instead, he whips up the horses and rides off. • The horses sense the difference – Phaethon holds the reins with a lot
less strength – and they start running wild.

• Various animals of the zodiac get scorched when he flies too close. Phaethon wishes he had never gotten proof of who his father
was. • Then, when Phaethon is nearing the constellation Scorpio – the scorpion – he gets afraid that it will attack him. In terror, he
drops the reins.

• The horses of the sun run all over the place, completely out of control. They collide with stars, set clouds on fire, and then veer
down towards earth and destroy a number of mortal cities. • But that isn't all; he also scorches numerous rivers; parches the earth so
that deep cracks appear in it.

• In the midst of all this chaos, the goddess of Earth calls out to Jupiter for help. She tells him that he'd better act quickly; even if he
doesn't care about everyone else's sufferings, he should at least be worried that heaven itself will be burned up in the flames. • Hearing
her, Jupiter calls all the other gods to assembly. He makes them all – including the Sun – bear witness that he doesn't have any choice
in what he's about to do. • Then, he climbs to the highest point of the heavens, aims his lightning bolt, and throws it, striking Phaethon
and killing him. • Phaethon plummets to the earth. He is found by some Naiads, who bury him near the Po, a river in Northern Italy.

• Clymene, his mother, wanders the earth in grief, looking for her lost son. Eventually she finds him – and weeps over his grave. •
Then the Heliades, join in the lament. • Then, for no particular reason, they turn into poplar trees and their tears turn to amber. Ovid
tells us that the amber droplets end up becoming jewelry worn by fashionable Roman women of his day. • Then Cycnus, a friend of
Phaethon's, also shows up to weep beside his grave. In no time, he turns into a swan. • Ovid speculates that this bird's characteristics
reflect the fact that Cycnus was traumatized by his friend's death: swans don't like flying (hence they avoid Jupiter's thunderbolts), and
they stay close to water (the opposite of fire).
• Meanwhile, the Sun is wracked with grief for Phaethon and threatens to stop driving the chariot of the sun. The other gods
convince him not to be stupid, however. • Then Jupiter wanders around, trying to assess the damage from the fire. On his wanderings,
he spies the nymph Callisto, the goddess Diana's favorite handmaiden. He immediately fell in love with her. • Soon afterward, Callisto
gives birth to a son, Arcas. • After this, Juno as a punishment for attracting her husband's eye turns Callisto into a bear.

• Sixteen years later, Callisto's son, Arcas is out hunting. • He comes upon his mother, the bear. She vaguely recognizes him, and
signals him to come closer. He obviously doesn't recognize her because, she's a bear.

• Before Arcas can kill her with his spear, however, Jupiter intervenes. He scoops both of them up and puts them in the sky – turning
them into the constellations the Big and Little Bear, or, as we sometimes call them, the Big and Little Dipper.

• Now Juno is really ticked off, because becoming a constellation is a high honor. • She goes down to complain to her friends, the god
Ocean and his wife Tethys, a sea-goddess. She tells them that, in punishment, they should never let the skanky Great Bear touch their
waters. • So that’s why, viewed from most regions in the Northern hemisphere, the stars of the Great Bear do never dip beneath the
horizon into the ocean.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses

I. Historical Background II. Author III.Summary IV.Themes V. Important quotations VI.Own analysis

II. Author Full name: Publius Ovidius Naso Aka: Ovid Occupation: Poet Birth date: 43 BCE Place of birth: Sulmona, Italy Death
date: 17 Place of death: Constanta (formerly Tomis), Romania

meta = change morph = shape Ovid’s poem (8 A.D.) is a chronological catalogue of myths about shape changing. (beginning with
creation and ending with the apotheosis of Julius Caesar) Metamorphoses

III. Summary The speaker of the poem invokes the gods. He asks them to inspire his work, which opens with the creation of the
world and continues on to the present day, and is about the transformation of bodies. After this short prayer, he describes the birth of
the world. A creator separated earth from heaven, sea from land, and lighter air from heavier air. He then made beings to inhabit these
new spaces: Gods and stars filled the heavens, fish the seas, beasts the land, and birds the air. Man was created to rule the world.

III. Summary During the Golden Age, there were no laws, since the people of this period kept faith and behaved well without
external compulsion. Indeed, men lived in peace, since there were no threats of violence, and they had no need for either weapons or
defenses. The land freely offered its bounty without the assistance of agriculture. In short, the Golden Age was an idyllic era of peace
and prosperity.

III. Summary Things changed in the world during the reign of Jove (or he is also known, Jupiter). His rule ushered in the both the
Silver Age and introduced the seasons. In the Age of Gold, spring was everlasting, while in the Age of Silver, less gentle climates
emerged. As a result, now men took shelter from the cold and heat, as well as other harsh conditions, and built houses for the first
time. In addition, plants were cultivated and harvested. Toil replaced leisure.

III. Summary The third age saw the race of bronze: more prone to cruelty, more quick to use fierce arms, but not yet sacrilegious.

III. Summary It is during this age that things go pear- shaped. And this, the worst of ages, suddenly gave way to every foul impiety;
earth saw the flight of faith and modesty and truth - and in their place came snares and fraud, deceit and force and sacrilegious love of
gain. War, betrayal, greed are all common in this dark age.

IV. Themes 1. CHANGE "Metamorphoses" means "transformations" and there are many, many kinds of transformations
throughout the poem.

IV. Themes 2. FATE life is like a story which has already been written. People cannot escape their destiny.

V. Important Quotation "All things change, nothing is extinguished. . . . There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent.
Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature; the ages themselves glide by in constant
movement."

VI. Analysis Based on the poem, we realized that the world will change around you even if you change. It doesn’t really matter
whether you change or not, as long as the world around you is concerned.

VI. Analysis Things are constantly changing, moving. We do not have a choice whether things will change around us - - we only
have the choice of whether we change to adapt or whether we stand the way we are.

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