Poetry Discussion Group: Ovid's Metamorposes

[stlukesguild]

It seems to make sense to establish a separate thread to begin our discussion of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Such would certainly be far more likely to attract others who might like to participate. Anyway... I have just begun reading as the last few weeks have involved wrapping up the school year.

Anyway...

Let the discussion begin.

[YesNo]

Does anyone have any particular lines they like?

One I'm trying to find in the Latin is where Envy says the following:

When Athens she beheld, for arts renown'd,
With peace made happy, and with plenty crown'd,
Scarce could the hideous fiend from tears forbear,
To find out nothing that deserv'd a tear.

This is from Book 2, where Aglauros is turned into a statue. Garth, Dryden translators: http://classics.mit.edu/Ovid/metam.2.second.html

It looks like there are spoken versions of the Latin text on YouTube. I would like to hear what this sounds like in the original.

[Neely]

I don't know about particular lines (especially with it being in translation). I'm more interested in the overall concept/ideas/intentions etc, etc of it at this stage, re-investigating the overall feel of it.

However, I've not really touched it for a couple of days, I'll be picking it up again toward the end of the week.

[stlukesguild]

Let us get this discussion off the ground here. One of the reasons that I was for reading Ovid's Metamorphoses is that the book was perhaps the single most influential text in the Renaissance (and well beyond) with the exception of the Bible. Just a cursory look at the table of contents and the various narratives contained within reveals a wealth of tales long familiar in poetry, opera, painting, and sculpture.

The narratives of Orpheus and Euridice is perhaps one of the most oft repeated in Western art. In the realm of music we have Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, the first true opera... and one still performed today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxBT1pfVAKQ

We also have Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, one of the ground-breaking operas that would set the stage for Mozart:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFjzf...eature=related

and we cannot forget Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4hs7vW8SV0

And these are but a few examples. Stravinsky, Ernst Krenek, and many others composed music to this famous narrative.

In literature, we have numerous poetic re-tellings of the myth... especially in the Renaissance and Baroque eras. We also have Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus, Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending, among others.

And in the visual arts:



-Peter Paul Rubens



-Auguste Rodin



-Gutave Moreau



-Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot



-Odilon Redon

But the Orpheus and Eurydice tale just scratches the surface of all the marvelous myths contained within Ovid's book... and all the narratives that served artists as a source of inspiration for centuries:

Venus and Mars by Tintoretto:



Mount Parnassus by Andrea Mantegna:



Venus and Adonis by Peter Paul Rubens



The Fall of Icarus by Pieter Bruegel the Elder:



I've always loved how Bruegel imagined the fall of Icarus, his legs barely seen flailing away in the sea just beneath the ship. The rise and fall of the high and mighty is all but unseen by the common man as he goes about his daily labors.

Perseus and Andromeda by Paolo Veronese:



And Pygmalion:

Two paintings from a series of four by Edward Burne-Jones





Jean-Léon Gérôme:



FRANÇOIS LE MOYNE:



Etienne Maurice Falconet:



Paul Delvaux:



(And you don't want to know how the British satirist, John Rowlandson, imagined a "new Pygmalion")

Perhaps just a brief exploration of the narratives contained within Ovid's poem will help to get this discussion off the ground. I am especially looking forward to the comments by JBI (who voted for this poem) and MortalTerror... our resident Classicist/Roman-lover who has continually championed Ovid... even over the work of Virgil.

[JBI]

I will try, but I must admit, the timing is rough on me, if you could choose a section, it would be most helpful, as I am caught between being on the road 4/7 days a week, and writing exams the rest

In general, I would like to discuss something on the idea of "metamorphosis" and the representation of it, within the context of romance and tragedy.

[Pierre Menard]

What translation are you guys reading, out of curiosity?

[stlukesguild]

I've read Mandelbaum in the past, and I'm reading Humphries this time.

[G L Wilson]

Everything changes, not least of all, art.

[Buh4Bee]

I am also reading Humphries.

[YesNo]

And in the visual arts:

Who painted that piece?

I found the Orpheus and Eurydice story at the beginning of Book 10. I'm reading Mandelbaum's translation.

It makes me wonder if Eurydice didn't have a pretty good time in the underworld based on her smile as she looked back, but then she might have just been glad to leave. Apparently Orpheus was not permitted to look back himself.

[stlukesguild]

The painting in question is by Sir Peter Paul Rubens. I've gone back and added the names for all the artists for anyone else interested.

[YesNo]

I just read the section in Book 3 about Narcissus. I guess he becomes a Narcissus flower after he wastes away and dies.

After looking up Narcissus, I find it is the common Daffodil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_%28plant%29

[Neely]

You can always rely upon Stlukes for top art postings. (I've always enjoyed Bruegel one also.)

I wonder what the best approach to tackling Ovid's Metamorphoses is? I was leafing through it earlier and wondered if to just start again from the beginning or pick through it? A bit of both I suppose (I opted to go through some of the first book and some of the more famous pieces).

I have read most of it previously but there are a lot of references to people and places which puts one off picking in favour of the A to Z approach. Of course, many of the pieces are deeply familiar but others are less drawn upon.

It is the sort of work that for me really needs about six months reading. (I spent a year reading Paradise Lost and don't even think that I have touched much of the surface of that.) It's that sort of work. Of course, it doesn't mean to say you can't read it lighter than that but I am always a little phased with such epic work in that I often feel I can't fully give it the respect it deserves. However, something is clearly better than nothing and I fully welcome this opportunity.

Out of interest I am reading the Oxford Melville translation but I'm not getting hung up about the translation on this one. I'm quite happy to get a feel for the thing again.

[qimissung]

I'm reading Mandelbaum. I just finished Book II. I enjoyed the art, too, especially the Rodin, Corot, Redon, Tintoretto, Veronese, Burne-Jones, Delvaux. The last one I've never seen before. Kind of refreshing after all that over-heated beauty.

I think what has most jumped out at me is the terror they often experienced as they were transformed. In particular Io: "she stared at her strange horns reflected in the waves, and at her muzzle; and she fled, dismayed and terrified;" and Phaethon's loving, grief-stricken sisters as they were turned into Poplars, and their mother: "What is she to do? She's driven here and there, as panic strikes, bestowing kisses while there's still time...she tries to wrench her daughters' bodies from the trunk." Her daughters cry," I pray you, mother, save me! When you rip this tree, it is my body that you tear. Farewell." The Raven and the crow who were banished and they along with Aglauros, turned black. Most heartrending is Callisto who was banished from Diana's company for having lost her virginity, then turned into a bear and almost murdered by her son. But it's the banishment that hurts.

I'm especially struck, since reading these the stories, which come one after the other, by the ravishment or rape by Jove of Io, Callisto, Daphne. Their fear, as depicted by Ovid, is quite palpable. Io, as she experiences herself turned into a white heifer : "and when she tried to utter some lament, nothing but lowings issued from her lips, a sound that she was frightened to emit-her own voice frightened her...;" Callisto, banished: "the other nymphs snatch off her robe-she's naked now, her shame is plain to see. "Be off!"-the goddess cries-"Do not defile this sacred spring!" Their outward transformation mirrors that which takes place internally, I think, when one has experienced a life-changing event.

It's also interesting to note that the heifer, Io, and the bull, Jove when he tricked Europa, are white; the birds though,the crow and the raven, are changed from white to black, as is the girl, Aglauros, when she's changed into a statue by Mercury. Why though, white cows and bulls, and why black birds? I'm assuming the white meant innocence, and I think they prized cows; it just seems an unlikely animal to link with innocence.

In addition to their understanding of geography, I find their psychological astuteness amazing. Centuries later and it's all still here and still the same, the envy, the lust, the power and powerlessness, the fixation with innocence and virginity, the dark desire to incorporate or expel or own something that is not theirs to own, whether human or god. The people that we elevate, and the ones that are so casually destroyed.

This image of Jove, who had the blackest heart of them all, and could, because he was a god present himself to the all the fair maidens he beheld and fell in love with as this magnificent creature all in white: "his horns it's true are small, but so well wrought one would have thought a craftsman had made them; they were more translucent than pure gems. His brow has nothing menacing; his gaze inspires no fear. He seems so calm." He's sort of the ultimate corrupt politician, is he not? I think of Kennedy, Clinton, Edwards.

[mortalterror]

Perhaps just a brief exploration of the narratives contained within Ovid's poem will help to get this discussion off the ground. I am especially looking forward to the comments by JBI (who voted for this poem) and MortalTerror... our resident Classicist/Roman-lover who has continually championed Ovid... even over the work of Virgil.

My favorite parts are the story of Ceyx and Alcyone at the end of book 11, and then old Nestor's storytelling in book 12. My least favorite part is book 5 where Perseus battles everything. I could go into more detail, but I'm not sure everyone has gotten to those parts yet and I don't want to spoil anything.