Metamorphoses by Ovid

*contains spoilers*

In the concluding line of his very short epilogue to his very long epic poem (made up of very short stories), Ovid confidently claims that his “…fame shall live to all eternity”. This, of course, is well deserved, as ‘Metamorphoses’ is a work of real genius. Imbued in this statement, however, is a continuation of the teasing irony that weaves its way through the piece, as Ovid assures the infinity of something having knowingly propounded only a few pages before ‘The Doctrines of Pythagoras’ that nothing is forever and that everything changes.

Ovid is Publius Ovidius Naso, born a generation after the renowned Virgil at a time when Octavian (later Caesar Augustus) had just secured his position at the seat of power in Rome. Even at the height of his fame as Rome’s greatest living poet, Ovid was exiled by Augustus and spent the rest of his days in Tomis, though he continually pleaded his innocence in the political scandal for which he was punished. His grandest work, ‘Metamorphoses’, as the title suggests, concerns the transformations that occur within the Greek mythological stories as well as legendary events that lead right up to the founding of Rome and eventually Julius Caesar’s assassination. Like Hesiod’s ‘Theogony’, ‘Metamorphoses’ begins at Creation, as “…earth, once crude and featureless, now changed / Put on the unknown form of humankind.” However, as with all great epics, Ovid makes sure to introduce the piece addressing the gods, and sets the tone of the piece – mostly tongue in cheek – by asking those who have “wrought every change” to inspire “one continuous song”. Ha!

There is a wealth of mythology on display in ‘Metamorphoses’, and each story is as deliciously different from/to the last. Phaethon, Pyrrha, Pyramus, Perseus, Pentheus, Proserpine, Pygmalion – and that’s just the ‘P’s! Some are funny and gory (‘Pentheus and Bacchus’), some are didactic and somewhat earnest (‘Daedalus and Icarus’), and some are heart-achingly and profoundly sad and beautiful (‘Orpheus and Eurydice’, or ‘Philemon and Baucis’). The last mentioned, ‘Philemon and Baucis’, actually probably contains all three sorts of poem, as we see an elderly couple provide refuge to the wandering gods Jupiter and Mercury (appearing incognito), who then offhandedly drown the couple’s neighbours for not offering them the refuge they sought. This is all done in a relatively didactic and light-hearted way, especially as Ovid portrays the kind, elderly couple’s struggle to climb the mountain so as to unwittingly watch their neighbours buried under divine waters of retribution, though we witness Philemon and Baucis to be so devoted to each other that they ask the gods, when offered a wish, to allow them to reach the end of their days together so as not to live one without the other. On that day in the future, they both realise their time has come and declare to each other;

“Goodbye, dear love” together and together

The hiding bark covered their lips. Today

The peasants in those parts point out with pride

Two trees from one twin trunk grown side by side.

As you can see, A.D. Melville’s translation (in the Oxford World’s Classics edition) does a brilliant job in providing a convincing sense of the Latin in traditional hexameter; magic that will change you!