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3. The Metamorphoses.
“O gods, if any there be who will listen to my prayer, I do not refuse the
dire punishment I have deserved; but lest, surviving, I offend the living,
and, dying, I offend the dead, drive me from both realms; change me and refuse
me both life and death!” [...] Even as she spoke the earth closed over her
legs; roots burst forth from her toes [...] her blood changed to sap, her arms
to long branches, her fingers to twigs, her skin to hard bark. And now the
growing tree had closely bound her heavy womb, had buried her breast and was
just covering her neck; but she could not endure the delay and, meeting the
rising wood, she sank down and plunged her face in the bark.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a long and curious poem, telling stories of people
getting transformed into animals, plants, or stones; stones turning into
people, and language getting perverted every which way. Suzanne and Chris talk
about the issues in translation, the way language can be lost, creation and
the natural world, Ovid’s ideas of gender and sexuality, and medieval (and
later) interpretations of these stories. They also wrap up this first
cluster—on so-called “foundational” texts that turned out to have an
unexpected common theme—and announce the next cluster.
Show Notes.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses in three translations: Frank Justus
Miller, Brookes
More,
and Arthur
Golding.
The passages we discuss:
Narcissus and Echo,
3.339–510
Myrrha,
10.298–518
Io,
1.567–649
Acteon,
3.138–250
Philomela,
6.424–674
Deucalion and Pyrrha,
1.313–347
Niobe,
6.146–312
Tiresias,
3.314–336
Hermaphroditus,
4.274–388
Orpheus,
10.1–105
and
11.1–66
Some later works inspired by the Metamorphoses:
Bernini, Apollo and
Daphne
Caravaggio,
Narcissus
Rubens, Deucalion and
Pyrrha
Benjamin Britten, 6 Metamorphoses for solo oboe after
Ovid
Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid
The Ovide moralisé is currently being translated into modern English.
Meanwhile here’s a translation into Middle English done by William
Caxton.
[Correction: Ovid was exiled in modern-day
Romania.]
The next book we’ll discuss.
View all episodes
By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris Piuma
4.8
3030 ratings
“O gods, if any there be who will listen to my prayer, I do not refuse the
dire punishment I have deserved; but lest, surviving, I offend the living,
and, dying, I offend the dead, drive me from both realms; change me and refuse
me both life and death!” [...] Even as she spoke the earth closed over her
legs; roots burst forth from her toes [...] her blood changed to sap, her arms
to long branches, her fingers to twigs, her skin to hard bark. And now the
growing tree had closely bound her heavy womb, had buried her breast and was
just covering her neck; but she could not endure the delay and, meeting the
rising wood, she sank down and plunged her face in the bark.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a long and curious poem, telling stories of people
getting transformed into animals, plants, or stones; stones turning into
people, and language getting perverted every which way. Suzanne and Chris talk
about the issues in translation, the way language can be lost, creation and
the natural world, Ovid’s ideas of gender and sexuality, and medieval (and
later) interpretations of these stories. They also wrap up this first
cluster—on so-called “foundational” texts that turned out to have an
unexpected common theme—and announce the next cluster.
Show Notes.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses in three translations: Frank Justus
Miller, Brookes
More,
and Arthur
Golding.
The passages we discuss:
Narcissus and Echo,
3.339–510
Myrrha,
10.298–518
Io,
1.567–649
Acteon,
3.138–250
Philomela,
6.424–674
Deucalion and Pyrrha,
1.313–347
Niobe,
6.146–312
Tiresias,
3.314–336
Hermaphroditus,
4.274–388
Orpheus,
10.1–105
and
11.1–66
Some later works inspired by the Metamorphoses:
Bernini, Apollo and
Daphne
Caravaggio,
Narcissus
Rubens, Deucalion and
Pyrrha
Benjamin Britten, 6 Metamorphoses for solo oboe after
Ovid
Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid
The Ovide moralisé is currently being translated into modern English.
Meanwhile here’s a translation into Middle English done by William
Caxton.
[Correction: Ovid was exiled in modern-day
Romania.]
The next book we’ll discuss.
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