Metamorphoses

“And when, to plead with Argus, she would try

To stretch her arms, she had no arms to stretch.

Would she complain, a moo came from her throat,

A startling sound—her own voice frightened her.”

After Jupiter transforms Io into a cow, he gives her to Juno, who then puts Io (whom she does not know used to be human) under the watch of the 100-eyed guard Argus. Io wants to ask Argus for his help, but Ovid vividly details how she is unable. At this point in the myth, Io is trapped as a human with human desires inside the restrictive body of a cow, unable to communicate either through gesture or words. Ovid highlights the tragedy and torture of the situation for Io when he details how hearing her own words come out as moos scares Io.

“Here Phaethon lies, his father’s charioteer;

Great was his fall, yet did he greatly dare.”

This epitaph (memorial inscription) appears on the tomb of Phaethon, the sun of the Sun. The prideful Phaethon had dared to ride his father’s chariot, only to find out he had greatly overestimated his own abilities, ultimately falling a great distance to his death. The first line of the epitaph describes the circumstances of his death, but the second line focuses more on the moral lesson that can be learned from Phaethon’s story. By Phaethon’s example, daring too greatly or being too bold can lead to disastrous ruin.

“He knew both sides of love,

For once in a green copse when two huge snakes

Were mating, he attacked them with his stick,

And was transformed (a miracle!) from man

To woman; and spent seven autumns so;

Till in the eighth he saw the snakes once more

And said ‘If striking you has magic power

To change the striker to the other sex,

I’ll strike you now again.’ He struck the snakes

And so regained the shape he had at birth.”

In this passage Ovid tells the tale of Tiresias, the mortal prophet whom Juno and Jupiter turn to when debating whether men or women enjoy sex more. For the king and queen of the gods to turn to a mortal for his knowledge shows how extraordinary Tiresias is. His encounter with the snakes gave him not just the knowledge to resolve the gods’ debate, but more importantly, the experience to back up that knowledge. Unlike in many of the transformation stories of the Metamorphoses, Tiresias’ transformation is reversible, showing the fluidity that Ovid accords sex and identity here. With that in mind, it is important to note that while Melville must choose gendered pronouns to use in his English translation here, the language is at times more flexible in the original Latin.

“‘The Dungeon of the Damned’

That place is called. There giant Tityus

Lies stretched across nine acres and provides

His vitals for the vultures; Tantalus

Can never catch the water, never grasp

The overhanging branches; Sisyphus

Chases and heaves the boulder doomed to roll

For ever back;”

When Juno goes to the three Furies to ask for their help in punishing Athamas and Ino, she must journey to the underworld. Here begins Ovid’s description of the underworld, which he characterizes by referencing many of those famously punished there. The quoted passage includes Tityus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus, but Ovid goes on to also reference Ixion and the Danaids too. Authors throughout antiquity refer to these same people and their punishments to convey the doom and gloom inherent to the Greco-Roman underworld. Characters such as Tantalus and Sisyphus continue in the Western tradition today as frequent literary allusions.

“Ceres first turned the earth with the curved plough;

She first gave corn and crops to bless the land;

She first gave laws; all things are Ceres’ gift.

Of Ceres I must sing. Oh that my song

May hymn the goddess’ praise as she deserves,

A goddess who deserves high hymns of praise.”

This appears at the beginning of the story that Melville has demarcated as “The Rape of Proserpine,” which is told through the song of the Muse Calliope. This story is Ovid’s retelling of a myth of crucial importance to the widespread ancient religious cult known as the Eleusinian Mysteries. The oldest version of this myth to survive today is in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Just as Ovid follows the same general plot of the Homeric Hymn, so too does he open this story with hymnal-like opening lines in the passage quoted by invoking the goddess Ceres (Demeter to the Greeks) and praying that his song be worthy of her.

“‘Not everything

That old age brings,’ she said, ‘we’d wish to avoid.

With riper years we gain experience.

Heed my advice. Among the world of men

Seek for your wool-craft all the fame you will,

But yield the goddess place, and humbly ask

Pardon for those rash words of yours; she’ll give

You pardon if you ask.’”

Minerva, disguised as an old woman, gives advice to Arachne, a mortal girl who had been bragging that she could face Minerva (goddess of weaving) in a weaving contest. This warning, which Arachne will not heed, gives the moral of the story before it really begins, providing the positive advice for mortals to heed, whereas Arachne will provide a negative example of behavior and arrogance not to emulate.

“her speechless lips could tell

No tale of what was done. But there’s a fund

Of talent in distress, and misery

Learns cunning. On a clumsy native loom

She wove a clever fabric, working words

In red on a white ground to tell the tale

Of wickedness”

After King Tereus cuts out the tongue of Philomela, his wife’s sister whom he has kidnapped and assaulted, she must resort to alternative methods of communication. As Ovid says, in her time of misery, Philomela finds a cunning and creative solution to her inability to speak—instead, she weaves. Weaving is an important skill for a woman in Ovid’s time. Although Tereus took power away from Philomela when he assaulted her and cut out her tongue, Philomela can use that weaving to regain her power of communication, eventually leading to her and her sister Procne taking revenge on Tereus.

“So urged, each in her loving loyalty

Vied in disloyalty, and each, in fear

Of guilt, was guilty. Yet not one of them

Could bear to see her blows. They looked away;”

In this passage, the witch Medea has tricked Pelias’ daughters, who believe that they are restoring their father to youth, into killing their father. This trickery shows the depravity of Ovid’s version of Medea, as she not only kills herself, but also cruelly tricks others into killing their loved ones. Here Ovid focuses on and draws out the moment of murder when the daughters are in the process of killing Pelias but have not quite yet recognized the truth of their actions. This increases the story’s drama for its audience, who already know that these daughters will kill their father.

“His dynasty’s

Disgrace had grown; the monstrous hybrid beast

Declared the queen’s obscene adultery.

To rid his precincts of this shame the king

Planned to confine him shut away within

Blind walls of intricate complexity.”

This passage covers the birth and imprisonment of the famous monster the Minotaur, who is traditionally part man and part bull. The wife of Minos, King of Crete, conceived the minotaur through “obscene adultery”—as revealed in other works, by having sex with a bull. The result of this union reflects the shame that Ovid attributes to his conception through his body, as hybrids in Greco-Roman mythology are frequently monsters. By hiding the Minotaur, Minos hopes to hide the evidence of this union which is both shameful in its crossing of species boundaries and in its crossing of the boundaries of marriage.

“when the boy

Began to enjoy his thrilling flight and left

His guide to roam the ranges of the heavens,

And soared too high. The scorching sun so close

Softened the fragrant wax that bound his wings;

The wax melted; his waving arms were bare;

Unfledged, they had no purchase on the air!

And calling to his father as he fell,

The boy was swallowed in the blue sea’s swell,

The blue sea that for ever bears his name.”

The inventor and creator of the Cretan labyrinth, Daedalus, escapes imprisonment with his son Icarus by building wings out of feather and wax. He had warned Icarus to fly neither too close to the sun nor too close to the water, but as in the story of Phaethon, Icarus becomes too bold for his own good. The lesson in this story is again that one can meet with a terrible ending (death) if they dare more than they should. This story also provides an explanation for the name of this part of the Mediterranean, the Icarian Sea.

“Some, my brave Theseus, have been changed the once

And keep their changeling shape; some have the gift

To change and change again in many forms,

Like Proteus, creature of the encircling seas,

Who sometimes seemed a lad, sometimes a lion,

Sometimes a snake men feared to touch, sometimes

A charging boar, or else a sharp-horned bull;”

The river Achelous begins his story of Erysichthon’s daughter (known from other sources to be named Mestra) by explaining that there are two types of metamorphosis—permanent and flexible. As in the case of Tiresias, who changed form and then changed back, flexible metamorphosis is a powerful ability, here referred to as even a “gift.” This sets up the exceptional nature of Mestra’s ability, which allows her, like Proteus, to change form freely.

“Gradually

Up from the soil right round her legs and loins

Bark climbed and clung; and, seeing it, she tried

To tear her hair, but found leaves filled her hand,

Leaves covered her whole head.”

This extensive focus on Dryope’s slow transformation into a tree, which Ovid continues beyond the passage quoted, shows Ovid’s poetic fascination with the aesthetics and horror of metamorphosis. By slowing down the transition and elaborating each moment, Ovid lingers in his visual description of the change. He also emphasizes the horror of the scene, which is common to many of his metamorphoses, by showing Dryope’s frantic behavior as she slowly realizes what is happening to her.

“So to the music of his strings he sang,

And all the bloodless spirits wept to hear;

And Tantalus forgot the fleeing water,

Ixion’s wheel was tranced; the Danaids

Laid down their urns; the vultures left their feasts,

And Sisyphus sat rapt upon his stone.”

When Orpheus travels to the underworld to rescue his dead wife Eurydice, he uses his powerful musical talent to sway Proserpine, queen of the underworld, to his aid. In doing so, he also entrances the other inhabitants of the underworld, including those famously tortured in its depths. This passage invokes mostly the same tortured inhabitants as Quote 5 above—Tantalus and Sisyphus, as well as Ixion and the Danaids. This again shows how strongly these characters are associated with the underworld, and it also shows how powerful Orpheus’ musical ability is if he can distract even these souls from their torture.

“Once, when Venus’ son

Was kissing her, his quiver dangling down,

A jutting arrow, unbeknown, had grazed

Her breast. She pushed the boy away.

In fact the wound was deeper than it seemed,

Though unperceived at first. Enraptured by

The beauty of a man, she cared no more

For her Cythera’s shores nor sought again

Her sea-girt Paphos nor her Cnidos, famed

For fish, nor her ore-laden Amathus.

She shunned heaven too” to heaven she preferred

Adonis.”

Erotic love is a powerful force in the Metamorphoses. Cupid, Venus’ son, often compels erotic love onto others at his mother’s behest, allowing Venus to manipulate both gods and mortals. In this passage, Ovid shows that love and desire are forces so powerful that they can even entrance the goddess of love herself. This love Venus has for Adonis distracts her from all her lands and even the heavens, indicating the extent of this force’s control over her.

“No plenty can relieve his hunger; thirst

Burns in his throat; justly the loathsome gold

Tortures him and, with hands upraised, he cries,

‘Grand pardon, Bacchus, father, I have sinned!’”

The god Bacchus has rewarded the king Midas for his help by granting one wish. Midas greedily requests that everything he touch turn to gold, but as this passage shows, that wish backfires. Midas got what he wanted—absolutely everything he touched became gold—but that included food and drink. Suffering from starvation and dehydration, Midas admits his mistake to the god Bacchus, who does later relieve him of his suffering. This story thus gives two moral lessons: do not be greedy, and the gods will be merciful if you admit your mistakes.

“My heart were cruel as the sea, if I

Strove to live on, fought to survive a grief

So great! But I’ll not fight, nor ever more

Leave you, poor Ceyx. Now at least we’ll be

Together; though no urn our ashes hold,

On one tomb letters carved shall link our love;

So shall our names, if not our bones, embrace!”

Many of the relationships that Ovid presents in his poem are violent or adversative. A few though, including that of King Ceyx and his wife Alcyone, represent heartfelt and ideal romantic love. A primary characteristic of this type of love, as Ovid presents it in Ceyx and Alcyone’s story, is the desire to be together always, even in death. Alcyone makes the speech quoted here when she discovers that Ceyx has died far off in the sea. To the Roman audience, her last promise to join Ceyx in death is admirable because then death and distance will no longer separate these lovers, even if their bodies do not actually lie in rest together.

“This wrong you’ve done me needs an enormous wish—

Put pain like that beyond my power. Grant me

To cease to be a woman—everything

That gift will be to me.”

After Neptune rapes Caenis, he offers to grant her one wish. Her request, quoted here, recognizes the severity of the pain this assault causes her, as well as the extent to which women must fear future assault. Caenis emphasizes the severity of Neptune’s crime when she says that her wish must be enormous to match the enormity of his wrongdoing. She also indicates its severity by requesting that Neptune turn her into a man, preventing her (in her argument) from ever experiencing such pain again.

“He plunged his fatal sword. No hand had strength

To draw the fast-fixed blade away; the blood

Expelled it, and the ground, crimsoned with gore,

From the green turf that purple flower bore,

Which first had sprung from wounded Hyacinth.

Upon its petals letters are inscribed,

Letters for boy and man alike the same

There for a wail of woe, here for a name.”

This passage marks the suicide of Ajax, who had lost out on Achilles’ armor to Ulysses. That Ajax takes this loss so severely marks the importance of Achilles’ armor. Ajax’s death also calls back to a previous myth explored in the Metamorphoses—the death of Hyacinth and the creation of the hyacinth flower. Here the flower grows again from Ajax’s blood, just as it did from Hyacinth’s. Ovid also relates the two myths by explaining that the letters inscribed on the flower’s petals (AIAI, although Ovid himself does not specify the letters) reference both Hyacinth’s final cry and Ajax’s name (which is closer to “aiai” when spelled out in Greek).

“Scylla infests the right-hand coast, the left

Restless Charybdis; one grasps passing ships

And sucks them down to spew them up again;

The other’s ringed below her hell-black waist

With raging dogs.”

Ovid describes this part of Aeneas’ journey from Troy to Italy in imitation of both Virgil and Homer. Virgil’s Aeneid, published a few decades earlier, also describes the harrowing passage that Aeneas and his fleet must make between these two monsters. Both Ovid and Virgil allude in these passages to Homer’s Odyssey, in which Odysseus must sail the same difficult pass.

“And I,

Pointing towards a gathered heap of dust,

Asked in my futile folly to attain

Birthdays as many as those dusty grains.

It slipped my mind to ask those years should be

For ever young.”

The prophetic Sibyl explains her longevity to Aeneas. Like Midas, she requested a favor from a god (Apollo) that did not work out in the way she intended. The Sibyl’s failure to ask for youth as well as longevity appears frequently in Greco-Roman myth to show how careful one must be of what they wish for. Now, although the Sibyl has the longevity that she desired, she suffers in old age rather than the perpetual youth she imagined.

“His mortal frame

Dissolved into the air, as leaden balls

Propelled from a balled sling melt in mid sky:

Finer his features now and worthier

Of heaven’s high-raised couch, his lineaments

Those of Quirinus in his robe of state.”

Ovid details the apotheosis (transformation into a god) of the first king of Rome, Romulus. This is a special kind of transformation, one with religious significance to the Romans since it concerns the origin (aetiology) of their god Quirinus. It also gives a divine association to the beginnings of Rome, in addition to Aeneas’ connection to his mother Venus.

“In all creation

Nothing endures, all is in endless flux,

Each wandering shape a pilgrim passing by.

And time itself glides on in ceaseless flow,

A rolling stream”

A sizeable portion of Book 15 of the Metamorphoses concerns the philosopher Pythagoras, and much of this section explains his philosophies. Although Pythagoras is perhaps famous for his vegetarianism (and in modern times, for his mathematical inquiries), the natural philosophies Ovid details extensively had huge influence on other philosophers, including Plato. The passage quotes here shows one idea that persisted, via Plato and Stoicism, well into the Roman period—that of perpetual natural flux, or the idea that anything can turn into anything else.

“Jove rules

The citadels of heaven and the realms

Of all the immense three-natured universe;

The earth Augustus governs, each of them

Father and Leader.”

In this passage Ovid makes a direct comparison between Jupiter (Jove) and the emperor Augustus. This comparison elevates Augustus as high as a mortal man can go (and in fact Ovid later prays that Augustus, like Romulus and Caesar, will one day become a god). This reference to Augustus also brings the Metamorphoses, which concludes not long after this passage, up to Ovid’s modern day, just as he had claimed in his opening lines.