Metamorphoses

by Ovid

  Hector’s torches—which I held at bay: an allusion to events described in the Iliad, Book XV.

  Palamades: exposed Ulysses, when he attempted to get out of going to the Trojan War by feigning madness; he was executed after being falsely accused by Ulysses. The story does not occur in Homer.

  Philoctetes: an archer who carried the bow and arrows Hercules entrusted to him on his funeral pyre; bitten by a snake on the isle of Lemnos, the stench of his wound became unbearable to his comrades, and he was abandoned there on advice of Ulysses.

  abandoning old Nestor: an episode described in the Iliad, Book VIII.

  Behold, Ulysses is in need of aid: Iliad, Book IX.

  Hector shows up and leads the gods to battle: a synthesis of several different episodes from the Iliad, Books VII, XIV, and XV.

  the shield, engraved to represent / the world: The marvelous shield of Achilles, the gift of Hephaestus to Achilles’ mother, Thetis, described in the Iliad, Book VIII, is passed over rather quickly here; Ulysses will bring it up again to significant effect at 428 ff.

  Let us be seen in action: send the armor / back: the argument that, according to Seneca, Ovid borrowed from one of his teachers, Marcus Porcius Latro.

  Ulysses…looked up / to gaze upon the leaders: After all, they are the ones who will decide the issue, not the common soldiers, whose virtues Ajax both appeals to and embodies.

  condemned / to exile: a reference to Telamon, father of Ajax; he and his brother were both exiled for the murder of their half brother, Phocus.

  on my mother’s side, / Mercury: He omits any reference to his grandfather, Autolycus, son of Mercury, a notorious liar and trickster.

  Phthia or Scyrus: The former was Achilles’ birthplace and homeland in Thessaly; the latter is the island where his son Pyrrhus was still living.

  the mother, who / would not hear reason: Clytemnestra.

  I went into the Trojans’ Senate House: an episode described by Homer in the Iliad, Books III and XI.

  deluded by a phantasm: from the Iliad, Book II.

  Then Agamemnon called for an assembly: Actually, it was Ulysses himself who, in Book II of the Iliad, summoned the Greeks to assembly; either this is an unlikely memory lapse on Ovid’s part or Ulysses, knowing just who is really going to make the decision about the armor, sees a purpose in flattering Agamemnon for his leadership abilities.

  Thersites: an insolent and cowardly fellow, who advocates abandoning the war and is humiliated and thwacked by Ulysses.

  And now that our augurs have decided: An oracle had revealed that Troy could not be taken without the arrows, which Hercules had entrusted to Philoctetes (see note above on 64); Ulysses and Neoptolemus eventually bring him and his arms back from Lemnos.

  Pergama: Troy.

  there sprang a purple flower: Ovid seems to have been the first to associate the death of Ajax with the hyacinth.

  The sorrows of Hecuba: Hecuba, Priam’s queen, survives the fall of Troy. Ovid’s source here is Euripedes’ tragedy Hecuba. The courage of women suffering is one of Ovid’s themes here and in the next three tales.

  Thoas and Hypsipyle…a famous massacre: Venus, angered by the indifference of the women of Lemnos, afflicted them all with a foul odor; their men sought comfort from captive women, and the Lemnians murdered their fathers and husbands, save for Hypsipyle, who hid her father, Thoas.

  challenged him for his unjust behavior: Ovid recalls the conflict between the two men in Book I of the Iliad, when Agamemnon demanded that Achilles surrender his slave Briseis to him, thus precipitating the hero’s wrath and the woes of the Greeks.

  My death will be more acceptable…if I endure it willingly: In many cultures, including the Greek and the Roman, sacrifice, whether human or animal, was pleasing only if the victim was willing, or so perceived by those offering it to the god. Polyxena knows that she is to be a victim but does not know to whom she is being sacrificed.

  Alcon of Hyleus: Whether or not his creation is imaginary, Alcon himself was a real artist.

  unwomanly behavior: Ovidian irony. Like Polyxena, they are showing the courage in the face of death that only men are supposed to be able to muster.

  Teucrians / sprang from Teucer: Teucrians was another name for the Trojans: Teucer was an ancient king of Troy who originally had come from Crete.

  Ambracia, contested by the gods…but better known now for Apollo’s deeds: Once upon a time, Apollo, Artemis, and Hercules all claimed the right to be the patron of Ambracia. They appointed the shepherd Cragaleus as judge, and he chose Hercules; Apollo promptly turned Cragaleus into a crag. Augustus’ victory over Cleopatra at nearby Actium was attributed to Apollo and celebrated by Virgil, though scanted here by Ovid.

  the threatened sons / of King Molossos…: When robbers attacked the family of this pious man and threatened to burn down his house, Jove turned them all into birds and allowed them to escape.

  Polyphemus: The Cyclops had been represented by Homer and Virgil (in the Aeneid) as a savage cannibal and by Theocritus in the Idylls and Virgil again (in the Eclogues) as a comic lover. Ovid was the first to combine these two representations, unforgettably.

  The sea gods welcomed me: A modern reader might find Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Riverman” interesting for comparison and contrast.

  Book XIV: Around and About with Aeneas

  the Giant’s Neck: that part of Sicily that is above the corresponding part of the buried giant, Typhoeus.

  of her own indiscretion once, with Mars: a reference to Book IV, “Mars and Venus.”

  where Dido took Aeneas to her heart: an episode made much of by Virgil, in Book IV of the Aeneid, and disposed of by Ovid in four lines, rich in their ambivalence.

  Cercopians: The name of the tribe clearly comes from the Greek word for tail, kerkos; cercopithecus was the Latin word for a long-tailed ape. The Cercopians would appear to be monkeys of some kind.

  cave of the…Sibyl: For a much more elaborate treatment of Aeneas’ visit (though one that lacks the Sibyl’s own very interesting story), the reader is directed to Virgil’s Aeneid, Book V.

  the shore / that, as yet, did not bear his nurse’s name: one of Ovid’s little jokes on Virgil: in Book VI of the Aeneid, Virgil gives the place name, Caieta, then explains in Book IX how it got its name from Aeneas’ wet nurse. Ovid has trouble letting go of this: see also 621 ff. and Book XV. 882.

  Macareus, companion of Ulysses: Ovid’s invention, Macareus greets Virgil’s invention, Achaemenides, and they swap stories.

  Achaemenides: the account of his rescue by Aeneas appears in the Aeneid, Book III. The account of his reunion with Macareus is original with Ovid.

  O goddess-born: Aeneas, son of Venus.

  moly: Homer’s word for Circe’s flower in the Odyssey, Book X. Its identity is unknown, though Amanita muscaria, a hallucinogenic mushroom, has emerged as a plausible suspect.

  Canens: the singing one, from Latin cano.

  but for his name, / nothing remained of Picus: The name is Latin for woodpecker.

  the Western Gates: the pillars of Hercules.

  Ajax…took a virgin from a virgin: Diomedes argues that the Greeks should not have been punished for the crime of Ajax (son of Oileus), who raped Cassandra, the virgin priestess of the virgin goddess Minerva, and whom Minerva slew with a thunderbolt of Jove’s.

  Caphereus: a rocky promontory on the Euboean coast.

  as kindly Venus settled an old score / with fresh new pain: During the Trojan war, Diomedes speared Venus while she was rescuing her son Aeneas from the combat, an incident recounted by Homer in the Iliad, Book V.

  The transformation of Aeneas’ ships: an episode from the Aeneid, Book IX.

  the Holy Mother of the Gods: Cybele.

  but these my Latin meter has reversed: The metrical demands made by the Latin hexameter line will not let him list these two rulers in chronological order.

  Pomona and Vertumnus: Their names (hers from pomum, fruit; his from verum/autumnus, spring/fal
l) reveal the plot: Can a Latin wood nymph, the goddess of fruit trees, find happiness with an Etruscan deity of changing seasons?

  the Kids: two stars in the constellation Auriga whose rising and setting were believed to be associated with storms.

  Norican fires: burn in Noricum, a region between the Danube and the Alps, famous for its iron.

  foresightful Venus: Salamis was famous for the worship of Venus Prospiciens, who was both foresighted and far-seeing.

  Tarpeia justly perishes: She betrayed Rome, asking for what the Sabine soldiers wore on their arms as her reward; instead of losing their golden bracelets, they buried her alive under their shields.

  since the state…does not depend upon / a single man: an indiscreet line for a poet in the time of Augustus?

  Book XV: Prophetic Acts and Visionary Dreams

  Numa (1): The preparation of Numa, successor to the first Roman ruler, Romulus, is described here, though his character and study are sketched in very briefly. Ovid’s main interest here seems to be in the story of Myscelus and the founding of Crotona and with the teachings of Pythagoras. Romulus and Numa provide the first part of a Roman frame that is completed in the last lines of Book XV by Julius Caesar and his adopted heir, Augustus.

  white or black pebbles: Jurors were each given one white and one black pebble; when rendering a verdict, they passed by an urn and dropped in the white if they believed the defendant innocent, the black if guilty.

  The teachings of Pythagoras: As we have seen, Ovid inserts a “poetic” solo in his poem every five books: the monologue of Pythagoras is both the most interesting and the most problematic of these.

  Most of the problems disappear if we regard Pythagoras as one of Ovid’s characters, not as a mouthpiece for Ovid. He is then one of Ovid’s most interesting creations, a long-winded and occasionally repetitious philosopher of passionate moral conviction and omnivorous intellectual curiosity. His conviction leads him into a long and lucidly sustained argument against the slaughter of animals (at a time when most Romans who would read this poem spent a significant portion of their lives in amphitheaters where the slaying of beasts was a main event) and against using them for food. His intellectual curiosity leads him to describe a primitive form of scientific experimentation and to compile a versified Cabinet of Curiosities, the predecessor of many subsequent, real collections, such as the contemporary Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles.

  It should be noted that his attitude toward metamorphosis is very different from the usually irreversible and usually punitive metamorphoses that Ovid describes, and that his understanding of the transitory nature of everything stands in sharp contradiction to Ovid’s claims for the immutable perfection of Augustan rule.

  Helen…asks herself why she was—twice!—seized by a lover: Her first abductor was Theseus; she had a child by him and was then rescued by her brothers and brought back to Sparta. After marrying Menelaüs, she was carried off to Troy by Paris, thus instigating the Trojan War.

  the city / of Hyperion: Heliopolis, in Egypt.

  Dardanian Rome: a reference to the Roman belief that their city was founded by Aeneas; Dardanus was the founder of the royal house of Troy.

  a Thyestean banquet: Atreus, the brother of Thyestes, once served him the limbs of his own sons at a banquet.

  Hippolytus: Hippolytus was identified with the local Italian deity Virbius, who was worshiped at Aricia.

  Cipus: psychoanalytically interesting: Cipus discovers horns (cornua) on his head, which symbolize a suppressed desire for a crown (corona); his case would inevitably remind a Roman of Julius Caesar, who also spurned a crown but did not retire peacefully to the countryside.

  the golden mother of Aeneas: The interest of Venus in Caesar’s case stems from his (claimed) descent from her liaison with Anchises.

  the Calydonian spear / of Diomedes: See note to XIV. 681–82.

  Vesta’s sacred priest: Julius Caesar.

  livers warned of tumult soon to come: When predicting future events, Roman soothsayers examined the entrails of sacrificial victims, paying particular attention to the victims’ livers.

  Mutina…Pharsalia…Philippi: victories of Augustus during the civil war that followed the death of Caesar; the one called “great” was Sextus Pompeius, youngest son of Pompeius Magnus, Pompey the Great; the Roman general’s Egyptian wife was Cleopatra; a Roman reader would perhaps recollect that before her liaison with Marc Antony, with whom she was allied in his rebellion against Augustus, she had an equally notorious one with Julius Caesar.

  Augustus rules, and like great Jove: The explicit comparison here parallels that in Book I.

  PERSONS, PLACES, AND PERSONIFICATIONS IN THE METAMORPHOSES

  Ovid takes omnivorous delight in including names in the Metamorphoses, so that his poem abounds with references to characters and places of only marginal significance to its action. The reader may wonder why we are given the names of every walk-on (or, more accurately, die-on) character from the battle between Perseus and Andromeda’s disappointed suitors or the violent struggle between the Lapiths and the centaurs. And must we have such a detailed itinerary of the progress of Aesculapius from Epidaurus to Rome? By the frequent naming of unimportant characters, Ovid undercuts the reader’s expectation of epic unity with the suggestion that every name has its story, all equally worthy of mention if not of development. He also questions the hierarchy of epic values and the immortality that the epic poet traditionally conferred, by giving everyone the Roman equivalent of fifteen minutes of fame and by revealing that all heroes are very much the same, and often somewhat less heroic than previously indicated.

  The tales that Ovid tells are not discrete and self-contained, in the way that modern short stories often are. They are very often family tales, involving figures whose fates are connected to those of a distant ancestor or not-so-distant relation. The human universe is made up of stories told; those stories are all part of one story, and so the way in which one tale is succeeded by another in the Metamorphoses is part of what Ovid means by the title of his poem.

  In the entries below, I have tried to supply useful information about the more important places and names of the Metamorphoses, especially information about familial relationships, since this information can often lead the reader to a tale that opens up into many other tales, related by character, theme, or structure. Minor characters and those about whom little or nothing more is known, as well as places unimportant to the story or already familiar to the modern reader, have been excluded.

  Each entry gives the first reference as it occurs in the translation, by book and line.

  Acestes, Sicilian king; friend of Aeneas, XIV.119

  Achaea, Region in the Peloponnese or Greece itself, V.447

  Achaemenides, Companion of Ulysses; rescued from the Cyclops by Aeneas, XIV.237

  Acheloüs, River and shape-shifting river god, father of the Sirens, V.727

  Acheron, River in the underworld or the underworld itself; father of Ascalaphus, V. 714

  Achilles, Son of Peleus and Thetis; greatest Greek hero of the Trojan War, VIII.434

  Acis, Lover of Galatea; son of Faunus; slain by jealous Cyclops, XIII.1087

  Acmon, Companion of Diomedes, XIV.691

  Acoetes, Shipmaster; devotee of Bacchus, III.750

  Acrisius, Father of Danaë grandfather of Perseus; king of Argos who opposed the worship of Bacchus, III.721

  Acropolis, Citadel of Athens, II.997

  Actaeon, Grandson of Cadmus; son of Autonoe; slain by Diana, III.183

  Adonis, Son of Myrrha and Cinyras; lover of Venus, X.635

  Aeacus, Son of Jove and Aegina; ruler of island named after his mother, VII.676

  Aeetes, King of Colchis, an Asian nation east of the Black Sea; father of Medea; guardian of the Golden Fleece, VII.458

  Aegaeon, Son of Neptune; a hundred-armed giant, II.12

  Aegeus, Son of Pandion; king of Athens and father of Theseus, VII.571

  Aegina, Mother o
f Aeacus by Jove; also the island named after her, VI.158

  Aeneas, Son of Anchises and Venus; father of Ascanius; Trojan hero; legendary founder of Rome; became Indiges after his apotheosis, XIII.907

  Aeolus, Father of Athamas; god of the winds, I.364

  Aesacus, Son of Priam and the nymph Alexiroë, XI.1084

  Aesculapius, Son of Apollo and Coronis; god of healing, XV.623

  Aeson, Father of Jason; restored to youth by Medea, VII.161

  Aetolia, Country in middle Greece, XIV.757

  Agamemnon, Son of Atreus; brother of Menelaüs; husband of Clytemnestra; father of Iphigenia, Orestes, and Electra; king of Mycenae; Greek leader during the Trojan War, XII.915

  Agave, Daughter of Cadmus; mother of Pentheus, III.932

  Agenor, Son of Neptune; father of Cadmus and Europa; king of Tyre, II.1179

  Aglauros, Daughter of Cecrops; envious sister of Herse, II.776

  Ajax, (1) Son of Telamon; one of the greatest of Greek heroes of the Trojan War, XII. 913; (2) Son of Oileos; rapist of Cassandra; slain by Minerva, XII.908

  Alcithoë, One of the storytelling daughters of Minyas, IV.1

  Alcmena, Mother of Hercules, VI.157

  Alcon, Boeotian designer of goblet depicting the deeds of Orion’s daughters, XIII.991

  Alcyone, Daughter of Aeolus; wife of Ceyx; changed into halcyon, VII.569

  Alpheus, River and river god; infatuated by Arethusa, II.333

  Althaea, Wife of Oeneus; mother of Deianira and Meleager, VIII.611

  Ammon, Egyptian deity identified with Jove, IV.918

  Amphion, Husband of Niobe; father of fourteen; builder of Theban walls, VI.264

  Amphissus, Son of Dryope, IX. 517

  Amphitryon, Husband of Alcmena; putative father of Hercules, VI.156

  Amulius, Usurper of Alba Longa from his brother, Numitor, XIV.1123

  Anapis, Sicilian river and god; lover of Cyane, V.585

  Anaxaretes, Maiden of Cyprus who spurned Iphis, XIV.1015

  Ancaeus, Arcadian at the Calydonian boar hunt, VIII.444

  Anchises, Lover of Venus, by whom he fathered Aeneas, IX.620

  Andraemon, Husband of Dryope, IX.485