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My thoughts on this book can be summed up in one simple GIF:



But let's get deeper into this phenomenal book, shall we? Metamorphoses is an 8 AD Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid. Comprising 11,995 lines, 15 books and over 250 myths, the poem chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. It is probably the book with the largest scope that I've ever read:
beginning with the creation of the world from Chaos, and ending with Rome in Ovid's own lifetime, Metamorphoses is one rollercoaster of a read.

There's many things you can say about good ole Ovid but not that he wasn't ambitious! He drags his readers through time and space, from beginnings to endings, from life to death, from moments of delicious joy to episodes of depravity and abjection.

Metamorphosis or transformation is a unifying theme amongst the episodes of the the epic. Ovid raises its significance explicitly in the opening lines of the poem: In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas / corpora; ("I intend to speak of forms changed into new entities;�).

Accompanying this theme is often violence, inflicted upon a victim whose transformation becomes part of the natural landscape. There is a great variety among the types of transformations that take place: from human to inanimate object (Nileus), constellation (Ariadne's Crown), animal (Perdix); from animal (ants) and fungus (mushrooms) to human; of sex (hyenas); and of colour (pebbles). The metamorphoses themselves are often located metatextually within the poem, through grammatical or narratorial transformations. At other times, transformations are developed into humour or absurdity, such that, slowly, the reader realizes that Ovid plays his audience for a good laugh.

All is subject to change and nothing to death. // All is in flux.

Metamorphoses is more than a collection of stories of mythical adventures, it is a mediation on the theme of transformation in all its myriad forms. Ovid uses this motif as the unifying thread of his tales, emphasising it as a universal principle which explains the ever-changing nature of the world. Moreover, across the fifteen books that form Metamorphoses, Ovid examines a large number of themes such as poetry, politics, identity, immortality, love and lust, violence, morality, and even art.

Ovid’s graphic tales of metamorphosis begin with the story of Primal Chaos; a messy lump of discordant atoms, and shapeless prototypes of land, sea and air. This unruly form floated about in nothingness until some unnamed being disentangled it. Voilà! The earth is fashioned in the form of a perfectly round ball. Oceans take shape and rise in waves spurred on by winds. Springs, pools and lakes appear and above the valleys and plains and mountains is the sky. Lastly, humankind is made and so begins the mythical Ages of Man. And, as each Age progresses � from Gold, to Silver, to Bronze and finally to Iron � humankind becomes increasingly corrupt.

Drawing on the Greek mythology inherited by the Romans, Ovid directs his dramas one after another, relentlessly bombarding his readers with beautiful metrics and awe-inspiring imagery as that of Deucalion and Pyrrha, Arachne, Daphne and Apollo, Europa and the Bull, Leda and the Swan. Hundreds of hapless mortals, heroes, heroines, gods and goddesses rise victorious, experience defeat, endure rape, and inevitably metamorphose into something other than their original forms. Chaos begins the world, and so into Chaos we are born, live and die. As the offspring of the Age of Iron, we must endure and struggle against corruption, brutality and injustice.

If wishes were horses, though, beggars would ride.

In many ways, Ovid’s gods are like the gods in other classical epic poems � anthropomorphic, omnipotent, and meddling in human affairs. However, Ovid’s gods differ from the usual epic gods in their behavior. In Metamorphoses, the gods lack moral authority in regard to their interactions with humans and among themselves. The gods are a ‘divine machine� of metamorphosis. Even though on a few occasions this change inflicted upon humans is the result of a just reward or punishment, on most occasions, it is caused by anger, jealousy, lust, or simple cruelty.

Metamorphoses is an epic about the act of silencing. Jealousy, spite, lust and punishment are consistently present in Ovid’s chaotic world. So is rape. Rape is undoubtedly the most controversial and confronting theme of the Metamorphoses. It is the ultimate manifestation of male power in the poem and the hundreds of transformations that occur are often the means of escaping it.

An early tale of attempted rape is narrated in Book I, involving the nymph, Daphne and the god, Apollo. Intent on raping Daphne, Apollo chases her through the forest until, utterly exhausted, she calls out to her father, the river god Peneus to rescue her:

“Help, father!� she called. “If your streams have divine powers! Destroy the shape, which pleases too well, with transformation!�

Peneus answers his daughter’s entreaty, and Daphne is transformed into a laurel tree. Where does a modern audience begin with a story such as Daphne and Apollo? How do we begin to unravel the hundreds of other such tales that follow it?

When Daphne begs her father to alter her body to avoid the advances of the god Apollo, she ends up removing herself from human society. Once her transformation is complete she will no longer be able to possess her human body again. Her active rejection of the god's sexual advances, therefore, directly condemns her to an eternity of Otherness and utter lack of agency.

Because Daphne’s transformation was in an attempt to defend herself from Apollo, her figure was kept as close to living human beings as possible, while being removed from the sensible experience that could render them vulnerable to pain or undesired sex. Although Apollo could not rape her, as she was in the form of a tree, she was still vulnerable to his touch and caress.

In Ovid's tales physical metamorphosis becomes an example of "proper" female behavior. This is why when a woman in transformed within an Ovidian tale the transformation is permanent. In cases when the girl herself is transformed because of her attempt to resist the sexual advance, she faces exclusion from society. Metamorphoses presents a bleak, possibly authentic, analysis of the role of women in society, and what happens when they have no agency.

Nonetheless, for modern readers, and I'd assume especially women, the constant rape scenes in Metamorphoses can be challenging to read. They don't take away from the book's brilliance, but they are something that should be kept in mind before jumping into Ovid's world!

When reading Metamorphoses you will recall many names and myths. I was happy to see how much Homer influenced Ovid. It was good to see the gang was all here, the gang being Odysseus and his crew, Circe, Achilles, Ajax, the Trojan War ("We gave our youth to our loved ones, the rest of our lives to Greece."). It's incredible how effortlessly Ovid manages to pack Homer's massive poems into the last books of his own epic. We love successful fanfiction!

One of my favorite mythical couples that I'd love seeing in Ovid's book were Orpheus and Eurydice. Ever since we did a gymnastics show about this particular myth back in 2011, these two have never left me. When I fell in love with the musical Hadestown last year, I couldn't help but think about them and the fate they shared. Theirs is just such a tragic tale. And I kept asking myself: why did he turn around? The answer Ovid gives isn't all that satisfying: "But Orpheus was frightened his love was falling behind; he was desperate to see her. He turned, and at once she sank back into the dark." But it's a possibility. What I loved most about their tale in Metamorphoses is what follows after:

She stretched out her arms to him, struggled to feel his hands on her own, but all she was able to catch, poor soul, was the yielding air. / 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 know, it's not the most feminist, but I could actually tear up about that part. How beautifully tragic is that? I also loved that Ovid then proceeded on telling the story how Orpheus turned from all womankind after that ordeal and became gay � what an icon!

The ending these two get in the end, in the tale about Orpheus' death, is also beautiful: "Orpheus� shade passed under the earth. He recognised all the places he’d seen before. As he searched the Elysian Fields, he found the wife he had lost and held her close in his arms. / At last the lovers could stroll together, side by side � or she went ahead and he followed, then Orpheus ventured in front and knew he could now look back on his own Eurydice safely."

Another fan-favorite I loved to encounter is Lucifer Morningstar. In Metamorphoses, Ovid describes him as "the last to leave the heavens": "Aurora, watchful in the reddening dawn, threw wide her crimson doors and rose-filled halls; the Stellae took flight, in marshaled order set by Lucifer who left his station last." I'm pretty sure that Lucifer=Satan was not a thing yet when Ovid was writing his tales but I'd be curious to see how his texts (and others of the period) influenced Christian beliefs.

Another thing I'd like to research is how Ovid influenced artists of subsequent centuries and millennia to come. In some cases his legacy is more than clear: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet wouldn't exist without Ovid's tale about Pyramus and Thisbe (two young lovers forbidden to wed because of a long-standing rivalry between their families), same with Ted Hughes' 1997 Tales from Ovid. No Dante without Ovid. Furthermore, there are countless paintings and sculptures immortalising Ovid's Metamorphoses, like the 17th-century sculpture Apollo and Daphne by Gianlorenzo Bernini, or Bacchus and Ariadne, an oil painting by Titian produced in 1523. But I'm sure that there are hundreds of instances where I missed a reference or am not aware of how that particular tale has influenced the writers I came to admire and love.

As yellow wax melts in a gentle flame, or the frost on a winter morning thaws in the rays of the sunshine, so Narcissus faded away and melted, slowly consumed by the fire inside him.

Another example would be Echo and Narcissus. Theirs is an immensely popular story nowadays, but it's one we probably wouldn't know had Ovid not written it down in his Metamorphoses. The introduction of the myth of the mountain nymph Echo into the story of Narcissus, the beautiful youth who rejected Echo and fell in love with his own reflection, appears to have been his invention. And so, Ovid's version influenced the presentation of the myth in later Western art and literature.

As I can't go over all of my favorite myths, I though I'd leave you with a list of them:

Book I: The Creation; The Four Ages; The Giants; The Flood; Daphne; Io
Book II: Europa
Book III: Narcissus and Echo
Book IV: Mars and Venus; Perseus
Book V: Minerva and the Muses; The Rape of Proserpina
Book VI: Arachne; Niobe; Tereus, Procne and Philomela
Book VII: Medea and Jason; Theseus and Aegeus; Minos and Aeacus
Book VIII: Scylla and Minos; The Minotaur and Ariadne; Daedalus and Icarus; Erysichthon
Book IX: Acheloüs and Hercules; The Death of Hercules
Book X: Orpheus and Eurydice; Ganymede; Myrrha; Venus and Adonis
Book XI: Midas; Ceyx and Alcyone
Book XII: The Greeks at Aulis; Rumour; The Death of Achilles
Book XIII: The Judgment of Arms; The Sufferings of Hecuba; Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus; Glaucus and Syclla
Book XIV: Ulysses� Men and Polyphemus� Cave; Ulysses and Circe; Picus, Canens and Circe; The Apotheosis of Aeneas
Book XV: Pythagoras; The Apotheosis of Julius Caesar; Epilogue

Ovid's Metamorphoses has had a long and fascinating history. Its presence among the Western literary canon has functioned as a strange but valuable mirror that has, for over two millennia, reflected social, moral and artistic customs. As David Raeburn so brilliantly recalls in his introduction to the text in this Penguin Classics edition: if you go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, you will return intoxicated after discovering that "It's all Ovid!"