Metamorphoses
1479
- poetry
- classical mythology
- metamorphosis
- mythology
- latin fables
- translations into english
- translations into italian
- translations into french
- latin literature
- latin love poetry
The story
The Metamorphoses is a narrative poem penned by the Roman poet Ovid. Widely considered to be his ultimate work, comprising fifteen books and over 250 myths. The poem portrays a history of the world from creation up to the deification of Julius Caesar. Metamorphoses is viewed as one of the most influential works in Western culture, inspiring authors such as Dante, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Boccaccio. It has also inspired countless works of art from various artists throughout the centuries.
What it’s like
Rich, ornate hexameter that moves like a storyteller's hand tracing a tapestry: one myth folds into the next, so a flood gives way to a lover's flight, which gives way to a girl turning to laurel or a man to stone. The mood is wry, sensual and elegiac by turns, with bright sun on marble, cool groves, rivers and rain, and a constant sense of bodies changing shape. Its pace is brisk and episodic, built for dipping in and out, and its emotional register swings from tender to mock-solemn to quietly grieving, with lovers, gods and mortals each bruised by desire or pride. Violence and sex appear regularly and are told matter-of-factly rather than lingered over, with some gore and a few grim deaths, but nothing graphic for its own sake. This suits a slow reader with a cup of tea on a grey afternoon, a comfort reread of old stories, or anyone wanting myth in its original storytelling voice, whether in Latin or in the many translations that carry its wit into English, Italian and French.
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