February 19, 2019

3. The Metamorphoses.

Listen Later

55 minutes

“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.

...more

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The Spouter-Inn

By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris Piuma

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February 19, 2019

3. The Metamorphoses.

Listen Later

55 minutes

“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.

...more