Introduction
The present paper is the combination of the summary of six books from Metamorphoses by Roman Poet Ovid, the set of questions to the text, and the expression of personal opinion on reading the books.
Summary of Metamorphoses
Book 4. The three daughters of Minyas are telling their stories while they are busy with weaving instead of worshipping Bacchus as they worship “a better goddess, Pallas” (Ovid 82). They tell three stories one by one. The first daughter tells a story about forbidden love that brought a tragedy. Thisbe and Pyramus are madly in love with each other but their fathers are against their marriage, the beloved can talk only through a crack in the wall that their houses share. So, they decide to elope together and agree to meet near a tomb of a man called Ninus. Thisbe comes earlier and encounters a lioness. Scared by it, she runs away leaving her shawl. When her beloved comes and sees the shawl, he thinks that the lioness has killed his Thisbe and commits suicide. When Thisbe comes back and sees that her darling is dying, she stabs herself too.
The second story told by Leuconoe is about love too. As the Sun sees everything first, he prompts Vulcan that his wife, Venus, has a love affair with Mars. The cuckold traps the loves with the help of a net made of fine links of bronze (Ovid 86). As Venus is infuriated with the gossip and exposure, she makes the Sun fall in love with a woman called Leucothoe. When Clytie, the Sun’s wife gets to know about her husband’s unfaithfulness, she tells Leucothoe’s father that his daughter is not a virgin any longer. The punishment for her was terrible, she was buried alive but she was resurrected in the form of a tree.
The third story is told by Alcithoe. It is about Hermaphroditus who rejects the feelings of the nymph Salmacis. They were joined together and became one body due to Salmacis’ prayer. After the end of the story, Bacchus turns the sisters into bats for their blasphemy.
Then Ovid tells us about the tragedy of Ino. Because of Juno’s hatred, a spell is put on Athamas, Ino’s husband, by the Furies. He starts thinking that his wife and her son and daughter are lions. As he kills a son, Ino jumps into the sea along with her daughter to be turned into sea-goddesses.
Finally, a reader meets Perseus who manages to turn Atlas into a big mountain with the help of Medusa’s head because Atlas behaves as an inhospitable master. Later, with the help of Medusa’s head, Perseus kills a monster and marries Andromeda.
Book 5. The wedding of Perseus and Andromeda is eventually turned into a fierce fight as Phineus wants his ex-fiancée back. Perseus uses Medusa’s head again to kill the enemies and Phineus is also turned into stone by tricky Perseus who promises not to kill him with his sword and uses Medusa’s head instead.
Then, Minerva, the goddess that has accompanied Perseus leaves him and meets the Muses who tell her about king Pyreneus’ desire to capture all Muses and his death of falling off the fortress. Also, the Muses tell Minerva about their singing contest with the mortal girls, the Pierides (Ovid 116). Pierides’ song was worse than that of the Muses and it contained many errors. Calliope was the Muse who sang the songs in the name of all the Muses and her song was about the goddess Ceres and her parting with her daughter named Proserpina. Proserpina was kidnapped by Pluto who had affection for her inspired by Venus. When Ceres was looking for her daughter, Cyane, a nymph that was turned into a lake, managed to prompt the mother that Proserpina was kidnapped. As the desperate mother begged Jupiter to set her daughter free and bring her back, he said it was possible only if Proserpina ate nothing in Pluto’s kingdom. It turned out that she had eaten some seeds and could not be freed. Still, Pluto and Ceres had a deal: Proserpina would spend half a year on the Earth and the second half of a year in the Underworld with her husband.
The final part of Calliope’s song was about the story of Arethusa chased by Alpheus and their final union in the water. This song of Calliope ensured their victory and the Pierides were turned into birds for their disrespect for gods.
Book 6. The book starts with Minerva’s revenge on Arachne, a woman who was a mortal rival in the art of weaving. Minerva challenges Arachne to compete in their skills of weaving. The goddess creates a tapestry that shows that people are inferior to gods; she glorifies gods, herself in particular. Arachne, in her turn, depicts the scenes where gods behave badly, they rape and seduce mortal women. Though Arachne’s tapestry is perfect, Minerva is outraged and furious, she abuses and beets Arachne. This shameful treatment makes Arachne hang herself as she is too ashamed. She is turned into a spider by Minerva who feels remorse.
The second story of the book is about one more mortal woman who fell out of the gods’ grace, it was Niobe. Niobe was so arrogant that she did not worship any god, instead, she wondered why people did not worship her as she was rich, claimed that she had divine descent, and even had more children than Latona had, Niobe had fourteen children. Insulted Latone asked her children to avenge their mother’s disrespect and Apollo and Diana eagerly kill all fourteen children of Niobe. Out of grief, she is turned into a rock.
The third story is one of the most terrible stories of Metamorphoses. It is about Tereus and his wife Procne who had awful doom. They married and lived happily for five years before Procne asked her husband to visit her hometown as she missed he sister, Philomena, a lot. The worst thing was that Tereus felt lust for his sister-in-law and he could not resist it. He invited Philomena to visit them, then entrapped her and raped her, cutting off her tongue so that she could not reveal the truth to anyone. Still, Philomena managed to weave a tapestry with her rape and sent it to her sister who set her free. They invented awful revenge to punish a lustful and cruel man; they killed his only son and served him as a dish for his dinner. On revealing the truth, they turned into birds and flew away.
Book 7. The story of the Golden Fleece is the beginning of this book. The story is about Medea falling in love with Jason and her help him to pass all the tests (dead warriors, a dragon) and to get the Fleece with the help of her magic. At home, Jason asks Medea to make his elderly father a little bit younger if she can take some years of Jason and give them to his father and Medea makes Aeson younger. Besides, Medea manages to revenge herself upon Pelias by deluding his daughters and persuading them to kill his father with knives. They did so because she promised to make him younger too.
There is one more interesting story in the same book: the story about the terrible plague that has destroyed Aecus’ realm. The population died and Aecus was so desperate that he asked Jupiter either take his own life or to send him new people. He needed many people, just as many as there were ants on a tree near him. Jupiter’s grace was with him, the god sent Aecus new citizens who were as hard-working as ants.
The last story from this book is about the grief of Cephalus. Goddess Aurora kidnapped him but failed to have intimacy with him as he loved his wife. An outraged goddess had nothing to do but to let him go home. Still, because of the hint of a goddess, a man started to suspect his wife of being unfaithful to him and he tested her, finally revealing himself and insulting his wife. Procis left her husband but they reunited later. However, she became a victim of her jealousy too as she followed Cephalus during his hunting and he killed his wife unintentionally.
Book 8 tells a reader about Scylla’s betrayal of her father in the name of her love for Minos and Minos’ rejection of her feelings. An angry woman decides to chase him and she is chased by her father that has turned into an osprey. This story is followed by the story of Daedalus and his son Icarus who dies when he and his father attempt to fly away. Then, Theseus, who is famous for his victory over a Minotaur is asked to kill a giant boar that kept attacking Calydon. Meleager manages to kill it but he wants the fame to be Atalanta’s, who is a woman warrior that has also tried to kill the beast. Such behavior of Meleager makes his relatives, mainly his uncle angry with him and he kills them angering his mother a lot. Althaea kills her son by committing the log that contained his power to flames.
There are two more stories in book 8 that are examples of change or metamorphoses. The first is about two poor people, Baucis and Philemon, who gave shelter to disguised gods, Jupiter and Mercury when all other people did not let them in their houses. The Achelous told a story of a man called Erysichthon, who had fallen out of gods’ grace for chopping a sacred tree mercilessly. He was punished by endless Hunger and gluttony that made him eat himself eventually.
Book 9. There is a story about Hercules’ deification after his death. He died because his wife gave him a poisonous cloak. She did so because she questioned her husband’s feelings towards her. She had obtained a cloak from a centaur that wanted to rape her and was killed by Hercules.
In the book, there are also two love stories. The first is about Byblis and her love for her brother Caunus who fled from her. Byblis was full of sorrow and she cried until she became a spring. The second story is about a girl disguised as a boy by her mother who feared that her father, Ligbus, would leave a child to die because she was a girl and he could not bring her up because of his poverty. When the girl is thirteen, her father chooses a bride named Iante and the girls fall in love. Finally, due to her mother’s prayers, Iphis turned into a boy and everyone is happy.
Questions
- Who are Leuconoe and Leucothoe?
- What happened to Clytie, the Sun’s wife after she took revenge on her husband’s mistress?
- What is the connection between Hermaphroditus and biological hermaphroditism?
- Where is the irony of the story of Cadmus and his destiny, his metamorphosis?
- Why was Minerva infuriated by Arachne and what was Arachne’s fate. Was it just?
- Why is the story of Tereus and Procne the most impressive and the most awful story of the poem?
- Why did Mynos reject Scylla’s feelings?
- Why was Erysichthon punished and how did he die?
- Where did Deinara get a poisonous clock and what did she do with it?
- Why did Telethusa disguise her daughter as a boy?
Personal opinion
The six books we have read present numerous interesting themes. The main theme is the changes or metamorphoses that occur within human souls that influence human lives. Ovid shows that love and passion are so strong feelings that they can transform people, make them better and bring them happiness. He also shows that lust can turn people into monsters as it happened to Tereus. Because of jealousy and lust, people can hurt their near and dear people.
Conclusion
Ovid depicts the gods as jealous (Minerva), lustful (Venus), and cruel (Latone). They are not superior to humans, sometimes they are even worst. They indulge themselves in their desires and sins. Still, sometimes gods also commit good and just deeds just as people do. All the stories presented by Ovid are stories about change and transformation either positive or negative.
Works Cited
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. Humphrines, Rolfe. USA : Indiana University Press, 1955.