What a Fantabulous Assortment of Old Time Fairy Tales! Weird and Wonderful, Gloriously Misshapen FRACTURED Fairy Tales...

It'll shock and delight you. It'll set you to dreaming of an endless procession of mythical beasts cavorting under ancient moonlight.

Metamorphoses; whuzzat? Well, to morph is to change, and meta means the bare imaginary Beginnings of the Myths that make a nation what it will become.

The little things shouldn’t faze us! The main thing is the stories they tell.

When reading ancient myths, don’t let yourself be divided by the lowest possible denominator. Don’t relish the who begat who’s. Our stories and not our sex lives are what makes us Whole Again…

When I was eight or nine, my Mom the Librarian brought me Edith Hamilton (a Greek scholar who wrote about the beginnings of stories we all now know well.)

AND my maternal grandmother sent me musical settings of ancient myths on LP!

My salad days were filled with the stories in this book, you see.

To an ASD kid like me it didn't matter how long a book was -

If I could LOSE myself in it!

4.5****

RTC

Torn as to how to rate this one. Based on creativity, prose style, and humor: 5 stars. Based on overabundance of disturbing, disgusting content: 1 star.

This book is not for the faint of art, or the casual mythology fan.

Ovid's aim was to encompass all of mythology into a single narrative, and he very nearly succeeded. The only places where he cheats a little are on the myths that already had either several or definitive versions - the Labors of Hercules, the Trojan War, and the wanderings of Odysseus and Aeneas are glossed over. This is just fine with most readers; the book is taxing enough to the average attention span as is.

The result is a mixed bag. Some of Ovid's retellings are psychologically spot-on and told with a freshness and verve surpassing that of most modern fiction, to say nothing of other ancient writing. The story of Apollo and Daphne is everybody's favorite for this reason: the prose is fluid as a river, the pacing is sublime, and the emotions ring true.

It's a tale as old as time. Horny boy meets terrified girl, and miscommunication leads to catastrophe. Unfortunately, because this is the pagan Greco-Roman mythos, nothing can ever be undone, and having entombed herself in bark to ward off Apollo's embraces, Daphne is stuck there for good. She cannot reevaluate the situation. She cannot change her opinion of him. Similar instances occur all over: Actaeon and Diana, Pan and Syrinx, and there must be thirty other pairs I'm forgetting. The only major exceptions are Vertumnus and Pomona, who get a happy ending by virtue of being Roman, and Dis and Proserpine, who are stuck together because they're both powerful gods and neither can conveniently get turned into anything...

Which brings up the main problem with Ovid. Good Lord, but this man had a twisted, filthy mind.

This story of Dis and Proserpine (or as they are better known, Hades and Persephone) is a good example because there are several other ancient versions to compare it with, most notably the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (earliest written version 7th century BC). The story is essentially unchanged: man meets girl, man drags girl to miserable underworld kingdom, girl eats a handful of pomegranate seeds, girl has to stay, girl becomes more like her husband over time. Ovid's narration is so close to the hymn-writer's in some places that if he were submitting it as a school paper today, it might not pass an online plagiarism test.

But in other, disturbing ways, his version diverges substantially from the source. There is no mention in the Hymn, for instance, of an outright rape. While it's entirely possible that Hades forced himself sexually on Persephone once he had her in his kingdom, the hymn-writer never states any such thing, and we can give the lonely god the benefit of the doubt. The writer of the Hymn also goes out of his way to refer to Persephone as "deep-breasted" - which establishes first that she's a fertility goddess, but second that she's nubile. She is physically an adult, although she isn't quite mentally an adult.

Ovid goes there. In his version, the poor girl is raped by Dis while he's driving the chariot (this sounds anatomically impossible, but that's beside the point). He also goes out of his way to describe Proserpine as a child, with "small breasts" (note the inversion of the Homeric epithet), who weeps as much for the flowers she dropped as for her lost virginity (let's hear it for heavy-handed imagery!). The original was Labyrinth; Ovid's is Lolita. Charming.

He smuts up a lot of stories in this manner. The tale of Pygmalion and Galatea, of which he is the earliest source, is almost unrecognizable from many of its beautiful treatments in art. In Edward Burne-Jones' series of paintings, Pygmalion is attractive and noble. He refrains from touching his statue as if she were real, even though his heart is moved by her. While he's out, Venus rewards him by bringing the marble girl to life, and we leave her innocent and awkward while her handsome young creator kneels before her, kissing her hands and averting his eyes from her exposed body. In Ovid, meanwhile, Pygmalion was in the habit of molesting the statue and only noticed she had come to life because the cold marble body he was groping had suddenly turned warm and started to move. Well then.

So do I recommend this book? It can be disturbing and revolting in equal measure, not to mention features nine hundred characters too many and having no continuity no matter how hard the writer tries to force it. Yet it's been a well of inspiration throughout the ages for art (Bernini to Burne-Jones) and literature (Pyramus and Thisbe found their way into n  A Midsummer Night's Dreamn, while Rochester borrowed Vertumnus' old lady disguise in n  Jane Eyren).

For mature readers who love mythology or want a glimpse into ancient Roman psychology, absolutely, go read it. For casual fans, younger readers, and more delicate sensibilities, just read Apollo and Daphne, which is the best story and best writing of the lot.

There is no rating with my review for a reason. I simply do not dare to assess such a masterpiece of literature. What I can write about, however, is my own experience with this “universal poem” as it is called in the epilogue. My first encounter with the Metamorphoses was back at grammar school, when we read and translated a few fragments. I remember that, after Caesar and Cicero, this was a wholly new experience. For the first time I realized the beauty of the Latin language and enjoyed what I am reading.



Now, almost 40 years later, I read them in total in a prose translation with the Latin text side by side. Though my knowledge of this language has decayed too much, as that I could “read” the Latin text, it was good to get a feeling for the real words, their sound and metre. As part of the collateral reading I found the wonderful website of the Ovidprojekt by Humboldt University Berlin. They not only recorded key scenes in Latin, but also illustrated them with reliefs from the Sanssouci Castle in Potsdam. While I expected the Metamorphoses being both beautiful and entertaining, I was surprised by their scientific depth in the areas of biology, geology, philosophy and even physics. There are also allusions to politics, some of the rather ironic, which may have contributed to the poet’s sorry fate in banishment.



The second reason, why I so much enjoyed reading the Metamorphoses are the members of the dedicated Goodreads group and their observations and contributions. Their variety in terms of geography, age, life and professional experiences helped to illustrate the tremendous influence of the book on music, painting, sculpture and literature. Our lively exchange of views and insights made the lecture of the Metamorphoses to my most rewarding reading experience in 2019.

I read this for one of those bucket-list reasons, having read a bunch of scholarly articles in college that constantly quote from Ovid... but I had NEVER READ THE ORIGINAL.

Alas. How many years has it been, with that guilt slowly creeping up on me?

So I did it. I read Ovid.

And I fell in love.

What the hell was I thinking? Avoiding this? I mean, how many damn mythology books have I read that go on and on about all the Greek classics, touted for their clear and concise styles, but really what I should have been doing is read the damn book of prose/poetry by the first-century master!

Even in translation, it's clear, entertaining, full of action and wit and subversiveness and plain JOY. And get this: it's not much longer than those full mythology books.

SO SILLY! Enjoy the ART! The action! The joy of beautiful text!

We even get poetical treatments of segments of the Illiad and Odyssey! But my favorites were Orpheus and the whole damn slew of the poor mortals getting f***ed over by the gods. :)

Granted, if you're not already familiar with the kind of name-dropping that comes with a world that normally knowns all these legends, it might seem rather overwhelming, but for all of you who've read at least one book on the Greeks and are tolerant of learning on the fly, I TOTALLY recommend Ovid.

I fairly danced with fun as I read this. I felt like I was watching the original Clash of the Titans for the first time. This had some really bloody sequences! The funny ones and the clever ones and even the LGBTQ ones are spread throughout, too! :) I'm frankly amazed we don't just have THIS to read in school. It's much better than most!

lol *shakes head*

I kept this on my bedside table and read a few chapters/myths whenever I felt like it which was nice:)
My all time favorite myth is about hyacinthus and Apollo and I loved reading it! It’s the main reason I got the book:)

Also in Orpheus and Eurydice there’s a part that goes “and now, as she died for the second time, she never complained that her husband had failed her - what could she complain of, except that he’d loved her?”
I though that’s as really pretty:)

I underlined a lot of parts but that’s one of my favorite:)

There's honestly something deeply fascinating to me about reading the words of someone who lived 2000 years ago, who wrote these exact words 2000 years ago, and though I completely understand why reading translation is done - I think reading translated lit is amazing - it is undoubtedly more interesting to read this word-by-word, to see connotations and derivatives and line breaks and literary devices.

So yes, I read this in the original Latin! With the help of a lot of vocabulary lists because I don’t speak Latin as fluently as I would like to. (Shouldn’t passing an AP exam make you fluent? Anyway.)

Ovid’s language is... so good. Some story reviews follow:
n  Deucalion & Pyrrha, 1.348-415n
This is the story of an apocalypse, or in this case, a failed apocalypse. This is the story of a world empty “inanem” and of two lovers at its fall, attempting to bring it back. The language of this is so sweepingly gorgeous; the image of Deucalion and Pyrrha in front of the Themis’ watered-down altar is deeply satisfying. Very Adam-and-Eve and very satisfying.

n  Daphne & Apollo, 1.452-657n
Daphne and Apollo is a story that would be cool to see done by like, Catullus. (Poem 64 the only bitch in this house I respect!!) In general conceit, it is about a woman who does not want to get married being chased down by a man who just really wants to have sex with her until she turns herself into a tree. And there’s definitely an air of blaming her for beauty here: the line “but that beauty forbids you to be that which you wish, and your form [beauty] opposes your desire” is fucked up and sad, as well as the ending “destroy by changing my beauty by which I please too much”. The best thing that can be said about this is that the line “let your bow strike everything, oh Phoebus, but let my bow strike you” is so satisfying.

n  Jupiter & Io, 1.583-746n
I absolutely hate this story. This is the one where I decided that he needs to avoid the women-being-chased and-maybe-raped but-I-will-mention-this-with-exactly-one-word thing (“rapuit”). In a situation even more egregious than that of Daphne and Apollo, she is given no character development whatsoever and the general story just angers me, up until around line 630, where she attempts to talk to her father Inachus: “She came to the riverbanks, where she was accustomed to play often, and when she saw in the water, her new horns, she grew frightened and fled having been terrified of herself” — the repetition of the riverbanks here is especially arresting.

I did find this line sort of satisfying:
“...It is cruel to surrender his love, but suspicious not to give; it is shame, what would urge him from that, Amor dissuades this. Shame would would have been conquered by Love, but if this trivial gift were refused to the companion of his race and bed as a heifer, it would be able to appear to be no heifer.” (617-621)

n  The Ride of Phaethon, 2.150-339n
This one is wonderful. I really enjoyed the figurative language and dramatic, ironic setup of this story: the horses hit the doors with their feet (155) and then snatch the path (158). The chariot being shaken on high (166) is a great detail, and the journey into the rapidly-heating constellations is just incredible (and not just incredibly hard to translate). Lots of apostrophe and several rhetorical questions build this into a gorgeous story.

I absolutely adored this set of lines:
“I am bemoaning the lesser things: great cities destruct with their walls, / and with their peoples the fires [whole nations] / turn into ashes; and the forests along with the mountains burn” (214-216)

This section was so good that I forgave it for meaning I had to learn almost 200 lines of translation in a month for a test. Me & my 96 on the test say hi!!

n  Pyramus & Thisbe, 4.55-166n
“Pyramus and Thisbe, the one the most handsome of youths, the other outstanding… that which they were not able to deny, equally they both burned with their minds captured.”
Ah, Pyramus and Thisbe, the original tragic lovers. The only context I have seen this story appear in previously is Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a version that is deeply comedic. But this story is, despite some stupidity in plot, so well written. “This flaw had been noted by no one through the long years… but what does love not detect?” Ovid asks; this love affair seems almost inevitable, deeply wrapped around fate and tragedy. “How difficult would it be, that you could allow us to be joined with whole bodies, or, if this is too-much, that you should open this wall for kisses to be given?” Of course, this story ends badly. And it is Pyramus’ fault. Thisbe is a bitch with common sense and did nothing wrong.

n  The Fall of Icarus, 8.152-235n
“The shame of the family had grown, and was exposing / the disgusting adultery of his mother by the novelty of the two-formed monster...”
THE FALL OF ICARUS!! Okay this has always been one of my favorite stories of all time, and reading it in Ovid’s original Latin was such a cool experience. This story is framed by a description and depiction of the tragedy of the minotaur and the abandonment of poor Ariadne (#Catulluspoem64). I loved Daedalus' intro for his plan: “it is permitted that he block the land and sea / but certainly the sky lies open; we will go that way...” And the fall of Icarus is equally emotional, beautifully conveyed through the image of a herder and fisherman watching him, up to its ending: “and his lips, shouting out the name of his father / are taken up by the blue water, water which has taken up its name from him.”

Anyway, I hope y’all appreciated my original Latin translation skills pouring into this review. I SPEND A LOT OF TIME THINKING ABOUT LATIN AND I'M HONESTLY SO PROUD TO BE SHARING IT.

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A story of change and transformation
14 March 2014

tThe first thing that came into my mind as I was reading this book is a concept that was developed by the Ancient Greek philosopher Democritus: matter is never created or destroyed, it only ever changes form. Then there is the idea Ovid explores: the universe in which we live is in a constant state of flux. Granted, this is the second time that I have read this book (and in fact this particular translation, and I do plan on reading it again) and I must say that while it is an absolutely beautiful piece of literature – one that rightly deserves the term classic – it is a very hard slog. However, the influence that Ovid has had on poetry throughout the ages, stemming from what one could consider his Magnus Opus is outstanding. In fact, another literary epic poem that comes to mind is The Divine Comedy (as well as Paradise Lost), though I must admit that it is nowhere near as saucy as Ovid (not that Metamorphoses is his worst, in fact compared to the  The Art of Love – not that I have read it – yet – Metamorphoses is tame).

tMetamorphoses could be seen as an epic journey through Greek and Roman mythology ending with the assassination of Julius Ceaser and the ascension of Augustus Ceaser to become Princeps of Rome, and with Rome transitioning from a Republic to an Imperium (though I suspect that if you were a foreigner or a slave, little had changed). I suspect that is the is whole reason behind the poem: the Roman state itself have just undergone a huge transition, a metamorphosis if you like, in that the nature of the government had changed, a change that was incredibly violent. However, as I have suggested, this change no doubt only affected the upper classes (of which Ovid was a member) in that the political and oratorical careers of the Republic had suddenly up and vanished. No longer could people aim to become Censors or Consuls because the Princeps had taken that role, and no longer could they form policy and shape the direction of the empire, because the Princeps was doing that as well, and the Princeps was not going anywhere, at all.

tWhat Ovid does in this poem is that he tells the story of the universe from its founding (if it indeed had one because many of the philosophers at the time believed that it had always been in existence and that it would have no end - rather it would simply keep on changing form, as it does in the Metamorphoses) and through many of the myths that had come out from the Greeks. Upon reaching the Trojan War, Ovid begins to follow Aeneas (leaving the stories of the Greek conquerors of Troy behind) through Carthage and to the founding of the colony at Alba Longa. It is clear that all of these myths (with the exception of Aeneas, and it is debatable – incredibly debatable – whether Aeneas was ever actually the ancestor of Romulus and Remus, but rather a creation of the Roman ruling class to set them apart from the Greeks, just as the story of Aeneas and Dido was a creation to set them against the Cartheginians and to give them a reason as to why they went to war – not that they were two superpowers fighting over the same lake being reason enough, but then again as most governments know, to send the population to war you have to have a really good reason) have been taken from their Greek origins and effectively Romanised (though Ovid was most likely working on what had developed before him, rather that doing something new

tThe first change, or transformation, that we see in this story is the story of the flood. Now many Christians would like to use this as an excuse to justify a world wide flood, but while it is true that the Grecian flood story is quite old, no doubt it could have been picked up from other sources and Helenised (as many of these tales have been). However, my purpose here is to identify it as one of the first changes, in that what we have is an older world transforming into a new world through the flood (as is the case with the biblical account). The next change come about with the four ages (gold, silver, bronze, and lead), which have been lifted out of Hesiod (and note that Hesiod makes no mention of a flood). Once again we have a constant change as the nature of the ages change, as well as the occupants: as one age comes to an end and another age begins. In a sense, what Ovid is demonstrating is that nothing lasts forever and that change is inevitable.

tWhile one could look through the characters that change, such as Io shifting from a woman to a bull and back again, and Daphne with her transformation into a laurel tree, I would rather jump through to the Trojan War, which once again shows another transformation, and that is a transformation of societies and empires. Here we have one dominant empire coming to an end through war, but it is not completely destroyed because from the destruction wrought by the enemy, an seed is sent forth – Aeneas - to create a new empire that eventually rises up and overthrows the conquers of the fatherland. However, as things change, Ovid wants to show his readers (and remember his readers were most likely middle to upper class Roman citizens) that the flux is ongoing and that the current state of affairs will no doubt not last forever.

Although the form adopted by Ovid, the long poem divided into cantos, recalls epic poetry, the author seems more capable and willing to lead a long single narrative than Virgil or Homer would. He aligns and sews together small stories (epyllia is the Greek name for this type of poetic narration), which have only artificial links but can be read separately, as one wishes, with great pleasure. The wealth of images and tones of The Metamorphoses has made it a fundamental book for the arts and culture up to the present day and a source of fascination for any lover of the Baroque.

700+ pages of ovid gossiping about every roman creature to ever exist

Bu, Dönüşümler ile ikinci buluşmamız. İlki 2019 yılında, sadece İlyada okumuş halimle ve bütün cahil cesaretimle atıldığım bir maceraydı ki bütün dürüstlüğümle söylüyorum kitabın yüzde 80’i benim için hiçbir şey ifade etmedi. Hatta bu yüzden Goodreads’te puan dahi vermedim.

Kitap, aslında he şeyin en başından; Chaos’tan başlayıp Augustus dönemine kadar Yunan ve Roma Mitolojisinin en temel olaylarının anlatıldığı bir destan. Bu açıdan hem insanlığın - en azından mitolojik açıdan- tarihinin izini sürmek ve en temel tragedyaların dahi nasıl aslında birbirinin farklı varyasyonları olabildiğini, sözlü tarihin tıpkı mitolojik metinlerdeki “Söylenti” gibi güçlü ve takip edilebilir olduğunu görmek açısından bu baştan sona takip edilen bütünlüğü izlemek muazzam. Ancak iki farklı şekilde okumuş birisi olarak şunu söylemeliyim ki; bu panaroma konusu ”o zaman diğer kitaplar yerine bunu okumak yeterli gelir” gibi düşünmeyin. Çünkü Dönüşümler içinde; Troya Savaşı, Odysseus’un yolculuğu ya da Aeneis’in Latium’a ulaşma süreci aslında çok kısa bir şekilde geçiyor lakin bu anlatıların geneliyle çokça bağlantılı başka başka hikayelerle örülüyor destan. O yüzden mutlaka Ilyada, Odysseia, Aeneis’i ve bazı tragedyaları okuduktan sonra, Dönüşümler’i bir kapanış olarak planlayın Bu şekilde okumanız çok daha faydalı, keyifli ve doyurucu olacaktır. Bu üçlünün yanında Torunuma Yunan Mitleri ve Kadmos ile Harmonia’nın Düğünü’nü okumuş olmak da - en azından benim için- çok yardımcı oldu. En azından daha önceden biraz fikrim olan ya da farklı varyasyonlarını bildiğim tragedyaları takip etmem kolaylaştı. Bir de elinizin altında mutlaka bir mitoloji sözlüğü bulunsun. Çünkü hem çok fazla isimle hem de bunların Yunan yerine Roma/Latin mitolojisindeki isimleriyle karşılaşacaksınız. Tanrılar kısmı tamam ama ölümlüler kısmında her iki mitolojinin isimlendirmesini de aklınızda tutmanız çok zor. Ben bazı hikayeleri biraz daha detaylı anlattığı için Pierre Grimal’ın sözlüğünü kullandım. Ancak elinizde varsa Azra Erhat’ın Mitoloji Sözlüğü’de ihtiyacınızı fazlasıyla karşılayacaktır.Yine de son zamanlarda okuduğum -Aeneis ya da Terra Nostra da dahil olmak üzere- en zorlayıcı ve yoran metindi. Evet mitoloji ilginizi çekiyorsa, okurken gerçekten çok keyif alıyorsunuz. Lakin diğer yandan da hem kafa hem de yoğunluk olarak en sakin dönemime denk getirmeme rağmen; sanki Ilyada, Odysseia, Aeneis ve tragedyaları arka arkaya, hiç ara vermeden okumuşum gibi yoruldum. O yüzden sıkışık bir döneminize denk getirmemeye özen gösterin derim. Onun dışında muhtemelen yıl içinde okuyacağım en güzel kitaplardan birisiyle yılın ilk ayından karşılaşmış olmanın mululuğu içindeyim.

Bu arada kitabın güzelliğinden bu kadar mest olmuşken, onu bu kadar okunabilir ve anlaşılır kılan Asuman Coşkun Abuagla hakkında da bir şeyler söylemeden geçemeyeceğim. Zira daha önceden, dilimizdeki diğer çeviriyi okumuş ve başka dillerdeki çevirilerine de göz atmış biri olarak gerek dipnotlardaki yorumları ve diğer varyasyonlara dair eklemeleriyle gerekse de oldukça karmaşık bir yazım tercihiyle kaleme alınmış böylesine zor bir eseri böyle okunur kıldığı için ne kadar teşekkür edilse az bence.

So previously I read the Horace Gregory translation and adored it. This time I decided to try David Raeburn's for Penguin classics and I’m afraid it failed to capture the magic I felt before. It is a much easier read, for sure, but I think poetry was missed in this translation. Which makes sense considering Gregory was a poet and Raeburn was into the performance aspects of classical poetry but apparently reading about Jove raping poor women and then Juno punishing said women for it is not doing it for me without the magic of poetry.

I was curious if we were getting new translations and according to the article on lithub, Jhumpa Lahiri has teamed up with Princeton classics professor Yelena Baraz on a new translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses for Penguin and I’m definitely reading it when it comes out. I’m so curious to see how these women will tackle the material.

So my advice would be to try different translations and find the one that works for you.
P.S. I know nothing about poetry, translations or Latin.
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If you love mythology you need to read this. P.S. Gods are horny...