The effect of Ovid's
Metamorphoses
did not end with literature and
art but appeared also in the modern science of zoology.
art but appeared also in the modern science of zoology.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v1
Milton declared in one of his Latin elegies that, if
Ovid had escaped exile, he would have surpassed Vergil and rivalled
Homer. In another elegy he imitated Ovid's tale of Daphne for much
of his charming account of an early experience with love. And he
recalled Ovid even more skilfully while writing his ambitious ode on
the frustration of the Gunpowder Plot. Nor was Ovid's influence
confined to these passages; it was pervasive in Milton's Latin verse.
Meeting the joyful pagan on this neutral ground, the earnest young
Puritan laid aside his armor of gravity and prejudice and learned to
move with ease, lightness, and audacity.
Milton borrowed from Ovid in several of his earlier English poems,
making brief references even in his Ode on the Nativity. He recalled
Ovid gracefully in L'Allegro and more than once in II Penseroso,
adapting the ancient material judiciously to a quite different effect
of his own. Comus owed to Ovid still more: Milton drew much of his
plot from Ovid's tales of Bacchus and of Circe. And the effect of the
Metamorphoses was very important in Lycidas. During Milton's
boyhood and youth, a number of his poems indicate an extraordinary
fondness for the local myths of England. Such interest none was more
likely to encourage than Ovid.
With the approach of middle life, Milton's thought turned in new
directions. He was hoping to emulate Vergil and the tragic poets of
Greece. When he attempted poetry, he was apt to rely on Horace
or the Italians. And most of his time was devoted to great issues of
the day and the writing of bold controversial treatises. Yet Ovid lent
beauty to a Sonnet on the Tetrachordon and often gave point to a
fierce thrust of his prose.
When Milton at last found opportunity for his epic, he turned
again to his early favorite. Ellwood, Milton's helper during his
blindness, assures us that the authors whom Milton consulted most
frequently were Homer, Euripides, and Ovid. For the subject and
the plan of Paradise Lost, Milton looked chiefly to the Scripture and
Vergil. But much of the rest he adapted carefully from Ovid's Meta-
morphoses. In his hands the old myths took on a great and spiritual
significance: even the sensual and grotesque gave hints for the pure
and sublime. 13 Milton realised that it suited only the guilty to hide
in a lower form and he used metamorphosis appropriately for the
wiles and punishment of Satan. And he recalled Ovid most judiciously
"See the essays on Narcissus (Bk. 8) and Hermaphroditus (Bk. 4).
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? METAMORPHOSES IN EUROPEAN CULTURE
for details in his grand descriptions of Chaos, Creation, and the
Flood.
Milton profited by the Metamorphoses again in the simpler and
graver design of Paradise Regained. Recollection of Ovid suggested
an occasional illustration and probably the disguises of Satan. And
Ovid's work received a new meaning in Satan's rebuke of his wanton
follower Belial:
Have we not seen, or by relation heard,
In courts and regal chambers how thou lurk'st,
In wood or grove, by mossy fountain side,
In valley or green meadow, to waylay
Some beauty rare, Calisto, Clymene,
Daphne, or Semele, Antiopa,
Or Amymone, Syrinx, many more
Too long--then layest thy scapes on names adored,
Apollo, Neptune, Jupiter, or Pan?
Traces of Ovid appear even in Samson Agonistes.
Although Milton's use of the Metamorphoses varied with the nature
of his work, his method was on the whole constant from the begin-
ning. He borrowed no more than was required by his context and
suited the material admirably to his purpose. He was inclined to
prefer what was already grave and impressive and to endow it with
added purity and grandeur. As he went on, the veil of sensuous
charm grew progressively thinner over the underlying spiritual mean-
ing. 14 And he used mythology always in relation to universal truth.
With the death of Moliere and Milton, the Renaissance came to an
end. Its great men were dead; the lesser men had run to unfortunate
excess. Imagination, creative fervor, eager experiment had taken on
grotesque forms and disgusted the new leaders who shaped the thought
of the eighteenth century. These men were anxious at all costs to
preserve sanity and decorum. They restricted themselves to what
seemed to be the precept and practice of the most correct among
Roman authors. Horace became the model of poet and critic. Writ-
ers' of fiction relied chiefly on close observation of contemporary life.
To the new spirit Ovid was much ldss congenial. His merits were not
14 Compare Milton's references to Orpheus in L'Allegro, II Penseroso, Lycidas,
and Paradise Lost.
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? INTRODUCTORY SURVEY
those of Vergil and Horace; his lack of restraint and his ill timed
wit jarred on men who dreaded excess. Ovid continued to be read;
but he no longer was ranked with the best.
The reaction was most violent in the south of Europe. In Spain
Ovid seems to have disappeared from literature and art and never
returned to favor. In Italy he appears to have survived only as an
occasional theme for opera libretto. References to him continue
even in the Figaro of Mozart.
In France Ovid fared much better. The leading authors nearly
always found inspiration elsewhere;: yet Ovid was not forgotten.
His Metamorphoses were translated by Desaintange and appeared in
a fine edition with innumerable illustrations. Voltaire lauded Ovid's
masterpiece in his Apology for Fable. Andre Chenier made Europa
the theme of a carefully written lyric.
Ovid inspired important paintings of Lemoine and Boucher and
several of Boucher's great tapestries portraying the loves of the gods.
His prominence in French art attracted the Prussian ruler, Frederick
the Great. By order of this monarch, two French painters, Resne
and Lancret, proceeded north to Potsdam and adorned with scenes
from the Metamorphoses the new palace of Sans Souci.
But Ovid enjoyed even greater favor in opera. With the opening
of the Academy in 1671, this form of entertainment became accessible
to the French public. The new theater began its career with Cam-
bert's Pomona, a subject taken from Ovid's famous myth, and so
enthusiastic was the welcome that the same opera was given without
interruption for eight months. The first Academy then gave place
to the Royal Academy of Music. Here opera continued to be ex-
ceedingly popular and enjoyed an increasing vogue for more than a
century. To provide suitable repertories, the Royal Academy soon
was enlisting many poets of France. Quinault and others devoted
their entire energy to the writing of librettos. Almost every minor
dramatist made at least one venture in the field of opera. More
prominent authors, such as Fontenelle, followed their lead. The
music was composed successively by Lulli, Rameau, and Cherubini.
In the history of French culture the entire period was remarkable.
It was distinguished by able poets and still abler composers and
added much to the development of operatic art in general. And
throughout this period a favorite theme was Ovid's Metamorphoses.
But Ovid's most memorable triumph occurred in the work of Gliick.
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? METAMORPHOSES IN EUROPEAN CULTURE
After experimenting with several tales from the Metamorphoses, this
composer produced his Orpheus and Eurydice, a work that revolution-
ized the methods of opera and holds the stage today.
England was more conservative than the continent. Ovid main-
tained for many years a prominent place in her literature. Although
Dryden compared him unfavorably with Chaucer, he admired Ovid
almost as much as his favorite, Vergil. In his last years, Dryden had
occasion to translate the twelfth book of the Metamorphoses, which
dealt with the beginning of the Trojan War. He became enthusiastic
and, after finishing his appointed task, he turned to other parts of
Ovid's masterpiece and rendered story after story, until he had in-
cluded all those which pleased him best. The work did not stop here.
Samuel Garth arranged for a translation of all the others. Addison,
Pope, and other leading poets each undertook a part. This version
went through edition after edition and was the standard for over a
century.
Although this great translation was Ovid's chief honor, it was not
the only one. Pope imitated him delightfully in his Windsor Forest
and more conventionally in the Dunciad. Swift made a poetical ver-
sion of Philemon and Baucis, and Johnson and Boswell still recalled
the Metamorphoses occasionally towards the close of the century.
Meanwhile interest in the Metamorphoses had taken another direc-
tion. Even in ancient Greece there had been men who failed to under-
stand or enjoy the popular myths. Such men insisted on excluding
the supernatural and retelling myths as if they were the result of
ordinary human action. Herodotus recorded a few explanations of
this kind at the beginning of his history. This way of accounting for
the older lore proved less congenial to the Greeks than other methods,
such as allegory. Yet it continued during ancient times and re-
appeared in the philosophy of Francis Bacon. During the second
half of the eighteenth century, there began in Germany a movement
called the Enlightenment, which passed rapidly to France and Eng-
land. The aim of Lessing, Diderot, and its other leaders was to do
away with superstition and prejudice in the name of reason and
common sense. Their purpose was commendable; but in the direc-
tion of mythology it was often misapplied. Among these reformers
the old method of rationalizing myths was received with acclaim.
Ovid and the rest were reread and their stories were laid on the
Procrustean bed of reason and common sense. What could be made
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? INTRODUCTORY SURVEY
to seem ordinary, was stretched to the breaking point, what could not,
was lopped away and carefully hidden.
Thus Ovid's tale of Phaethon was distorted to the following shape:
"Phaethon was a young and enterprising prince of Lybia. Crossing
the Mediterranean in quest of adventure, he visited Italy to see his
intimate friend Cygnus. Phaethon was skilled in astrology, from
whence he arrogated to himself the title of the son of Apollo. One
day in the heat of summer, as he was riding along the banks of the
Po, his horses took fright at a clap of thunder, and plunged into the
river, where, together with their master, they perished. Cygnus, who
was a poet, celebrated the death of his friend, from whence the fable. "
Judged even by standards of the eighteenth century, much in this
explanation appears unwarranted. We may ask, for example, by
what authority the interpreter made Cygnus a poet or by what
authority he silently removed the remarkable mutation of Cygnus to
a swan. In the nineteenth century a careful study of mythology
among many primitive peoples, raised further difficulties and showed
that such interpretation was apt to be quite as incredible as the
original myth. But the leaders of the Enlightenment were well pleased
with their apparent triumphs over superstition, and educated men in
general were impressed by their cleverness. The practice continued
through the eighteenth century and affected the famous dictionary
of mythology by Lempriere.
With the Romantic Revival many long accepted standards were
challenged. Men realized that the world was much larger than they
had supposed at the beginning of the eighteenth century and they
hastened to readjust their ideas accordingly. Horace, Vergil, and a
few other accepted authors were no longer supreme. Men even
doubted their greatness. Men became anxious to know at first hand
the older masters of Greece, the authors of medieval and modern
Europe, and the great literature of Oriental peoples. They found
means to travel frequently and to profit more by direct observation
of man and nature. In the new order Ovid's other work lost favor,
but his Metamorphoses gained on the whole. If it was read less often,
it was judged more kindly. Men took new interest in mythology of
all sorts. When dealing with classic myth, they often preferred to
use Greek poets or Apollodorus. But some famous tales were peculiar
to Ovid and many others he told so well as to make them his own.
Ovid did not become a great formative influence, yet he was well known
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? METAMORPHOSES IN EUROPEAN CULTURE
and he contributed to the work of many who were leaders during the
nineteenth century.
In Germany Voss translated the Metamorphoses into hexameter and
Bullen translated it into ottava rima. Goethe studied it enthusi-
astically in his youth and used it not only for his earliest lyrics but
occasionally in work written at all periods of his long career, and
notably in the latter part of both his Wilhelm Meister and his Faust.
Schiller borrowed from the Metamorphoses in his odes. Feuerbach
sometimes took from it the theme of a great mythological painting.
In France Ovid's tales were a favorite subject of the great painters
Moreau and Delacroix and of the recent sculptor Rodin. Ovid's
Orpheus provided the theme for an exceedingly popular light opera
of Offenbach. In Italy Ovid inspired Canova, and in Denmark he
brought Thorwaldsen fame.
England showed a marked fondness for Ovid among her men of
letters. The Metamorphoses was a favorite work of Blake. It con-
tributed notably to Shelley's Adonais. Byron alluded to the Meta-
morphoses in his satires. Scott used it prominently in two of his later
novels, The Pirate and Woodstock. Macaulay perused the entire
poem more than once, but without enthusiasm. Landor gave it ex-
travagant praise and retold two of the stories. Tennyson recalled it
sometimes in lighter vein. And Browning made a number of allu-
sions, often relating it with a work of pictorial art. Among the later
Victorians it was common to retell one or more ancient myths in a
modern spirit. And in this way Ovid contributed to the work of a
host of minor poets and to fine poems of Matthew Arnold, William
Morris, and Swinburne. Kingsley used Ovid both for his Andromeda
and his retelling of classic myths for children. Turner found in the
Metamorphoses inspiration for several important paintings.
In the new country of America, two centuries had passed offering
little that was remarkable in literature and art. Men had been con-
cerned chiefly with the problem of establishing themselves in an almost
unbroken forest and of repelling hostile Indians and French. The
New England Colonies had found more time than the others for in-
tellectual activity. But their leaders were preoccupied with a Calvin-
istic theology which deprecated beauty of almost every kind and was
obsessed with the fear of hell. Both pioneer life and Calvinism were
on the whole unfavorable to culture and they were especially un-
favorable to appreciation of the frankly pagan beauty of Ovid. The
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? INTRODUCTORY SURVEY
nineteenth century brought a somewhat easier life and a milder the-
ology. And the new Romantic spirit from abroad encouraged men to
enjoy the recently discovered culture of modern Europe and the
Orient. Under these more favoring circumstances nineteenth century
America produced a literature of singular purity and charm. Its
underlying spirit and its literary models were in general far removed
from Ovid. Yet there were notable exceptions. Lowell recalled the
Metamorphoses wittily in his Fable for Critics. Hawthorne retold
many Greek myths for the children of Puritan New England. And
in his delightful versions, Ovid nearly always had a part.
The effect of Ovid's Metamorphoses did not end with literature and
art but appeared also in the modern science of zoology. The Meta-
morphoses provided names for the Argus pheasant and the python.
It often furnished the scientific title of well known butterflies and
moths. Thus the common blue butterfly of Mediterranean countries
became Lycaena Icarus; the red admiral became Vanessa Atalanta;
and the mourning cloak became Aglais Antiopa. And Ovid's poem
suggested both the scientific and the popular name of such familiar
moths as the Io and the Polyphemus.
With the coming of the twentieth century, Ovid's Metamorphoses
remains, as it has always been, a poetic masterpiece rich in beauty
and interest. Yet the barrier of language has become increasingly
difficult for the majority of readers to cross. Men have done much
to reveal its manifold relations to the culture of ancient times and
the growth of our modern civilization. Yet their work has remained
fragmentary for the most part, scattered among many languages and
many diverse books. The time is ripe for a new poetical translation
in harmony with the Caste of the time "and" for a comprehensive survey
of its" long, Illustrious history.
.
,
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? BOOK ONE
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? BOOK ONE
Invocation
Ovid's introduction to the Metamorphoses differs markedly from
the introduction to any other ancient poem of similar length. In its
brevity it is unique. It does not appeal to a single deity or the
Muses but to the gods in general. And, although it proposes, like the
Theogony and Lucretius, to give a poetical history of the world,
treatment of such a theme by uninterrupted narrative (perpetuum
carmen) appears to have been entirely new.
These opening lines have attracted a number of later poets. Lucan
quoted the first of them. Several Latin poets of the tenth and eleventh
centuries recalled them all. A minstrel of the twelfth century adapted
the first line for a lyric in the collection Wine, Women, and Song.
Jean de Meun translated them in the Romance of the Rose.
The Creation
The idea of a poetical account of the creation as the beginning for
a series of adventures had appeared in the Homeric Hymn to Mercury
and was repeated by Apollonius. Vergil touched on it in the Georgics
and again in the Aeneid. In his Sixth Eclogue he gave the thought
some elaboration and probably suggested to Ovid the possibility of
treating the subject at even greater length. But for most of the
detail Ovid had to look outside the field of poetry.
Among the lowest savages the world is generally taken for granted,
and, even in civilized countries, men have often believed that the world
always existed in the form which they knew. This idea Ovid suggested
in the speech of Pythagoras (Bk. 15). But more commonly men have
supposed that at some time in the past the world was created. Their
speculation has taken several directions.
In North America men imagined that a sea covered the earth until
some preternatural animal caused dry land to appear. In Babylon
the Creator was a god in human form. He divided the waters from
the sky and then formed dry land on the earth. This idea underlies
the narrative in Genesis. Among the Greeks it affected a tradition
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
of the Deluge, which Ovid was to tell somewhat later in the book. But
for the Creation, they adopted another common savage belief. In the
Theogony a few monstrous personal beings such as Chaos, Earth, and
Love begot other monstrous beings, such as Sky and Erebus, and later
the many gods of Greece. The Cyclic Epics made Sky and Earth the
original parents of creation and this idea was repeated in the Manual.
But it was too crude and incredible to be very interesting for civilized
men. Ovid wisely rejected it.
Among the Alexandrians a more scientific theory had become popu-
lar. The Stoic philosophers imagined an original state of Chaos, in
which there existed four elements, fire, air, water, and earth but in
which all was bewildering confusion. From this condition the ele-
ments had been disentangled and an orderly world brought into being.
By whom this had been done the Stoics were uncertain. Some imag-
ined a great personal deity who included in his nature the traits which
earlier mythology divided among a number of gods. Others thought
rather vaguely of a kindly force called Nature. This doctrine Ovid
found implied in Vergil's Sixth Eclogue and explained elaborately in
Varro's Divine Antiquities. From Varro he took the greater part of
his material. This would account for his unusual reticence about the
gods. In the Fasti Ovid modified Varro further by identifying Chaos
with the Roman deity Janus, god of beginnings, and declaring that
during creation Janus obtained his odd contemporary form.
Another Alexandrian theory had done away entirely with the gods.
The Epicurean philosophers believed that Chaos had consisted of in-
numerable hard, indivisible atoms. Moving rapidly and colliding with
one another, these atoms had ultimately combined, first into the four
elements and then into all the phenomena of the present world. This
theory Lucretius expanded into a magnificent narrative of Creation.
But thoughtful Romans were not willing to depart so far from tra-
dition. They preferred the doctrine of the Stoics. For this reason
Ovid did not use the ideas of Lucretius. But he may have followed
him in some details.
In his account of the heavens, Ovid is peculiar. Both Genesis and
Lucretius have much to say of the sun and moon. But Ovid does not
mention them at all. Most accounts of the creation imagine the stars
to have been formed after the separation of earth and sky. But Ovid
supposed them to have existed in Chaos and to have lain buried under
the confused material.
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? THE CREATION
In his account of the earth Ovid followed on the whole the scientific
belief of his time. Thus he described the earth as round and he divided
it into the five zones which we recognize today. He assigned the winds
to four different regions of the earth and made them subject only to
the Creator. The more popular theory had supposed that the god
Aeolus kept all the winds in the cave of an island near Sicily. This
doctrine Vergil made famous in the Aeneid and Ovid was to follow in
several other tales of his Metainorphoses. In naming the regions ap-
pointed for the winds, Ovid was consistent with the geography of his
time; but he described the known world as smaller than it actually
was. Well informed Romans already had heard something of the
Ganges, the British Isles, Madeira, and the cataracts of the Nile. The
rather elaborate theories of animal life, which had been outlined by
Alexandrian philosophers, Ovid did not repeat. Like other ancient
poets, he made his treatment of plants and animals brief.
A belief that originally man was moulded out of clay was common
to early peoples in many regions of the world. In Greece it may have
begun as a local myth of Phocis, where a number of oddly formed
rocks were shown as work left incomplete by Prometheus. The idea
was recorded in the Manual and alluded to by Horace. Another idea
grew up, however, to the effect that a god created man from divine
substance, and this too appeared in the Manual. Alexandrine phil-
osophy had suggested the distinction between man as looking up and
animals as looking down. But Ovid was the first to phrase the dis-
tinction clearly and make it famous.
Ovid's narrative of the creation had not the pious reverence of
Genesis or the noble earnestness of Lucretius. There was even a ten-
dency to bring out the droll and grotesque. Yet within brief com-
pass Ovid gave the subject'great interest. His style was poetic; his
presentation was orderly; and he reached a well prepared climax in
the creation of man.
The Romans, especially Seneca, greatly admired Ovid's account.
Christian authors found it unusually interesting and reconciled it
easily with Scripture. In the eleventh century Heinrich von Augsburg
adapted it for his Latin poem about Adam. Camoens followed Ovid
in a spirited narrative of the Creation pictured on the walls of Nep-
tune's palace. In the final scene of King John Shakespeare applied
to England Ovid's opening words about Chaos. Milton, in his su-
preme descriptions of both Chaos and Creation, used material from
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
many parts of Ovid's narrative, including nearly all his account of
man.
Many poets delighted also in recalling single details which had
caught their attention. Tasso, while repeating the magician's advice
to Rinaldo, noted the distinction of man as looking upward. Lope
de Vega made the same observation in his Discreta Enamorada.
Shakespeare's Othello checked himself with the thought
Once put out thy light,
Thou cunningest pattern of excelling Nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
Which can thy light relume.
Goethe alluded to the Titan's creation of man at the close of his
famous lyrical monologue, Prometheus. And Dante remembered in
the Paradiso that Castile is "the region where sweet Zephyr rises, to
open the new leaves. "
The Four Ages
Until comparatively recently, men in all parts of the world have
been so. impressed with the evils of life as to imagine that humanity
had originally known a better time but somehow had declined into.
the present state of wretchedness. Early peoples accounted for "the
change in two ways. Accorcling to the Hebrews and Hindus, man first
inhabited a Paradise, which comprised a small area set apart either
in heaven or on earth. This happy abode he lost by disobedience.
According to other peoples, living as far apart as Persia and Mexico,
the whole earth had passed through a succession of ages. A given
age might end quietly or it might end in a great flood, fire, or other
catastrophe. But the change was not at first attributed to human sin.
The idea of successive 'ages appeared in Hesiod's Works and Days.
Digressing from his main theme, Hesiod recounted picturesquely the
ages of Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroes, and Iron. By the "Age of
Gold," he meant not only a happy period but one in which men were
actually created from gold, and so with the other ages named for
metals. By the Age of Heroes he referred to a mythical time of demi-
gods which included the wars about Thebes and Troy.
Aratus treated the idea in his Phenomena; but he related the
changes to an increase of wickedness among men. In the Golden Age,
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? THE FOUR AGES
he said, the maiden deity Justitia 1 lived with humanity, guiding men
in the ways of peace. In the Silver Age she retired to the hills but
returned occasionally to rebuke their evil ways. In the Bronze Age
evil increased so much that she left the earth and became the con-
stellation of the Virgin. This account Ovid probably knew both in
the original and in the translations by Cicero and by Varro of Atax.
He took from it the idea of his first three ages, with progressively in-
creasing evil, and the ultimate departure of Justice to heaven. Aratus
had said that she may have been the daughter of Astraeus. But Ovid
appears to have been the first who named her Astraea. In the Fasti
also he referred to her departure but called her Justitia. Both pas-
usages omitted her metamorphosis into a constellation. The idea of
Aratus that increasing wickedness brought men to feed on animals,
LQvid reserved for his speech of Pythagoras (Bk. 15).
For many details of these three ages Ovid turned to earlier Boman
authors. Vergil's Fourth Eclogue and Georgics could furnish almost
all that he needed for the Golden Age. Varro had recorded Stoic
doctrines on the subject, which were helpful throughout. The Romans
had given up the Greek idea that men living in these three ages were
created from the respective metals. By the Golden Age they meant
only the happiest period of human history, by the Silver Age a time
of inferior felicity, and so on.
The idea of a fourth age of Iron, Ovid seems to have taken from an
Epode of Horace. In this poem Horace had pictured life in the Isles
of the Blest, where the Golden Age still continued and had not given
way to the Ages of Bronze and of Iron. JXhejdeaJhat. the gods in
general mingjed_wjth jrien until repelled by . the. wickedness of the latest
__age, Ovid found in Catullus' famous Marriage of Peteus anaTTlteiis.
To the Iron Age he seems to have transferred most of the circum-
stances which Varro had recorded for the Bronze. The change left
Ovid's account of the Bronze Age rather vague and inconsistent with
what followed. But it added to the effect of a graded and fearful
decline.
Among the Roman poets there had been a tendency to think of
1 Often the Greek name of a deity or a mythological person differs from that of his
Roman equivalent. Aratus calls the goddess of justice Dike, and Ovid calls her
(in the Fasti) Justitia. And this is true of such a well known deity as the Greek
Zeus and the Roman Jupiter or such a well known hero as the Greek Heracles and
the Roman Hercules. But for most readers of the Metamorphoses this distinction is
unimportant, and so I have avoided needless complication by using always the more
familiar Roman name.
49
?
Ovid had escaped exile, he would have surpassed Vergil and rivalled
Homer. In another elegy he imitated Ovid's tale of Daphne for much
of his charming account of an early experience with love. And he
recalled Ovid even more skilfully while writing his ambitious ode on
the frustration of the Gunpowder Plot. Nor was Ovid's influence
confined to these passages; it was pervasive in Milton's Latin verse.
Meeting the joyful pagan on this neutral ground, the earnest young
Puritan laid aside his armor of gravity and prejudice and learned to
move with ease, lightness, and audacity.
Milton borrowed from Ovid in several of his earlier English poems,
making brief references even in his Ode on the Nativity. He recalled
Ovid gracefully in L'Allegro and more than once in II Penseroso,
adapting the ancient material judiciously to a quite different effect
of his own. Comus owed to Ovid still more: Milton drew much of his
plot from Ovid's tales of Bacchus and of Circe. And the effect of the
Metamorphoses was very important in Lycidas. During Milton's
boyhood and youth, a number of his poems indicate an extraordinary
fondness for the local myths of England. Such interest none was more
likely to encourage than Ovid.
With the approach of middle life, Milton's thought turned in new
directions. He was hoping to emulate Vergil and the tragic poets of
Greece. When he attempted poetry, he was apt to rely on Horace
or the Italians. And most of his time was devoted to great issues of
the day and the writing of bold controversial treatises. Yet Ovid lent
beauty to a Sonnet on the Tetrachordon and often gave point to a
fierce thrust of his prose.
When Milton at last found opportunity for his epic, he turned
again to his early favorite. Ellwood, Milton's helper during his
blindness, assures us that the authors whom Milton consulted most
frequently were Homer, Euripides, and Ovid. For the subject and
the plan of Paradise Lost, Milton looked chiefly to the Scripture and
Vergil. But much of the rest he adapted carefully from Ovid's Meta-
morphoses. In his hands the old myths took on a great and spiritual
significance: even the sensual and grotesque gave hints for the pure
and sublime. 13 Milton realised that it suited only the guilty to hide
in a lower form and he used metamorphosis appropriately for the
wiles and punishment of Satan. And he recalled Ovid most judiciously
"See the essays on Narcissus (Bk. 8) and Hermaphroditus (Bk. 4).
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? METAMORPHOSES IN EUROPEAN CULTURE
for details in his grand descriptions of Chaos, Creation, and the
Flood.
Milton profited by the Metamorphoses again in the simpler and
graver design of Paradise Regained. Recollection of Ovid suggested
an occasional illustration and probably the disguises of Satan. And
Ovid's work received a new meaning in Satan's rebuke of his wanton
follower Belial:
Have we not seen, or by relation heard,
In courts and regal chambers how thou lurk'st,
In wood or grove, by mossy fountain side,
In valley or green meadow, to waylay
Some beauty rare, Calisto, Clymene,
Daphne, or Semele, Antiopa,
Or Amymone, Syrinx, many more
Too long--then layest thy scapes on names adored,
Apollo, Neptune, Jupiter, or Pan?
Traces of Ovid appear even in Samson Agonistes.
Although Milton's use of the Metamorphoses varied with the nature
of his work, his method was on the whole constant from the begin-
ning. He borrowed no more than was required by his context and
suited the material admirably to his purpose. He was inclined to
prefer what was already grave and impressive and to endow it with
added purity and grandeur. As he went on, the veil of sensuous
charm grew progressively thinner over the underlying spiritual mean-
ing. 14 And he used mythology always in relation to universal truth.
With the death of Moliere and Milton, the Renaissance came to an
end. Its great men were dead; the lesser men had run to unfortunate
excess. Imagination, creative fervor, eager experiment had taken on
grotesque forms and disgusted the new leaders who shaped the thought
of the eighteenth century. These men were anxious at all costs to
preserve sanity and decorum. They restricted themselves to what
seemed to be the precept and practice of the most correct among
Roman authors. Horace became the model of poet and critic. Writ-
ers' of fiction relied chiefly on close observation of contemporary life.
To the new spirit Ovid was much ldss congenial. His merits were not
14 Compare Milton's references to Orpheus in L'Allegro, II Penseroso, Lycidas,
and Paradise Lost.
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? INTRODUCTORY SURVEY
those of Vergil and Horace; his lack of restraint and his ill timed
wit jarred on men who dreaded excess. Ovid continued to be read;
but he no longer was ranked with the best.
The reaction was most violent in the south of Europe. In Spain
Ovid seems to have disappeared from literature and art and never
returned to favor. In Italy he appears to have survived only as an
occasional theme for opera libretto. References to him continue
even in the Figaro of Mozart.
In France Ovid fared much better. The leading authors nearly
always found inspiration elsewhere;: yet Ovid was not forgotten.
His Metamorphoses were translated by Desaintange and appeared in
a fine edition with innumerable illustrations. Voltaire lauded Ovid's
masterpiece in his Apology for Fable. Andre Chenier made Europa
the theme of a carefully written lyric.
Ovid inspired important paintings of Lemoine and Boucher and
several of Boucher's great tapestries portraying the loves of the gods.
His prominence in French art attracted the Prussian ruler, Frederick
the Great. By order of this monarch, two French painters, Resne
and Lancret, proceeded north to Potsdam and adorned with scenes
from the Metamorphoses the new palace of Sans Souci.
But Ovid enjoyed even greater favor in opera. With the opening
of the Academy in 1671, this form of entertainment became accessible
to the French public. The new theater began its career with Cam-
bert's Pomona, a subject taken from Ovid's famous myth, and so
enthusiastic was the welcome that the same opera was given without
interruption for eight months. The first Academy then gave place
to the Royal Academy of Music. Here opera continued to be ex-
ceedingly popular and enjoyed an increasing vogue for more than a
century. To provide suitable repertories, the Royal Academy soon
was enlisting many poets of France. Quinault and others devoted
their entire energy to the writing of librettos. Almost every minor
dramatist made at least one venture in the field of opera. More
prominent authors, such as Fontenelle, followed their lead. The
music was composed successively by Lulli, Rameau, and Cherubini.
In the history of French culture the entire period was remarkable.
It was distinguished by able poets and still abler composers and
added much to the development of operatic art in general. And
throughout this period a favorite theme was Ovid's Metamorphoses.
But Ovid's most memorable triumph occurred in the work of Gliick.
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? METAMORPHOSES IN EUROPEAN CULTURE
After experimenting with several tales from the Metamorphoses, this
composer produced his Orpheus and Eurydice, a work that revolution-
ized the methods of opera and holds the stage today.
England was more conservative than the continent. Ovid main-
tained for many years a prominent place in her literature. Although
Dryden compared him unfavorably with Chaucer, he admired Ovid
almost as much as his favorite, Vergil. In his last years, Dryden had
occasion to translate the twelfth book of the Metamorphoses, which
dealt with the beginning of the Trojan War. He became enthusiastic
and, after finishing his appointed task, he turned to other parts of
Ovid's masterpiece and rendered story after story, until he had in-
cluded all those which pleased him best. The work did not stop here.
Samuel Garth arranged for a translation of all the others. Addison,
Pope, and other leading poets each undertook a part. This version
went through edition after edition and was the standard for over a
century.
Although this great translation was Ovid's chief honor, it was not
the only one. Pope imitated him delightfully in his Windsor Forest
and more conventionally in the Dunciad. Swift made a poetical ver-
sion of Philemon and Baucis, and Johnson and Boswell still recalled
the Metamorphoses occasionally towards the close of the century.
Meanwhile interest in the Metamorphoses had taken another direc-
tion. Even in ancient Greece there had been men who failed to under-
stand or enjoy the popular myths. Such men insisted on excluding
the supernatural and retelling myths as if they were the result of
ordinary human action. Herodotus recorded a few explanations of
this kind at the beginning of his history. This way of accounting for
the older lore proved less congenial to the Greeks than other methods,
such as allegory. Yet it continued during ancient times and re-
appeared in the philosophy of Francis Bacon. During the second
half of the eighteenth century, there began in Germany a movement
called the Enlightenment, which passed rapidly to France and Eng-
land. The aim of Lessing, Diderot, and its other leaders was to do
away with superstition and prejudice in the name of reason and
common sense. Their purpose was commendable; but in the direc-
tion of mythology it was often misapplied. Among these reformers
the old method of rationalizing myths was received with acclaim.
Ovid and the rest were reread and their stories were laid on the
Procrustean bed of reason and common sense. What could be made
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? INTRODUCTORY SURVEY
to seem ordinary, was stretched to the breaking point, what could not,
was lopped away and carefully hidden.
Thus Ovid's tale of Phaethon was distorted to the following shape:
"Phaethon was a young and enterprising prince of Lybia. Crossing
the Mediterranean in quest of adventure, he visited Italy to see his
intimate friend Cygnus. Phaethon was skilled in astrology, from
whence he arrogated to himself the title of the son of Apollo. One
day in the heat of summer, as he was riding along the banks of the
Po, his horses took fright at a clap of thunder, and plunged into the
river, where, together with their master, they perished. Cygnus, who
was a poet, celebrated the death of his friend, from whence the fable. "
Judged even by standards of the eighteenth century, much in this
explanation appears unwarranted. We may ask, for example, by
what authority the interpreter made Cygnus a poet or by what
authority he silently removed the remarkable mutation of Cygnus to
a swan. In the nineteenth century a careful study of mythology
among many primitive peoples, raised further difficulties and showed
that such interpretation was apt to be quite as incredible as the
original myth. But the leaders of the Enlightenment were well pleased
with their apparent triumphs over superstition, and educated men in
general were impressed by their cleverness. The practice continued
through the eighteenth century and affected the famous dictionary
of mythology by Lempriere.
With the Romantic Revival many long accepted standards were
challenged. Men realized that the world was much larger than they
had supposed at the beginning of the eighteenth century and they
hastened to readjust their ideas accordingly. Horace, Vergil, and a
few other accepted authors were no longer supreme. Men even
doubted their greatness. Men became anxious to know at first hand
the older masters of Greece, the authors of medieval and modern
Europe, and the great literature of Oriental peoples. They found
means to travel frequently and to profit more by direct observation
of man and nature. In the new order Ovid's other work lost favor,
but his Metamorphoses gained on the whole. If it was read less often,
it was judged more kindly. Men took new interest in mythology of
all sorts. When dealing with classic myth, they often preferred to
use Greek poets or Apollodorus. But some famous tales were peculiar
to Ovid and many others he told so well as to make them his own.
Ovid did not become a great formative influence, yet he was well known
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? METAMORPHOSES IN EUROPEAN CULTURE
and he contributed to the work of many who were leaders during the
nineteenth century.
In Germany Voss translated the Metamorphoses into hexameter and
Bullen translated it into ottava rima. Goethe studied it enthusi-
astically in his youth and used it not only for his earliest lyrics but
occasionally in work written at all periods of his long career, and
notably in the latter part of both his Wilhelm Meister and his Faust.
Schiller borrowed from the Metamorphoses in his odes. Feuerbach
sometimes took from it the theme of a great mythological painting.
In France Ovid's tales were a favorite subject of the great painters
Moreau and Delacroix and of the recent sculptor Rodin. Ovid's
Orpheus provided the theme for an exceedingly popular light opera
of Offenbach. In Italy Ovid inspired Canova, and in Denmark he
brought Thorwaldsen fame.
England showed a marked fondness for Ovid among her men of
letters. The Metamorphoses was a favorite work of Blake. It con-
tributed notably to Shelley's Adonais. Byron alluded to the Meta-
morphoses in his satires. Scott used it prominently in two of his later
novels, The Pirate and Woodstock. Macaulay perused the entire
poem more than once, but without enthusiasm. Landor gave it ex-
travagant praise and retold two of the stories. Tennyson recalled it
sometimes in lighter vein. And Browning made a number of allu-
sions, often relating it with a work of pictorial art. Among the later
Victorians it was common to retell one or more ancient myths in a
modern spirit. And in this way Ovid contributed to the work of a
host of minor poets and to fine poems of Matthew Arnold, William
Morris, and Swinburne. Kingsley used Ovid both for his Andromeda
and his retelling of classic myths for children. Turner found in the
Metamorphoses inspiration for several important paintings.
In the new country of America, two centuries had passed offering
little that was remarkable in literature and art. Men had been con-
cerned chiefly with the problem of establishing themselves in an almost
unbroken forest and of repelling hostile Indians and French. The
New England Colonies had found more time than the others for in-
tellectual activity. But their leaders were preoccupied with a Calvin-
istic theology which deprecated beauty of almost every kind and was
obsessed with the fear of hell. Both pioneer life and Calvinism were
on the whole unfavorable to culture and they were especially un-
favorable to appreciation of the frankly pagan beauty of Ovid. The
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? INTRODUCTORY SURVEY
nineteenth century brought a somewhat easier life and a milder the-
ology. And the new Romantic spirit from abroad encouraged men to
enjoy the recently discovered culture of modern Europe and the
Orient. Under these more favoring circumstances nineteenth century
America produced a literature of singular purity and charm. Its
underlying spirit and its literary models were in general far removed
from Ovid. Yet there were notable exceptions. Lowell recalled the
Metamorphoses wittily in his Fable for Critics. Hawthorne retold
many Greek myths for the children of Puritan New England. And
in his delightful versions, Ovid nearly always had a part.
The effect of Ovid's Metamorphoses did not end with literature and
art but appeared also in the modern science of zoology. The Meta-
morphoses provided names for the Argus pheasant and the python.
It often furnished the scientific title of well known butterflies and
moths. Thus the common blue butterfly of Mediterranean countries
became Lycaena Icarus; the red admiral became Vanessa Atalanta;
and the mourning cloak became Aglais Antiopa. And Ovid's poem
suggested both the scientific and the popular name of such familiar
moths as the Io and the Polyphemus.
With the coming of the twentieth century, Ovid's Metamorphoses
remains, as it has always been, a poetic masterpiece rich in beauty
and interest. Yet the barrier of language has become increasingly
difficult for the majority of readers to cross. Men have done much
to reveal its manifold relations to the culture of ancient times and
the growth of our modern civilization. Yet their work has remained
fragmentary for the most part, scattered among many languages and
many diverse books. The time is ripe for a new poetical translation
in harmony with the Caste of the time "and" for a comprehensive survey
of its" long, Illustrious history.
.
,
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? BOOK ONE
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? BOOK ONE
Invocation
Ovid's introduction to the Metamorphoses differs markedly from
the introduction to any other ancient poem of similar length. In its
brevity it is unique. It does not appeal to a single deity or the
Muses but to the gods in general. And, although it proposes, like the
Theogony and Lucretius, to give a poetical history of the world,
treatment of such a theme by uninterrupted narrative (perpetuum
carmen) appears to have been entirely new.
These opening lines have attracted a number of later poets. Lucan
quoted the first of them. Several Latin poets of the tenth and eleventh
centuries recalled them all. A minstrel of the twelfth century adapted
the first line for a lyric in the collection Wine, Women, and Song.
Jean de Meun translated them in the Romance of the Rose.
The Creation
The idea of a poetical account of the creation as the beginning for
a series of adventures had appeared in the Homeric Hymn to Mercury
and was repeated by Apollonius. Vergil touched on it in the Georgics
and again in the Aeneid. In his Sixth Eclogue he gave the thought
some elaboration and probably suggested to Ovid the possibility of
treating the subject at even greater length. But for most of the
detail Ovid had to look outside the field of poetry.
Among the lowest savages the world is generally taken for granted,
and, even in civilized countries, men have often believed that the world
always existed in the form which they knew. This idea Ovid suggested
in the speech of Pythagoras (Bk. 15). But more commonly men have
supposed that at some time in the past the world was created. Their
speculation has taken several directions.
In North America men imagined that a sea covered the earth until
some preternatural animal caused dry land to appear. In Babylon
the Creator was a god in human form. He divided the waters from
the sky and then formed dry land on the earth. This idea underlies
the narrative in Genesis. Among the Greeks it affected a tradition
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
of the Deluge, which Ovid was to tell somewhat later in the book. But
for the Creation, they adopted another common savage belief. In the
Theogony a few monstrous personal beings such as Chaos, Earth, and
Love begot other monstrous beings, such as Sky and Erebus, and later
the many gods of Greece. The Cyclic Epics made Sky and Earth the
original parents of creation and this idea was repeated in the Manual.
But it was too crude and incredible to be very interesting for civilized
men. Ovid wisely rejected it.
Among the Alexandrians a more scientific theory had become popu-
lar. The Stoic philosophers imagined an original state of Chaos, in
which there existed four elements, fire, air, water, and earth but in
which all was bewildering confusion. From this condition the ele-
ments had been disentangled and an orderly world brought into being.
By whom this had been done the Stoics were uncertain. Some imag-
ined a great personal deity who included in his nature the traits which
earlier mythology divided among a number of gods. Others thought
rather vaguely of a kindly force called Nature. This doctrine Ovid
found implied in Vergil's Sixth Eclogue and explained elaborately in
Varro's Divine Antiquities. From Varro he took the greater part of
his material. This would account for his unusual reticence about the
gods. In the Fasti Ovid modified Varro further by identifying Chaos
with the Roman deity Janus, god of beginnings, and declaring that
during creation Janus obtained his odd contemporary form.
Another Alexandrian theory had done away entirely with the gods.
The Epicurean philosophers believed that Chaos had consisted of in-
numerable hard, indivisible atoms. Moving rapidly and colliding with
one another, these atoms had ultimately combined, first into the four
elements and then into all the phenomena of the present world. This
theory Lucretius expanded into a magnificent narrative of Creation.
But thoughtful Romans were not willing to depart so far from tra-
dition. They preferred the doctrine of the Stoics. For this reason
Ovid did not use the ideas of Lucretius. But he may have followed
him in some details.
In his account of the heavens, Ovid is peculiar. Both Genesis and
Lucretius have much to say of the sun and moon. But Ovid does not
mention them at all. Most accounts of the creation imagine the stars
to have been formed after the separation of earth and sky. But Ovid
supposed them to have existed in Chaos and to have lain buried under
the confused material.
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? THE CREATION
In his account of the earth Ovid followed on the whole the scientific
belief of his time. Thus he described the earth as round and he divided
it into the five zones which we recognize today. He assigned the winds
to four different regions of the earth and made them subject only to
the Creator. The more popular theory had supposed that the god
Aeolus kept all the winds in the cave of an island near Sicily. This
doctrine Vergil made famous in the Aeneid and Ovid was to follow in
several other tales of his Metainorphoses. In naming the regions ap-
pointed for the winds, Ovid was consistent with the geography of his
time; but he described the known world as smaller than it actually
was. Well informed Romans already had heard something of the
Ganges, the British Isles, Madeira, and the cataracts of the Nile. The
rather elaborate theories of animal life, which had been outlined by
Alexandrian philosophers, Ovid did not repeat. Like other ancient
poets, he made his treatment of plants and animals brief.
A belief that originally man was moulded out of clay was common
to early peoples in many regions of the world. In Greece it may have
begun as a local myth of Phocis, where a number of oddly formed
rocks were shown as work left incomplete by Prometheus. The idea
was recorded in the Manual and alluded to by Horace. Another idea
grew up, however, to the effect that a god created man from divine
substance, and this too appeared in the Manual. Alexandrine phil-
osophy had suggested the distinction between man as looking up and
animals as looking down. But Ovid was the first to phrase the dis-
tinction clearly and make it famous.
Ovid's narrative of the creation had not the pious reverence of
Genesis or the noble earnestness of Lucretius. There was even a ten-
dency to bring out the droll and grotesque. Yet within brief com-
pass Ovid gave the subject'great interest. His style was poetic; his
presentation was orderly; and he reached a well prepared climax in
the creation of man.
The Romans, especially Seneca, greatly admired Ovid's account.
Christian authors found it unusually interesting and reconciled it
easily with Scripture. In the eleventh century Heinrich von Augsburg
adapted it for his Latin poem about Adam. Camoens followed Ovid
in a spirited narrative of the Creation pictured on the walls of Nep-
tune's palace. In the final scene of King John Shakespeare applied
to England Ovid's opening words about Chaos. Milton, in his su-
preme descriptions of both Chaos and Creation, used material from
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK I
many parts of Ovid's narrative, including nearly all his account of
man.
Many poets delighted also in recalling single details which had
caught their attention. Tasso, while repeating the magician's advice
to Rinaldo, noted the distinction of man as looking upward. Lope
de Vega made the same observation in his Discreta Enamorada.
Shakespeare's Othello checked himself with the thought
Once put out thy light,
Thou cunningest pattern of excelling Nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
Which can thy light relume.
Goethe alluded to the Titan's creation of man at the close of his
famous lyrical monologue, Prometheus. And Dante remembered in
the Paradiso that Castile is "the region where sweet Zephyr rises, to
open the new leaves. "
The Four Ages
Until comparatively recently, men in all parts of the world have
been so. impressed with the evils of life as to imagine that humanity
had originally known a better time but somehow had declined into.
the present state of wretchedness. Early peoples accounted for "the
change in two ways. Accorcling to the Hebrews and Hindus, man first
inhabited a Paradise, which comprised a small area set apart either
in heaven or on earth. This happy abode he lost by disobedience.
According to other peoples, living as far apart as Persia and Mexico,
the whole earth had passed through a succession of ages. A given
age might end quietly or it might end in a great flood, fire, or other
catastrophe. But the change was not at first attributed to human sin.
The idea of successive 'ages appeared in Hesiod's Works and Days.
Digressing from his main theme, Hesiod recounted picturesquely the
ages of Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroes, and Iron. By the "Age of
Gold," he meant not only a happy period but one in which men were
actually created from gold, and so with the other ages named for
metals. By the Age of Heroes he referred to a mythical time of demi-
gods which included the wars about Thebes and Troy.
Aratus treated the idea in his Phenomena; but he related the
changes to an increase of wickedness among men. In the Golden Age,
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? THE FOUR AGES
he said, the maiden deity Justitia 1 lived with humanity, guiding men
in the ways of peace. In the Silver Age she retired to the hills but
returned occasionally to rebuke their evil ways. In the Bronze Age
evil increased so much that she left the earth and became the con-
stellation of the Virgin. This account Ovid probably knew both in
the original and in the translations by Cicero and by Varro of Atax.
He took from it the idea of his first three ages, with progressively in-
creasing evil, and the ultimate departure of Justice to heaven. Aratus
had said that she may have been the daughter of Astraeus. But Ovid
appears to have been the first who named her Astraea. In the Fasti
also he referred to her departure but called her Justitia. Both pas-
usages omitted her metamorphosis into a constellation. The idea of
Aratus that increasing wickedness brought men to feed on animals,
LQvid reserved for his speech of Pythagoras (Bk. 15).
For many details of these three ages Ovid turned to earlier Boman
authors. Vergil's Fourth Eclogue and Georgics could furnish almost
all that he needed for the Golden Age. Varro had recorded Stoic
doctrines on the subject, which were helpful throughout. The Romans
had given up the Greek idea that men living in these three ages were
created from the respective metals. By the Golden Age they meant
only the happiest period of human history, by the Silver Age a time
of inferior felicity, and so on.
The idea of a fourth age of Iron, Ovid seems to have taken from an
Epode of Horace. In this poem Horace had pictured life in the Isles
of the Blest, where the Golden Age still continued and had not given
way to the Ages of Bronze and of Iron. JXhejdeaJhat. the gods in
general mingjed_wjth jrien until repelled by . the. wickedness of the latest
__age, Ovid found in Catullus' famous Marriage of Peteus anaTTlteiis.
To the Iron Age he seems to have transferred most of the circum-
stances which Varro had recorded for the Bronze. The change left
Ovid's account of the Bronze Age rather vague and inconsistent with
what followed. But it added to the effect of a graded and fearful
decline.
Among the Roman poets there had been a tendency to think of
1 Often the Greek name of a deity or a mythological person differs from that of his
Roman equivalent. Aratus calls the goddess of justice Dike, and Ovid calls her
(in the Fasti) Justitia. And this is true of such a well known deity as the Greek
Zeus and the Roman Jupiter or such a well known hero as the Greek Heracles and
the Roman Hercules. But for most readers of the Metamorphoses this distinction is
unimportant, and so I have avoided needless complication by using always the more
familiar Roman name.
49
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