Metamorphoses: “Of bodies changed to other forms I tell”

 1/ First, I’m going to note that I picked up and looked at 6 different translations of Metamorphoses: Mary M. Innes translates it into prose, which I do not want; the versions by David Raeburn and Stanley Lombardo are clear but prosaic and tedious; Allen Mandelbaum takes a more poetic approach, his translation sounds good but is apparently quite loose; the Arthur Golding translation sounds very good and would be something I’d like to read, as it apparently inspired my boy Shakespeare, but it’s not very faithful and too twisty for the first read of the poem; so I decided on A. D. Melville, who seemed to strike a better balance between beauty and fidelity. 

One thing I’ve noticed doing some research on translations is that there doesn’t seem to be any strong consensus on good translations of Ovid. When people talk about Homer, Robert Fagles has a huge following; Robert Fitzgerald, the one I read, is also popular, especially for the Odyssey; Richmond Lattimore is often recommended for the Iliad; Peter Green from recent years is often recommended by classicists for accuracy; Emily Wilson is controversial, etc. I don’t see that kind of consensus about Metamorphoses—who is popular? As far as I know, there’s not even much noise about Stephanie McCarter even though she, like Emily Wilson, adds the female/ feminist perspective and criticises the bias of male translators. 

I’d say though that in a standard London bookshop, I almost always spot multiple translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey (usually Fagles, Emily Wilson, Green, E. V. Rieu, sometimes Fitzgerald, Lattimore) but Metamorphoses is usually only available in the Raeburn translation, which I do not at all like—I had to go to the Waterstones at Torrington Place to consider multiple options. 

2/ The thing about reading classics, especially something as influential as Metamorphoses, is that you get to encounter old friends. Book 1 for example has the story of Io, desired by Jove (Jupiter) and turned into a cow—I have met her in the play Prometheus Bound.

Ovid has a lightness of touch that makes him very different from Virgil, but sometimes there’s a very moving passage, such as this one about Io: 

“She browsed on leaves of trees and bitter weeds, 

And for her bed, poor thing, lay on the ground, 

Not always grassy, and drank the muddy streams;

And when, to plead with Argus, she would try 

To stretch her arms, she had no arms to stretch. 

Would she complain, a moo came from her throat, 

A startling sound—her own voice frightened her. 

She reached her father’s river and the banks 

Where often she had played and, in the water, 

Mirrored she saw her muzzle and her horns, 

And fled in terror from the self she saw.” 

(Book 1) 

(translated by A. D. Melville) 

Book 3 for example has many figures I know: Semele, Bacchus, Tiresias, Pentheus from Homer and the Athenian plays; Cadmus, Narcissus, and Echo from popular culture. 

I picked up Metamorphoses expecting much of it to be about beautiful women being chased by gods and turned into trees or animals, but it’s a much vaster, richer work, containing over 250 myths, moving seamlessly from one story to another. Each myth has some kind of transformation (the myth of Callisto in Book 2 even has three different transformations). It’s not hard to see why so many writers and artists love Metamorphoses—in the case of Shakespeare, it clearly appeals to the Shakespeare of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest. I can’t help wondering though, if Shakespeare’s fascination with transformation—each play has some kind of disguise or acting or metamorphosis—is due to his experience as an actor, or due to inspiration from Metamorphoses. 

3/ At some point I’m going to read Jonathan Bate’s How the Classics Made Shakespeare, but right now I can see traces of Metamorphoses in Twelfth Night. 

“ORSINO […] How dost thou like this tune?

VIOLA It gives a very echo to the seat

Where love is throned.” 

(Act 2 scene 4) 

That is clearly a reference to Echo, who has unrequited love for Narcissus; and the figure of Narcissus can be seen in Orsino (and Olivia). 

“VIOLA Make me a willow cabin at your gate

And call upon my soul within the house,

Write loyal cantons of contemnèd love

And sing them loud even in the dead of night,

Hallow your name to the reverberate hills

And make the babbling gossip of the air

Cry out “Olivia!” O, you should not rest

Between the elements of air and earth

But you should pity me.” 

(Act 1 scene 5, Twelfth Night) 

This passage—one of the most beautiful passages in all of Shakespeare—seems to echo Ovid’s story of Echo. 

There are also multiple metamorphoses in Twelfth Night: Viola disguises herself as a man and names herself Cesario; Malvolio transforms himself, when he believes he’s the object of Olivia’s affection; Feste wears various disguises when he joins in the prank on Malvolio; Viola’s twin Sebastian appears and gets mistaken as Cesario, and in a sense becomes Cesario at the wedding. 

4/ I don’t need to mention that the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe becomes the play-within-a-play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and inspires Romeo and Juliet, which is well-known, but now that I’ve read it, I wonder if the death of Antony in Antony and Cleopatra also traces back to Ovid’s poem. 

“At Thisbe’s name he raised his dying eyes

And looked at her, and closed his eyes again.” 

(Book 4) 

Shakespeare expands the scene, but like Pyramus, Antony also kills himself because he thinks Cleopatra is dead, and realises before dying that she is still alive.

Painting of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus by Scarsellino. 

5/ One of my favourite stories in Metamorphoses is the myth of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis. Did you know that the word “hermaphrodite” came from Hermes + Aphrodite? I didn’t know. I like the juxtaposition of the myth of the Sun and Leucothoe, and the myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, and it’s such a strange, fascinating myth. If I’m not mistaken, it may have been Ovid’s invention, different from other myths of Hermaphroditus.