Seamless encyclopedia of mythology - gotta love it. 4.5 stars.

Metamorphoses will always be one of my favorite classical Greek texts. The stories are engaging, and the structure forces you to think and remember, utilizing your own knowledge of mythology to make sense of the connections. Although this wasn't the greatest translation, the language is beautiful. I really enjoyed revisiting this and look forward to reading the second half soon.

Classic. Epic. The action movie of it's day, I guess. What more can you say? Shakespeare used it,T.S. Eliot, though it's more likely they took from the original and not a translation. How good a translation this is I have no idea, but it shivered MY timbers- so fuck it, who cares?

I expected a lot more:)

Complex, subversive and sophisticated

Ovid was ignored by classical scholars for a long time as being frivolous and just not serious enough. He has now been rehabilitated and Metamorphoses is recognised as being one of the most complex, sophisticated and problematic poems of the age of Augustus - as well as one of the wittiest and most accessible.

Too often regarded as a compendium of Greek and Roman myths, Metamorphoses should be read as a continuous poem telling the story of the world from the creation to the apotheosis of Julius Caesar - but in Ovid's own inimitable and often funny and scurrilous fashion. Along the way, he takes in almost every story ever told in the ancient world: Narcissus and Echo, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion, Medea, Venus and Adonis, the Trojan war, the foundation of Rome, Romulus and Remus.

His style is witty, urbane and sophisticated, and he plays games with every genre of literature: love poetry, epic, philosophy, Greek science.

The ostensible theme of the poem that unifies the 12 books is change, but modern scholars recognise that this too is part of the game Ovid is playing with his readers, and the debate continues over what Ovid is 'about'.

More interesting, perhaps, is the way in which he plays with our preconceptions of gender, power, status and authority - but all with the lightest of touches that never reduce the brilliant story-telling to mere polemic.

Writing after Vergil, on one level Metamorphoses is a response to and a dialogue with the Aeneid, and has sometime been read as an antidote to the supposedly pro-Augustan sympathies of Vergil. Certainly Ovid was banished from Rome by the Emperor Augustus just after the poem was published though the true reason cannot be known due to the loss of all sources relating to the the incident. However, many scholars now recognise the other subversive voices within the Aeneid itself, questioning the imperial mission of Rome and Augustus, so maybe Ovid and Vergil are not so far apart at all...

In any case, the Metamorphoses remains one of the most brilliant examples of the pure power of superb story-telling, and has inspired artists from Shakespeare to Bernini to Ted Hughes.

Ovid's Latin epic is an excellent read. I loved having this on the old AP syllabus with Catullus - engaging myths told in a witty style.

All I can say is go out and find the loeb "Metamorphoses" and have fun. Easily the greatest epic I've read so far, and I've read a lot.

What is there to say? It’s Ovid, it’s Metamorphoses, it’s the chief source of Ancient Greek mythology as told by the Augustan Greco-Roman poet. This volume from Loeb contains the first 8 of 15 books, covering the range of stories from the Creation of the world, the Four Ages, the Flood, Deucalion and Pyrrha; through the stories of Io, Europa, Phaethon, Callisto, Cadmus and the founding of Thebes; followed by Narcissus, Tiresias, Bacchanalian cult and Pentheus, Pyramus and Thisbe (the prototypes of Romeo and Juliet), Hermaphroditus, Perseus and Andromeda, Arachne, Niobe, and others; and to the stories of Medea, Jason and the Argonauts, the war between Minos and Aeacus, the creation of the Myrmidons, the Minotaur and Ariadne, Daedalus and Icarus, and Philemon and Baucis. Volume II continues with Hercules, Orpheus, Midas, the Trojan war, Aeneas and the founding of Rome, Pythagorean teachings and Julius Caesar.

The classical culture of the Romans, Greeks and Egyptians has always fascinated me, to the point I even took Latin and Ancient Greek in high school. We’ve had discussed many stories and books, but none as interesting as Ovids Metamorphoses. This version is not only the translated story, but also the original Latin text side-by-side.

The translation is quite direct which causes for some difficult readability, however, that’s also the charm. Combined with the fact that the books are basically one continuous flowing story with no definite end and beginning, this was a tough read. However the stories themselves were mostly enjoyable and worth the read.

What I also really appreciate is Ovids change of tone throughout so the stories don’t become to monotonous.

So 5 stars, is there anything bad about this? Well, the book is complicated because of the integrity. This is just a personal choice you will have to make: would you rather have a modernised and easier translation, or a more honest translation. Another issue could be that Ovid sometimes rambles, creating sentences of multiple, unintelligible - the point will either resolve next sentence or not at all - and both short and long sentences. This has of course to do with the lack of basic punctuation in the Latin language.

So, while I do recommend the book, I’d also recommend to familiarise oneself with the Latin language and culture before you just jump in.

A must read,

Still not a justicia translation out there, which speaks to the genius of this book.
Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Ovid. In no particular order.
Worth getting all Latinate up just for the experience of reading it.
Never mind, put Ovid first.

Quite a long read, but if you love Greek mythology go for it. Well it's the Roman retelling of Greek myths involving some sort of transformation to be precise but it's every fun to read. Book X may surprise you with Julius Caesar the God.