Sheesh...the Ancient Greeks were nuts. I mean, to think people worshiped the gods based on these stories! I picked it up because Shakespeare did, but I guess he saw something I didn't. Go figure. ;-) Anyway, I got about halfway through, but have lost interest in favor of other summer reading. I might come back to it eventually. ( )

Rereading after decades.
Phew, mostly rape, murder, and incest. In ten-beat, unrhymed lines.
Then at the end he throws in Mr. Vegetarian, Pythagoras, and the deification of Julius Caesar. The metamorphoses in these are a bit of a stretch. Pythagoras saying that all things change into other things, and a man becoming a god to justify the deification of his son. Augustus is such a swell guy, his dad must be a god! Make it so, Mr. Crusher.
The remarkable things, one of which I noticed as a 14 year old, was the trans story. And it turns out there are two. Both trans-men, of course. And the dual-gender of Hermaphroditus. Neither of these very trans- or bi-friendly, but notable all the same.
The Story of Salmacis (dual gender, but the fountain waters thenceforth to weaken males)
The Story of Iphis and Ianthe (daughter passed off as a son set to marry another woman transformed on their wedding day)
The Story of Caeneus (woman tired of rape asking her rapist to no longer be a woman so to never suffer that again - rapist, as usual, was a god who could arrange this - and the trans-man then becomes a great warrior)
People turning into plants, animals, and stone eventually gets tiresome. But it's in the title.

Edición y traducción de Vicente López Soto

Oh my. Unbearable in Russian. Mostly due to its meter and language, probably imitating the original. With all due respect I thought what's the worth of trudging on? I'm not a PhD student in Ancient Literature after all and the plot is not gripping, unlike many other primary sources.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/metamorphoses-by-publius-ovidius-naso-translated....

Way way back 40 years ago, I studied Latin for what were then called O-levels, and one of the set texts was a Belfast-teenager-friendly translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I loved it. If you don’t know, it’s a narrative poem in fifteen books re-telling classical legends, concentrating in particular on those where there is a change of shape – usually humans turned into animals, vegetables or minerals, though with other variations too. It’s breezy, vivid and sometimes funny, and it’s been a store of easily accessible ancient lore for centuries.

I’d always meant to get back to it properly, and it finally popped up on my list of books that I owned but had not yet blogged here. However, my 40-year-old copy is safely in Northern Ireland, so I acquired both the latest Penguin translation, by Stephanie McCarter, and Ted Hughes’ selection of twenty-four choice chapters, and read them – I took the McCarter translation in sequence, and then jumped across to read the relevant sections if Hughes had translated them, though he put them in a different order.

I do find Ovid fascinating. In some ways he speaks to the present day reader very directly – a lot of the emotions in the Ars Amatoria could be expressed by lovers two thousand years later. But here he’s taking material that was already very well known, the Greek and Roman classical legendarium, and repackaging it for a sophisticated audience in the greatest city in the world. The book ends (McCarter’s translation):

Where Roman power spreads through conquered lands,
I will be read on people’s lips. My fame
will last across the centuries. If poets’
prophecies can hold any truth, I’ll live.

And he did. I have been particularly struck by Ovid’s popularity among the patrons of my favourite 17th-century stuccador, Jan Christiaan Hansche. A number of his most interesting ceilings feature stories from Ovid, some of them well known, some less so. Sixteen centuries after Ovid laid down his pen, his work was still part of the standard canon of literature known to all educated Western Europeans.

So. The two translations are different and serve different purposes. McCarter’s mandate was to translate the whole of the Metamorphoses into iambic pentameter in English. She is necessarily constrained to giving us an interpretation of Ovid’s text, with all of its limitations, and confining her own original thoughts to footnotes and other supporting material.

In a very interesting introduction, she is clear about the many scenes of rape in the story. But she also makes it clear that Ovid has a lot more active female characters than are in his sources, and they get more to do. She gives some telling examples of previous translators projecting later concepts of femininity onto Ovid’s fairly unambiguous original words.

Given the contemporary debate, it’s also interesting that Ovid has several examples of gender fluidity – not really presented as a standard part of everyday life, but nonetheless as a phenomenon that happens. For Ovid, we must simply accept that someone’s current gender may not be the one that they were born with.

Ted Hughes, on the other hand, was translating favourite bits of Ovid because he had reached the stage of his career where he could do what he wanted. He could leave out all the bits he found boring (I haven’t counted, but I think he translates about only 40% of Ovid’s text), and he could add his own flourishes at will. Inevitably this makes for a more satisfactory reading experience, though it is incomplete.

Both translations bring to life Ovid’s vivid imagery, which really throws you into the narrative. For a compare and contrast passage, here is the beginning of their treatment of the story of Phaethon, the son of the Sun who crashed to disaster trying to drive his father’s chariot (a favourite topic for Hansche). I think that the differences speak for themselves:

McCarter:
The Sun’s child Phaethon equaled him in age
and mind. But Epaphus could not endure
his boasts, his smugness, and his arrogance
that Phoebus was his father and declared,
“You crazily trust all your mother says!
Your head is swollen by a phony father!”
Phaethon blushed as shame repressed his wrath.
He took these taunts to Clymene, his mother,
and told her, “Mother, to upset you more,
although I am free-spoken and quick-tempered,
I could not speak, ashamed these insults could
be uttered and that I could not refute them.
If I am truly born of holy stock,
give me a sign and claim me for the heavens!”
Wrapping his arms around his mother’s neck,
he begged—by his life, Merops’ life, his sisters’
weddings—that she give proof of his true father.

Hughes:
When Phaethon bragged about his father, Phoebus
The sun-god,
His friends mocked him.
‘Your mother must be crazy
Or you’re crazy to believe her.
How could the sun be anybody’s father?’
In a rage of humiliation
Phaethon came to his mother, Clymene.
‘They’re all laughing at me,
And I can’t answer. What can I say? It’s horrible.
I have to stand like a dumb fool and be laughed at.
‘If it’s true, Mother,’ he cried, ‘if the sun,
The high god Phoebus, if he is my father,
Give me proof.
Give me evidence that I belong to heaven.’
Then he embraced her. ‘I beg you,
‘On my life, on your husband Merops’ life,
And on the marriage hopes of my sisters,
Only give me proof that the sun is my father.’

I think I’d recommend that a reader unfamiliar with Ovid start with Hughes and then go on to McCarter to get the full story. ( )

This translation is, on occasion, a bit ridiculous. ( )

A lovely and effortlessly readable translation, though I did miss having little notes from the translator on particularly tricky puns, idioms, turns of phrase as I found in Hejduk's The Offense of Love. Perhaps there aren't any in Metamorphoses? Certainly, none of the various translations I was able to compare online seemed to have any such footnotes.

And while I missed having the translator double as Ovid scholar, as Hejduk does, Johnson's introduction to the text proved helpful and insightful, especially given the vast gulf between Ovid's time and my own. Taken together with Lombardo's translation, it has only reinforced my interest in reading more of Ovid's work—and perhaps discovering more of Ovid, himself, in the process. ( )

Ovid's mythology classic begins so beautifully with Creation,
then delves into harrowing, mostly gruesome and horrifying details of bleeding entrails,
murders, rapes, revenge...
with only a few good tales woven in.

It also ends beautifully with the surprise of Pythagoras! ( )

Read for Reading 1001, Quarterly Read 2022. A book of mythology, poetry, Roman. Did I enjoy it? Not so much. Time period covered from creation to the deification of Caesar. Influenced much literature to come. ( )

Amazing and vast collection of mythology with linkages throughout. ( )

Modern educators now issue more trigger warnings for this epic poem than Cupid has arrows, but it's an essential part of classical mythology in a superb verse translation. A considerable influence on both Chaucer and Shakespeare. Likely to be controversial at a college campus near you, but such are the sadly politically correct times we live in today. "In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas."

Also read in October 1986. ( )

Myths are definitely one of my favorite aspects in studying history. The mystique of it, and the magic around them despite our modern explanations for many of the things myths explain. The myths in Ovid’s Metamorphoses were no exception, with the inclusion of well known and not so known myths. I highly recommend this as a read. ( )

If anyone wants to know where I go to get "stuff" for my books, and to what art I hopelessly measure up my "stuff," let me save you an interview. It's this book and very few others beside it. ( )

Various myths and legends are strung together, with the common theme of physical transformations.

3/4 (Good).

I loved this book, and yet was also frequently bored. There are some bad stories, some great, and everything in between. When it's at its best, it's an unforgettable, etched-in-my-brain great. But even if they were all good stories, telling them in a single, giant poem, while impressive, is not helpful. ( )

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* ( )

Very readable and likeable translation. I pick this book up very often to dip in and out of. Excellent! ( )

Metamorphoses is a poem in 15 books in which Ovid has collected a variety (and variation) of Greek and Roman myths and legends with the overarching theme of transformation. Some of the stories are well known, others somewhat obscure. Ovid starts with the creation of the ordered universe from Chaos and ends with the diefication of Julius Caesar. In between, there is a lot of sex/rape, violence, love, bad decisions, vivid scenes and emotional passages. Metamorphoses is episodic in nature, with one story/myth/legend leading into another and includes many story within a story devices.

I started out with the Penguin Classics edition, translated by David Raeburn into hexameter verse. Then found an old copy of the Penguin Classics Mary M Innes prose translation and also an Indiana Press copy translated by Rolfe Humphries into ten-beat, unrhymed lines. I decided to alternate between these translations (why not, if I have the books anyway?). All these editions have notes, commentaries and introductions. The David Raeburn/Penguin Classics edition includes a map of Ovid's Mediterranean World, which is rather useful. Each edition is perfectly readible and enjoyable, though I did in the end prefer the Raeburn translation.

I've included a few lines from each translation I've come across, for anyone interested in comparing:
___________________________

Translation by A.D Melville
BOOK VII
MEDEA AND JASON

AND now the Argonauts from Thessaly
Were cutting through the billows. They had seen
Old Phineus* dragging out his helpless age
In endless night and Boreas’ two sons
Had driven the Harpies from his piteous lips.
At last illustrious Jason and his men
Reached after many travails the swift stream
Of muddy Phasis.* Going to the king,*
They claimed the famous Golden Fleece* and learnt
The fearful terms and monstrous toils imposed.
And then it was Medea, the king’s daughter,
Conceived a mastering passion; long she fought
Her frenzy, but the voice of reason failed.
‘Oh, vain!’ she cried, ‘Medea, is your struggle;
Some deity must thwart you. Strange if this—
Or something surely like—is not called love.
Else why do my father’s orders seem too harsh?
Too harsh they are indeed! Why do I dread
His death whose face I first have seen today?
What cause, what reason for a fear so great?
Thrust down the flames that burn your virgin heart,
If you have strength!——Such strength would be my cure!
But against my will some force bewitches me;
One way desire, another reason calls;
The better course I see and do approve—
The worse I follow.*——Why long thus for him,
A princess for a stranger, why admit
Wild thoughts of wedlock with an alien world?
This land too offers what may win your love.
Whether he live or die, the gods decide.——
Yet may he live! That prayer, though I loved not,
Were surely licit. What has Jason done?
What heart would not be touched by Jason’s youth,
His prowess, his proud birth? Who, if all else
He lacked, would not be moved by Jason’s beauty?
My heart for sure is moved! Unless I help,
The bulls’ hot breath will blast him; he will meet
Fierce foes of his own sowing, earth-created,

Or to the dragon be cast for prey and prize.
If I permit such things, I’ll surely own
A tigress* was my dam and in my heart
I nurture iron and stone!*——Yet why not watch*
Him dying there, my gazing guilty eyes
Sharing the crime? Why not urge on the bulls,
The earth-born warriors and the unsleeping dragon?——
The gods forfend! Yet it’s not what I pray
But what I do! Shall I betray* my father’s throne,
And by my aid preserve some nameless stranger,
Who, saved by me, without me sails away
To win another wife across the sea
And I, Medea, am left to pay the price!

______________________
Translated by David Raeburn
Book Seven
Medea and Jason

Behold the Argonauts ploughing the sea on their voyage from Greece!
Behind them was Thrace, where they’d seen King Phíneus, blind and impoverished,
passing a bleak old age, and Bóreas’ twins had routed
the Harpies who’d tortured that wretched old man by snatching his food.
After many adventures under their captain, Jason,
they finally came to the muddy stream of the swift-flowing Phasis.
On reaching Aeëtes’ palace, they laid their claim to the Golden
Fleece,* and the king dictated his terms to the heroes, a series
of hard and dangerous tasks. Meanwhile, his daughter Medéa
fell deeply in love with the handsome Jason. Despite a long struggle
against her feelings, her reason was powerless to master her passion.*
‘It’s useless to fight, Medea,’ she said. ‘Some god is against you.
This, or something akin to it surely, is what they call love.
How else should I find my father’s conditions
excessively harsh? For certain they are too harsh. How else should I fear for the life
of a man I have only just seen? – But why should I feel so afraid?
How wretched I am! I must extinguish the fire which is raging
inside my innocent heart. I should be more sane, if I could!
I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason
are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it,
but follow the wrong. I am royal; so why should I sigh for a stranger,
or ever conceive of a marriage which takes me away from my home?
Love can be found here too. It rests in the lap of the gods
whether Jason survives or is killed. – But I want him to live! I don’t
have to love him to pray for that. What crime has Jason committed?
Only a cruel and heartless person could fail to be struck
by his youthfulness, breeding and courage. And who could be blind to his handsome
looks, if he lacked all else? My heart, at least, has been stirred.
But unless I assist him, those fire-breathing bulls will blast him to ashes;
the warriors sprung from the seeds which he sows in the earth will fight
and destroy him; or else the greedy dragon will make him its prey.
If I can allow all this, I’ll confess that I’m born of a tigress,
confess that my heart is composed of nothing but rock and steel. –
Oh, why don’t I watch him dying and so infect my eyes
with the taint of the spectacle? Why don’t I shout to the fire-breathing bulls
or the earth-born brutes or the sleepless dragon to charge and attack him? –
O heavens, grant me better than that! Yet better is not
to be idly prayed for but done! – By me? Is it truly better
that I should betray my king and my father, that some tall stranger
should owe his life to my kind assistance, only to thank me,
the woman who saved him, by spreading his sails to the wind without me,
marrying somebody else and leaving Medea to be punished?
______________________
Translated by Mary M. Innes
Book Seven

Now the Minyans were cutting their way through the waters, on board the ship built at Pagasae. Thy had seen Phineus, old and helpless, dragging on his life in the eternal darkness of the blind, and the young sons of the North wind had scared away from his lips the harpies that tormented the wretched old man. At last, when they had come through many dangers and difficulties under the leadership of the famous Jason, they reached the swift-flowing waters of the muddy river Phasis.

While they were entering the presence of King Aeetes, and were asking for the fleece of the ram which had carried Phrixus, while Aeetes was imposing his monstrous conditions, requiring them to perform prodigious tasks, the king's daughter, Medea was seized by an overwhelming passion of love and, though she long fought against it, her reason could not subdue her mad desire. 'Medea, you struggles are useless,' she said to herself, 'for some god, though I know not which, is opposing you. Surely this, or something like it, is what men call love. Why else do my father's commands seem to me too harsh? And indeed they are too harsh! Why am I afraid lest Jason perish, when I have only just seen him? What is the reason for such fear? Unhappy girl, rid your inexperienced heart, if you can, of the flames that have been kindled there. Oh, if I could, I should be more like myself! But against my own wishes, some strange influence weights heavily upon me, and deisre sways me one way, reason another. I see which is the better course, and I approve it; but still I follow the worse. Why do you, a princess, burn with love for a stranger? Why dream of marriage with a foreigner? This land, as much as any other, can provide you with one to love. Whether Jason lives or dies, is in the lap of the gods. Yet I hope that he may live! I can pray for that, even without loving him: for what wrong has he done? who but a monster of cruelty could fail to be stirred by his youth, his noble birth, his valour? Though he had none of these virtues, who would not be moved by his words? He has certainly touched my heart. But, unless I help him, he will be blasted by the breath of the bulls, or come into conflict with the crop of earth-born foemen, raised from the seeds which he himself must sow; or else, like some creature of the wilds, he will become the prey of the greedy dragon. To allow this to happen is to confess myself the child of a tigress, to admit that I have a heart of stone or iron. Why should I not go further, and incriminate my eyes by watching him die? Why should I not encourage the bulls against him, urge on the earth-born warriors and the sleepless dragon? Heaven grant him a happier fate! But I must work for that, not pray or it!

'Shall I then betray my father's kingdom, and by my help rescue an unknown stranger so that, thanks to my efforts, he may set sail without me, and become another woman' husband, while I, Medea, am left to be punished?
_________________
Translated by Rolfe Humphries
Book Seven
The Story of Jason and Medea

So over the deep the Minyans went sailing.
They had seen Phineus, dragging out his years
In everlasting night, and Boreas’ sons
Had driven the Harpies from the poor old king.
They suffered much, but came at last with Jason,
Their brilliant leader, to the muddy waters
Where Phasis meets the sea. They went to the king,
Claiming the golden fleece, by Phrixus given,
And heard the dreadful terms, enormous labors.
And the king’s daughter burned with sudden passion,
And fought against it long, and when her reason
Could not subdue her madness, cried: “Medea,
You fight in vain; there is some god or other
Against you. I am wondering whether this
May be the thing called love, or something like it.
Why should my father’s orders seem too cruel?
They are too cruel! A fellow I have hardly
Much more than seen may die, and I am fearful!
What for? Unhappy girl, shake from the bosom
This burning fire, if you can. If I could do it,
I would be more sensible, but some new power
Holds me against my will, and reason calls
One way, desire another. I see, approving,
Things that are good, and yet I follow worse ones.
Why do you burn for a stranger, royal maiden?
Why think of marriage into a foreign circle?
This land can give you something to love. If he
Should live or die, let the gods decide; but let him
Live! That I can pray for, even without loving.
What has he done? Only the cruel-hearted
Would not be moved by Jason’s youth, his manhood,
His noble birth. And even if these were lacking,
His beauty would move a heart of stone—at least
It has moved mine. And if I do not help him,
The bulls will blow their fiery breath upon him,
The enemy he has sown in earth attack him,
The greedy dragon snatch and seize upon him.
And this, if I allow it, will prove me daughter
Of tigress, stony-hearted, iron-hearted!
Why can not I look on as he is dying,
Disgrace my eyes by looking on? Why can not
I urge the bulls against him, and the warriors
Sprung from the earth, and the unsleeping dragon?
God grant me better grace! But this is not
A question of praying, but doing. Shall I then
Betray my father’s kingdom, rescue a stranger,
Who, saved, sails off without me, marries another,
Leaves me to punishment? If he can do it,
If he can place another woman above me,
Then let him die, the ingrate! No! He could not,
He does not look as if he could, his spirit
Is noble, his body handsome. I need never
Fear he would cheat me, or forget my service.

_____________________

P.S.: Don't piss Hera/Juno off by having the misfortune of being raped by her husband, Zeus/Jove. She's likely to turn you into something, probably a cow! ( )

I read parts of this in high school, where we translated many of the texts from this book. As this is a different kind of experiences, focusing on reconstructing the sentences anew, I would like to take up Metamorphoses at another time, in order to experience it more as a reader and to get a better idea of the stories within. ( )

Everything changes. ( )

The Metamorphoses is not a modest work in scope: in his 12,000-line epic, Ovid tells us that he's attempting nothing less than to give us the history of the world from its creation out of Chaos right up to the time of Julius Caesar. The opening section is a grand, orchestral description of the creation in the spirit of Epicurean philosophy, and the final section includes a long speech by Pythagoras exposing a number of his scientific ideas (and arguments for vegetarianism), but what everyone remembers - and what gives the poem its usual title - is the material that fills the middle 13 books, a vast and unruly collection of stories of sex, violence and magical transformation gleaned from authors like Hesiod, Vergil and Homer (or simply made up on the spot by Ovid himself). Gods (of either sex) lust for mortals (of either sex) and have their wicked way or are frustrated; mortals lust for the wrong other mortals; individuals make rash promises or accidentally find themselves in the wrong place; revenge and jealousy get out of hand; or there is simply too much testosterone and alcohol about. And when things go wrong or a god gets peeved, then it's usually the unfortunate mortal who gets changed into an animal, tree, or rock, according to taste. According to Bernard Knox, there are over 250 transformations in the course of the poem (and that's presumably not counting the unnumbered myrmidons and dragon's teeth...). Most of them seem to end unhappily for the mortal in question - in a few cases the transformation saves someone from an imminent danger of rape, but then they are stuck as a tree for the rest of their life. Iphis and Ianthe are the one couple who seem to profit long-term - Iphis is turned into a boy on the eve of the wedding so that they don't violate the Cretan same-sex marriage ban in force at the time. (This is the story Ali Smith uses in Girl meets boy.)

One moral that really comes out of the story is that we should be very careful not to give our children names that sound like animals or plants. That's just asking for trouble. Especially if they happen to be called "Cycnus" - there are three separate characters with this name, in Books II, VII and XII, and they all get turned into swans. Nominative determinism gone crazy...!

Of course, Ovid being such an accessible source for subsequent poets, painters, dramatists, opera librettists and others, many of the stories are very familiar, but what is really striking when you read the whole thing is the pace. Ovid rarely lingers over descriptions (when he does, he's usually making some sort of satirical point), but hammers through the story at maximum speed, and segues into a new and quite different story - connected or not - as soon as he gets to the climax of the previous one. Or inserts a story in the middle of another one, down to two or three levels (not quite as much deep recursion as the Panchatantra, though). From the Big Bang to the moment when "terra sub Augusto est", the music never stops. Even the transition from one book to the next is usually just the flick of an eye - Ovid knows all about cliffhangers and doesn't hesitate to use them.

The speed and efficiency of his storytelling come across most obviously in Books XII-XIV, where we cover essentially everything Ovid thinks we need to know about the Iliad, Odyssey and Aenead. The Iliad, in particular, is masterfully handled as a single "brain vs. brawn" debate between Ajax and Ulysses, in which the two of them make speeches as if in court to justify their respective contributions to the war effort. In case we hadn't guessed it already from all the scenes where Ovid gleefully shows us muscle-bound heroes acting like dangerous idiots, the poet is firmly on the side of Ulysses. Ovid enjoys himself making gentle fun of the conventions of Big Epic and can't resist teasing Vergil about some small continuity errors in the Aenead. But it's all quite respectful fun - Ovid isn't suggesting for a moment that we don't need to read these great poets.

Working out where Ovid himself stands isn't easy at this distance. And he presumably doesn't want it to be easy either - he's writing at the height of Augustus's somewhat hypocritical clampdown on the morals of the Roman upper classes, and whatever he thinks himself, he certainly doesn't want to say anything that counts as explicit blasphemy or corrupting public morals. He's only reporting well-known bits of Greek mythology, after all. It's all the fault of our own dirty minds if we get the impression that the gods and goddesses as portrayed in Ovid are a pretty rotten lot, with only one important claim on our piety, their power to harm us if we annoy them (rather like Augustus, in fact...). And it's for us to decide whether a belief in petulant supernatural interventions is compatible with the logical Epicurean world-view set out in Book I or the Pythagorean pantheism gently mocked in Book XV. From this distance, we can't really know what Ovid expected his sophisticated Roman readers to think, but on the whole I'm inclined to suspect that there's more mockery than piety going on.

The Charles Martin translation

My Latin is just about good enough to work my way through Ovid in the Loeb parallel text, but when I tried that it quickly became obvious that I couldn't possibly keep up with Ovid's frenetic narrative pace, so I switched to the Charles Martin translation, mostly because of the few that came to hand, it seemed the best compromise between closeness to the text and readability.

Martin chooses to translate Ovid's hexameters into a loose and free-running version of English blank verse (which is based on the iambic pentameter line, of course). This turns out to be a really good choice. It's a form with a very solid track-record, of course, and we're so used to hearing it that it reads very naturally. It does mean that the book gets longer, though - it seems to take Martin about 30-40% more lines than Ovid to say something, so it's not easy to go backwards and forwards between translation and original.

The language Martin uses occasionally looks alarmingly modern and American, but he avoids gratuitous anachronisms, and is conscientious about not putting anything in that doesn't have a proper basis in the original text. The one place where he really lets himself go is in the contest between the Muses and the daughters of Pierus in Book V, which he reads as a satire on bad poetry

We’ll show you girls just what real class is
Give up tryin’ to deceive the masses
Your rhymes are fake: accept our wager
Learn which of us is minor and which is major
There’s nine of us here and there’s nine of you
And you’ll be nowhere long before we’re through {...}
So take the wings off, sisters, get down and jam
And let the nymphs be the judges of our poetry slam!

...and even that isn't very far from what it says in the Latin, and Martin apologises for it in the introduction and tells us he couldn't help it.

Here and there he gives us an editorial interjection if it's needed to explain something like a pun that is only obvious in Latin, but he always marks them off clearly with square brackets. The text also comes with short and unpedantic notes and a very handy index/glossary of names and places that you will need for all those times when you really can't work out whether Jupiter is that person's grandfather, father-in-law, or uncle - or all three.

An oddity in this book is that the publishers have used as Introduction an essay Bernard Knox published in the NYRB in 1998, in which he compares the currently-available translations of Ovid and finds them all wanting, except for the work-in-progress by Martin, whose completion he eagerly awaits. Of the current ones, Ted Hughes gets most points for style, but not many for accuracy. That feels almost like the Elizabethan habit of binding favourable blurbs from other poets as part of your book! ( )

“God himself helps those who dare.”

in "Metamorphoses (Norton Critical Edition)" by Ovid (Author), Charles Martin (Translator)

When I think on Ovid and Shakespeare, my own poetic streak resurfaces. Read at your own peril (word of warning: If you don't know either your Shakespeare or your Ovid, what follows won't make much sense):

Sentenced to exile! - be seated-
Let me roll back the years-
(Please lend me your ears)-
And give me the closure I've needed.

Brooding in sorrow? - a bit-
Denuded of gladness,
Heart-sated by sadness,
For a crime that I didn't commit-

A knock at the door - o, the terror-
I did nothing wrong!-
Just a lapse and a song
(In the Latin, John - carmen et error).

Mid-production, summarily forced
To abandon the Fasti,
And make tracks to the Black Sea,
My licence to scribble endorsed,

And shorn of my access to libraries-
Surrounded by Trolls-
But - where are the scrolls?-
Ditto, likewise, writers' rivalries.

A résumé! All that I writ!
That's a splendid idea
(Send it c/o Crimea)
Though I s'ppose that I'd have to admit

That folks tend to prefer - sob - the early stuff-
Which makes common sense,
As years now from hence
That's where you should find all the dirty stuff.

This is one of those canonical book I'd never read until now. Every time someone asked me whether I'd read it, I 'd say, "Ovid? I'd be livid. Avoid it or the void beckons. Have instead ovoid object for breakfast." Only after having "finished" my Shakespeare Journey I became avid about reading Ovid. Fervid even. It all seemed so vivid to me. But I was livid when I found out that the video had killed the Ovidian star...

NB: I’m not qualified enough to write on Ovid...Maybe when I’m as old as dirt I’ll be able to...But if you ever read my stuff on Shakespeare, I think everything on Ovid is already said and done. ( )

History of the world ( )

Es un poema épico latino escrito en hexámetros. La obra comprende, en más de doce mu versos, la narración de doscientos cuarenta y seis fábulas metamórficas dispuestas cronológicamente desde el Caos hasta la transformación en estrella de Julio César, escogidas entre el riquísimo repertorio de la tradición griega y entre las fábulas itálicas.

Short version: loved the writing, got a bit worn out by the subject matter.

Ovid is one of the great writers of Western literature and that's pretty obvious from reading The Metamorphoses. I don't know how well Allen Mandelbaum's translation conveys the original Latin, but I enjoyed it. J.C. McKeown's introduction was enough to orient me to the poem and give it some historical context without being overwhelming. (FYI for those who care: beyond that introduction and an afterword in the Everyman's Library edition, there are no other explanatory notes.)

I have a lifelong interest in Greek and Roman mythology and many of these stories were not new to me—and many of them were, and that was wonderful. I appreciated Ovid's ability to pull all these stories together (Wikipedia helpfully tells me that there are more than 250 myths involved) into one narrative, with stories nested within other stories. Many retellings of myths focus on plot rather than character: A happened, then B happened, and it ended at C. Ovid gives the characters time to reflect on their desires or actions, to waver in their decisions, to almost save themselves. Even as I was figuratively glaring at Juno while she plotted the destruction of still yet another of Jove's victims/lovers, I enjoyed seeing her point of view.

But, well, it's over 500 pages of stories with mostly unhappy endings. Very few people are changed into something else except as a punishment. Love, for so many of the gods and men, was interchangeable with rape. Even when a couple found mutual love, it often ended in death or unwanted transformation. None of this was new to me; it was just wearying reading so much of it at once. So while I loved this book, it'll be a while before I consider rereading it. ( )

The half star missing in this review is a self rebuke, rather than any problem with the work. I feel, with every word that I read, the lack of ability to read the original. This is a wonderful translation, thankfully offered in sympathetic text, rather than cod rhyme but, the original must be so much better.

Having showed my ignorance, let's get back to the book itself: this is an amazing collection of stories; some new to me and many the prototypes for stories made popular by later authors. There is an early version of Romeo and Juliet, Icarus' forbear and many others that have echoes in more modern fables.

I find it intriguing how the gods are worshipped, but often not respected by their acolytes. Gods are cruel, vain but unbeatable. There is not a single story in which the gods come off worse, at the hands of humanity, although, there are occasions whereby a higher god takes pity and issues retribution for cruelty (not that many cases admittedly).

Now all I need to do is learn to read ancient Greek poetry, and I'll be able to appreciate Ovid to the full. ( )