The god bade
her avoid marriage and added, with true oracular obscurity, that she
was not destined to escape but was to live after losing herself.
her avoid marriage and added, with true oracular obscurity, that she
was not destined to escape but was to live after losing herself.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
Horace had spoken of Venus as drawn by
purple swans, and Ovid had alluded to the idea at the close of his Art of
Love. Accordingly, Ovid noted that Venus departed in her car drawn
by swans. Afterwards he implied that she left Cyprus, perhaps to visit
her temple at Cnidus.
Although Adonis offered no objection to the warning of Venus, he
was high spirited, and he disregarded it at the first temptation. Ovid
followed the older tradition that death resulted merely from an acci-
dent in hunting. He seems to have invented the details and skillfully
to have made his account of the boar hunt differ from his earlier descrip-
tion in the tale of Meleager (Bk. 8). The dogs, he said, following a clear
trail, roused a boar from his hiding place. As the animal came out
from the trees into some open ground, Adonis threw a spear. The
weapon hit the creature at an angle so oblique as to make only a super-
ficial wound. The boar, wrenching out the bloodstained point, charged
Adonis as he ran for safety and stretched him dying on the tawny sand.
This last detail Ovid took almost verbatim from Vergil's account of the
boxer Dares killing Butes.
Greek authors had imagined that Venus went on foot to the scene
of the disaster. Ovid made the circumstances far more picturesque.
Venus, he said, was returning through the air in her car. Although she
was not yet above the island of Cyprus, her divine ear recognized the
groans of Adonis. Turning her swans in the direction of the sound, she
observed him lying far below, lifeless in his blood. Venus leaped out of
her car and descended through the air to his side. Scripture often had
noted that some one in extreme distress rent his clothes. A similar prac-
tice appears to have existed among the Alexandrian Greeks. Bion had
attributed such conduct to Venus and had observed that she tore her
hair. Ovid repeated Bion's description and noted also that she beat
her breast.
While giving her words of lament, Ovid appears to have recalled
those of Apollo for Hyacinthus, particularly Apollo's regretting the
superior power of the Fates. Venus reproached these goddesses for
taking the life of Adonis and declared that they should not wholly de-
stroy him. Like Bion, Ovid showed her predicting that her lament should
have annual repetition ; and, like Nicander, he showed her declaring that
her lover's blood should become a flower. Ovid associated the transfor-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
mation with the traditional rivalry of Venus and Proserpina. He
showed Venus observing that she did no more than Proserpina had been
allowed to do for the nymph Menthe, whom Proserpina turned into
mint. This tale Ovid probably found in the work of Nicander. We
know it only from him.
In the tales of Actaeon and Ascalabus, a goddess had transformed
a man by sprinkling him with water. Venus transformed the blood of
Adonis by sprinkling it with nectar. Ovid gave a brief, and obscure,
description of the process. The clotting fluid swelled, as if clear bubbles
were rising from tawny mud, and in an hour's time there grew up a
blood-red flower. Ovid likened the color to that of a pomegranate
blossom. Probably following Nicander, he explained the name "wind-
flower" by the fact that its delicately hung petals remain only until a
wind arises and shakes them off.
In later times Ovid's version of the tale was the most accessible and
the only full account that survived. Medieval and modern writers seem
always to have recalled Ovid, even when they used the work of others.
Many poets retold the story. Jean de Meun included a brief ver-
sion in the Romance of the Rose. Three minor Italian poets treated the
theme towards the middle of the sixteenth century. Ronsard retold the
tale with pathetic charm, Lope de Vega made it the subject of a drama,
and Marini elaborated it into a long poetical romance, with continual
moralizing and allegory. He showed both Mars and Diana plotting the
hero's death and the boar making an apology to Venus. Thomas Lodge
retold Ovid's tale in Scilla's Metamorphosis, and Greene treated it in a
lyric.
Ovid had intimated that love was shown chiefly on the part of Venus
and that Adonis cared more for hunting than for her wishes. Several
poets retold the story with emphasis on this idea. Spenser in his descrip-
tion of Castle Joyous told how Venus used elaborate courtship and im-
plied that Adonis felt unwillingness like that of Ovid's Hermaphroditus.
Allusions to the idea appeared in Marlowe's Hero and Leander and
Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare in Venus and Adonis
made the hero's reluctance the most important element in the story. His
version inspired Griffin's three sonnets in The Passionate Pilgrim. Keats
followed both Spenser and Shakespeare in his Endymion.
Many poets alluded to Ovid's tale. Dante compared the brilliant
eyes of Matilda to those of Venus, when Cupid accidentally inflamed
her. Chaucer in his Troilus and his Knight's Tale and Pope in his pas-
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? VENUS AND ADONIS
toral, Summer, recalled the passion of Venus. Guarini in the Faithful
Shepherd and Moliere in The Miser noted Adonis as typical of youthful
beauty. In The Princess of Elis, Moliere remembered the warning to
hunt only timid animals. In Paradise Lost, Milton observed that Adam
mingled kisses with words, as he told a story. Spenser in the Protha-
lamion recalled the swans which drew the car of Venus, and Shakespeare,
after introducing them correctly in his Venus and Adonis, referred in
As You Like It to Juno's swans. Pope in his pastoral, Winter, men-
tioned the death of Adonis. And both Camoens in his description of the
Isle of Love and Milton in his Nature and Old Age remembered the.
origin of the flower.
A number of modern authors combined with their recollection of
Ovid some idea of a garden of Adonis. To the Greeks a garden of this
kind had meant the plants grown in shallow pots for the annual festival,
and Plato had observed in his Phaedo that such gardens were proverb-
ially fast growing and transitory. To this idea Shakespeare alluded
vaguely in the First Part of Henry Sixth. But Pliny had mentioned a
permanent garden in some unvisited region of the earth, where after
death Adonis enjoyed a new and happy existence. A French poet of the
sixteenth century, Charles d'Estienne elaborated the idea. Spenser
referred to this Garden of Adonis in two passages of the Faerie Queene,
one of them of great length. Milton recalled the subject both in Comus
and in Paradise Lost, and Keats remembered it in his Endymion.
The story of Venus and Adonis often attracted modern artists. It
was treated in painting by Peruzzi, Giordano, Tito Ghisi, Furini,
Rubens, van Haarlem, Lemoyne, Terraval, and Lecomte. Veronese
treated the subject twice. And both Titian and Prudhon were inspired
to create masterpieces. Rubens and Brueghel pictured Adonis beginning
to hunt. The death of Adonis was portrayed by Caracci, Piombo, Mor-
etto, and Poussin. The windflower attracted Albani and van der Near.
Venus and Adonis were treated by the sculptors Nicholas Coustou and
Thorvaldsen. The death of the hero appeared in a cast of Michelangelo
and in statues by Danti and Rodin.
Modern scientists gave the name Adonis to a European variety of
blue butterfly and to a genus of plants which have either yellow or red
flowers.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
HlPPOMENES AND AtALASTA
The story which Ovid showed Venus telling Adonis was concerned
with Atalanta's unsuccessful attempt to avoid marriage and its ill
consequences. The first part of the tale dealt with a theme popular in
Greek lore, that of a bride won by an athletic contest. In this it re-
sembled the stories of Pelops contending in a chariot race for Hippo-
damia (cf. Bk. 6) or Hercules contending in archery for Iole and in
wrestling for Deianira (Bk. 9). But the tale of Atalanta was unusual
in having the hero contend with the heroine. He was required to van-
quish her in a foot race.
The earliest version of this tale appeared in the Catalogues. The
account ran as follows. Atalanta, daughter of Schoeneus of Boeotia,
was beautiful, despite a fierceness in her gaze. She was averse to mar-
riage. A certain Hippomenes courted her and desired the consent of her
father. Schoeneus appears to have been favorably disposed, for he
offered to consent and add gifts and good will, if Hippomenes should
vanquish Atalanta in a foot race. But the penalty of failure should be
death. This penalty was to be inflicted after the race, but the method
was not stated. Fearing the result, Hippomenes obtained three apples
from Venus. The author implied that they were of more than ordinary
charm. Atalanta ran swiftly, with the breeze fluttering the light gar-
ment over her breast. Hippomenes addressed her as he ran, offering
gifts, and then threw down successively the three apples. Atalanta de-
layed to pick them up and was vanquished. The modern reader might
be surprised that Hippomenes should be allowed to win by such irregu-
lar methods. But in the Aeneid, Vergil described a race where Nisus was
allowed to defeat an opponent by tripping him.
The Catalogues had given an impression that Schoeneus prescribed
the test of the foot race. A later version, repeated by Hyginus, made
this clear. Atalanta asked her father to let her remain a virgin, and he
tried to fulfill her wish by the requirement of a race. According to this
version, Hippomenes was the offspring of a certain Megareus. Although
athletes of the Heroic Age appear to have worn light clothing, the
Catalogues declared that Hippomenes ran naked. Greek artists went
further and showed Atalanta doing likewise. They pictured a number
of spectators watching the contest.
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? HIPPOMENES AND ATALANTA
Euripides referred to the hero's success, and Ovid alluded to it both
in his Epistle of Paris and in his Ibis. Plato observed in the Republic
that, after the death of Atalanta, her soul was reincarnated as an ath-
lete. Theocritus, mentioning the use of apples, referred to the heroine
as yielding to mad desire. This might imply that she fell in love with
Hippomenes. Catullus expressed the idea clearly. The swift maiden, he
said, welcomed the apple that loosed her girdle, too long tied.
Some authors described Atalanta as a daughter of Iasus of Ar-
cadia and declared that she took part in the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Following this version, the Manual introduced many further changes.
It spoke of Atalanta as herself prescribing the test of the foot race. Her
father urged her to marry, and she resorted to this means of avoiding it.
The Manual described the race as having an unusual form. Anyone
desiring to marry Atalanta must run from a certain stake to a distant
goal. Meanwhile Atalanta, carrying weapons, pursued him in order to
overtake and kill him. Many suitors tried and failed. Where a number
of youths were concerned, it became improbable that Atalanta could
have enforced so harsh a penalty. According to the Manual, the suc-
cessful contender was named Melanion, and he resorted to the apples
when in danger of being overtaken. Since Atalanta was pursuing him,
it would have been easy for him to attract her attention.
The Manual recorded another tale about Atalanta, which seems to
have been unknown to Plato and which appears to have been introduced
after his time. The story was as follows. One day, while Melanion and
Atalanta were hunting wild animals, they visited an area sacred to Jove
and profaned it by sexual intercourse. Jupiter transformed them into
lions. The Manual seemed to use the word as a generic term, with the
implication that Melanion became a lion and Atalanta became a lioness,
and it seemed to imply that Jupiter desired to punish them with a less
attractive existence. Ovid afterwards accepted both ideas and made
them clearer. The Manual indicated that Melanion and Atalanta were
transformed somewhere in Arcadia. This idea may imply recollection of
actual lions in prehistoric Greece (cf. Death of Hercules, Bk. 9).
The story of Atalanta which afterwards was repeated by Hyginus
included a similar transformation of Hippomenes and Atalanta. This
version differed in the circumstances. The lovers were traveling from
the scene of the race to the residence of Hippomenes. Their journey
took them near an area on Mt. Parnassus which was sacred to Jupiter.
In visiting it their original intention was to offer a sacrifice. This ac-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
count specified that Jupiter transformed them into a lion and a lioness.
It assigned a different purpose for the change -- to prevent them from
ever repeating the offense. It then explained mistakenly that lions never
mate with their kind. Other mythographers added, also mistakenly, that
lions mate only with leopards. In the Ibis, Ovid mentioned the trans-
formation of Hippomenes into a lion.
Propertius called the victorious suitor Milanion and spoke of his
winning Atalanta by assiduous courtship. He noted that Milanion
helped her first in the pursuit of dangerous animals and then in a battle
with two centaurs, in the course of which he received a painful wound.
Although Propertius did not mention the race, he probably thought of
it as the final test. Ovid followed this version in his Art of Love.
Both the Catalogues and the Manual attributed the three apples
to Venus, but said nothing about their nature. An Alexandrian author
whom we cannot identify appears to have added that Venus aided the
successful youth with apples of solid gold, which came from the Garden
of the Hesperides. To this idea Vergil alluded in the Sixth Eclogue.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid had told of the Arcadian Atalanta as
a huntress loved by Meleager (Bk. 8), and he had given examples of
assiduous courtship in the tales of Hyacinthus and Adonis. He thought
it best to have Venus tell of the Boeotian Atalanta, daughter of Schoe-
neus, and to begin with the subject of the race. By this means he also
avoided any problem of historical time. Venus recounted an isolated tale
of the indefinite past.
Although Ovid took his outline from the Manual, he invented a
close relation between the two parts of the tale. According to the Man-
ual, Schoeneus had urged his daughter to marry. Ovid imagined that
she visited an oracle to inquire about a suitable husband.
The god bade
her avoid marriage and added, with true oracular obscurity, that she
was not destined to escape but was to live after losing herself.
Frightened by the answer, she heeded the part that she understood.
She avoided marriage and retired to live in the dark forest. When
suitors followed her, she arranged for the ordeal of the race. Regard-
ing its nature, Ovid agreed with the Catalogues and the Greek artists.
He described the race as conducted in the usual manner and implied
that Atalanta had some one else inflict the penalty, after the finish.
Evidently he imagined the race as occurring near some town and as
attracting many spectators. He seemed to have in mind athletic events
of his own time and to imitate them, even in the irrelevant detail of
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? HIPPOMENES AND ATALANTA
showing the winner crowned with a wreathe. He imagined a circular
course, about which he may have supposed that the contestants ran sev-
eral times. The total distance was considerable, requiring not only
speed but endurance.
Following the Manual, Ovid observed that many suitors contended
for Atalanta. He spoke at first as if she ran only on one occasion, but
later he agreed with the Manual that there were a number of such occa-
sions. The Manual had left it ambiguous whether Atalanta contended
with more than one suitor at a time. Ovid gave the impression that at
least in one race she contended with a number. Just before this race, he
said, the hero arrived.
Ovid called the youth Hippomenes. He imagined him as a stranger
unacquainted with Atalanta, who chanced to be near the place and who
attended out of curiosity. This gave Ovid an opportunity to empha-
size the girl's charm. At first, he said, Hippomenes called the suitors
foolish for risking their lives to get a wife. But, when Atalanta ap-
peared, Hippomenes withdrew his rash opinion. Recalling the work of
Greek artists, Ovid observed that Atalanta laid aside her clothing; and,
recalling the Catalogues, he noted that she wore colored ribbons, which
fluttered at her knees and ankles. He declared that Atalanta, the swift
racer, had a beauty like that of Venus, an idea which would seem im-
probable. Hippomenes began to fear lest one of the other youths might
win the race. He decided that, if all of them should fail, he would try
his own fortune.
Ovid described Atalanta's appearance in running. He spoke of her
hair as tossed over her white shoulders and of a flush that suffused her
tender skin. He likened it to the hue which a purple awning reflects
over a marble court. This illustration from Roman life of Ovid's day
was neither happy in itself nor appropriate for Venus to use in the prim-
itive times of Adonis. Atalanta won the race, and the young men with
groans paid the penalty.
Then Hippomenes boldly challenged Atalanta to race with him.
He declared that she would incur no disgrace, whatever the result, for
his father was Megareus of Onchestus and his great grandfather was
Neptune, and he was worthy of his divine origin. Ovid probably found
this ancestry in the work of an Alexandrian predecessor. Theocritus
and Catullus had hinted that Atalanta felt willing to be vanquished by
Hippomenes. Ovid imagined that she loved him at first sight. He
showed her, like many of his other heroines, debating the problem in a
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
soliloquy, and he imagined that Venus was able to repeat every word.
In the case of Atalanta the soliloquy was less effective than usual, for a
number of reasons. In the beginning of the speech, Ovid allowed the
reader to suppose that her words were addressed to Hippomenes. For a
simple, athletic maiden vacillation seemed out of character. And Ovid
increased the difficulty by allowing her words to sound weak and silly.
In the course of her meditation Atalanta praised the girlish beauty of
Hippomenes and even desired that he might win, but declared that for
her, marriage was forbidden by an evil fate. Ovid observed that she was
so naive as to love without realizing it.
While she pondered the matter, her father and the other spectators
called insistently for the race. Apparently no one thought it unfair to
have her run twice in so short a time. Hippomenes prayed Venus to
favor the love that she herself had kindled. Venus heard with approval.
Ovid gave a new account of the golden apples. In the middle part of
Cyprus lay a district rich in copper and in fertility of soil, which was
called the Field of Tamasus. It was sacred to Venus. Philostephanus
appears to have added that in the field was a tree with golden apples.
Ovid imagined that here Venus gathered the fruit. He described the tree
as itself golden, like the tree of the Hesperides (Bk. 4). When Hippo-
menes prayed to Venus, he said, the goddess chanced to be carrying
three of the apples. Without revealing herself to anyone else, she gave
them to Hippomenes and told him their use.
In describing the race Ovid recalled the work of epic poets and
especially the Iliad and the Aeneid. As in Vergil's account of the boat
race, the signal was given with a trumpet. The Iliad had mentioned
certain horses of Erichthonius, whose father was the North Wind, and
had told how they would run over standing grain without breaking down
the ears or would run over the topmost waves of the hoary sea. Apol-
lonius had told how the Argonaut Euphemus used to run over the waves
of the gray sea, not wetting his swift feet but just dipping the tips of
his toes. Vergil, recalling both the Iliad and Apollonius, had attributed
similar lightness and swiftness to Camilla. But he stated the idea more
cautiously. She might have flown over the tops of standing grain and
not bruised the tender ears or sped over the mid sea, poised on the swell-
ing wave, and not dipped her swift feet in the flood. Ovid ascribed the
same ability to his hero and heroine. But in stating the thought he was
even more cautious than Vergil, and he reversed the order of ideas. You
would think, he said, that Hippomenes and Atalanta could run over the
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? HIPPOMENES AND ATALANTA
sea with dry feet or pass lightly over the ripened heads of standing
grain.
The Catalogues had shown Schoeneus favorable to Hippomenes.
Perhaps for this reason Ovid imagined the spectators in general as
favoring him. He showed them urging him on, and he echoed the words
which Vergil had shown Mnestheus using to his oarsmen in the boat
race. Ovid described this encouragement as welcome not only to Hip-
pomenes but also to Atalanta. He declared that often she delayed pass-
ing the youth; and, contrary to probability, he added that, while run-
ning with extraordinary swiftness, she gazed long at his face, then reluc-
tantly drew ahead of him.
Ovid imagined that, so far as possible, Hippomenes relied on his
fleetness of foot and that, repeatedly, after falling behind, he overtook
Atalanta. But, when he still was far from the goal, his strength began
to fail; and dry, panting breath came from his weary throat. In this
last detail Ovid once more echoed Vergil's account of the boat race.
Hippomenes resorted to his golden apples. As Ovid pictured the
race, this required skill. Hippomenes must throw each apple obliquely
forward at such an angle as to have it pass in front of Atalanta, attract
her attention, and then draw her away to the side. He succeeded with the
first apple, and the spectators applauded as he gained the lead. Ata-
lanta passed him again. He threw the second apple, once more with
success. But she recovered the lead.
In the foot race of the Iliad, Ulysses had prayed Athena to help
him overtake Ajax Oi'leus, and Athena had defeated Ajax -- by causing
him to slip and fall. Ovid showed Hippomenes praying to Venus, as he
threw the last apple, and Venus defeating Atalanta. When the maiden
hesitated to follow the apple, Venus constrained her to pursue it far to
the side. And that was not all. Atalanta might well have found three
apples in her hands an encumbrance, and three golden apples a consid-
erable weight. But Venus gave the last apple a preternatural heaviness.
With this advantage Hippomenes won the race.
In the reply given by the oracle, Ovid had associated Atalanta's
race with the future violation of the sanctuary. He now introduced a
further connection. He stated that Hippomenes showed no gratitude
to Venus and that Venus resolved to make him a warning example. She
incited him to profane the sanctuary. Ovid spoke of a shrine which had
been established by Echion, one of the original settlers of Thebes. It
included wooden images of several deities.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
In telling of Medusa (Bk. 4), Ovid had observed that she profaned
a shrine of Athena. The goddess, he said, turned away her eyes in
horror, and she punished the offense by transforming Medusa's hair
into snakes and by using Medusa's head as the Aegis of her shield. Ovid
decided to imitate this tale and to associate Hippomenes and Atalanta
permanently with the offended deity.
Instead of Jupiter, he imagined the goddess Cybele. Her worship
had originated in Asia Minor, a region which Assyrian monuments and
early Greek epics had described as infested with lions. Greek authors
and artists often had imagined her as drawn in a car by two or more of
these animals, and afterwards Ovid in his account of the Trojan ships
(Bk. 14) mentioned lions as transporting her even through the air.
Lucretius and Varro had explained Cybele's lion car as representing
her power of taming even the wildest creatures. This idea Ovid noted
in the Fasti. But in his tale of Atalanta he explained the lion car as a
means of punishing Hippomenes and Atalanta, and he added that Cybele
regarded the punishment as more grievous than death. Evidently re-
calling some work of art, Ovid described the transformation in detail.
The Greek artist had shown two lions with manes. And, although Ovid
implied clearly that Atalanta became a lioness, he gave her a mane.
In later times both Landor and William Morris retold the tale of
Atalanta, taking a few circumstances from Ovid. According to Landor,
the maiden ignored the first and second apples but stopped for the third.
Petrarch in his Triumph of Love referred to Atalanta as vanquished by
three golden apples and a beautiful face, Boiardo mentioned her rac-
ing, and Shakespeare referred in As You Like It to her nimble heels.
Guido Reni treated the story in a famous painting. The subject
attracted also the French artist Paynter and the sculptors Gaspard
Coustou, de Paultre, Inj albert, and Derwent Wood.
*******
Most of the longer stories in Ovid's Tenth Book had been of early
origin and had attracted a number of Greek authors and artists. And
many of these tales had interested Ovid's Roman predecessors. But the
tales of Pygmalion and of Atalanta's metamorphosis were of Alexan-
drian origin and were little known. Of the seven lesser tales only that of
Erigone was either old or familiar. Ovid contrasted stories well known
to his Roman audience with stories which were new. Readers of medieval
times found available some earlier Roman accounts of Orpheus and
Ganymede and versions of Orpheus and Eurydice by Roman authors
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? BOOK TEN
after Ovid's time. But Ovid gave the tales of Hyacinthus and Myrrha
their fame, and he saved from oblivion the important tale of the sculptor
Pygmalion.
In choosing his material from earlier versions, Ovid made some use
of the Iliad for the tale of Ganymede and of the Catalogues for that of
Atalanta's race. Otherwise he followed predecessors of Alexandrian
and Roman times. Phanocles helped him repeatedly in the first half of
the book; Philostephanus, the Manual, and Nicander became important
in the second half. Theocritus, Euphorion, Bion, and Theodorus each
proved valuable for one or more tales. For incidents in the stories of
Eurydice, Ganymede, and Atalanta's race, and for three minor tales,
Ovid relied on Alexandrian authors whom we cannot identify. Greek
artists contributed to the stories of Orpheus calling together his audi-
ence and to both stories of Atalanta. Cinna suggested part of the tale
of Myrrha, and Vergil was a very important source in the earlier part
of the book. Ovid used his own account of Medusa for his version of
Atalanta transformed. To the Alexandrians and their Roman follow-
ers the themes of the entire book would have been congenial.
In improving this material, Ovid took suggestions from many
authors, a number of them the greatest of ancient times. The Iliad
provided him with details from the thr^e stories of Hyacinthus, Myrrha,
and Atalanta's race. Sophocles contributed to the tale of Myrrha,
Euripides to the stories of Myrrha and Pygmalion. Aratus furnished
the prologue to the tale of Ganymede. Ovid took suggestions often from
the earlier Roman poets. Horace added valuable incidents to the tales
of Eurydice and Adonis, Propertius contributed to the tales of Eury-
dice and Myrrha, Vergil offered improvements either of incident or of
phrase in almost every important tale and in the lesser narrative of Cy-
parissus. And oftener than in any previous book Ovid profited by his
own earlier work -- the Heroides, the Art of Love, and at least nine
tales of the Metamorphoses. He contrived to do this both unobtrusively
and with good effect.
In handling the chief problems of the book, Ovid was unusually
successful. He introduced novelty into the familiar tales of Ganymede
and Adonis; he reconciled conflicting versions of his predecessors in
the stories of Myrrha, Adonis, and Atalanta ; and with remarkable skill
he varied the account of Eurydice from that of Vergil and the story of
Myrrha from his own earlier tale of Byblis.
He solved also the formidable problem of giving many separate
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
tales a plausible connection. As Ovid found his material, it had no re-
lation to the proceeding books of his poem, and most of the tales had no
relation to one another. There was only a rather close connection be-
tween the two stories about Orpheus and a vague association of the tales
about Pygmalion, Myrrha, and Adonis.
Ovid invented the transition from his Ninth Book to the tales
about Orpheus and included the other important tales in a song of the
minstrel. Then he sought further connection. By contrasting one tale
with another, he related the stories of Ganymede, Hyacinthus, and the
Cerastae and Propoetides. He invented a relation between the story of
the Propoetides and that of Pygmalion, and he caused Venus to tell
Adonis the two stories about Atalanta. Ovid succeeded also in finding
an appropriate background for the minor tales. He introduced a plaus-
ible relation between his account of Orpheus assembling an audience and
the metamorphoses of Attis and Cyparissus and also between the trans-
formation of Adonis and that of Menthe, and he contrived to associate
with the dismay of Orpheus two accounts of petrifaction.
The first half of Book Ten attracted a number of later Roman
authors. The book as a whole interested men of the middle ages and the
modern period. Of the nine longer tales, seven won attention during the
centuries that followed. Of the lesser tales only two were remembered
for their own sake, those of Attis and Cyparissus. But the tale of the
Propoetides was mentioned sometimes in relation to Pygmalion.
Among authors who rarely noticed the Metamorphoses, the Tenth
Book attracted a remarkable number. They included Calpurnius Sicu-
lus, Marston, Congreve, Thomson, Fielding, Freneau, William Hazlitt,
Bulwer Lytton, and W.
purple swans, and Ovid had alluded to the idea at the close of his Art of
Love. Accordingly, Ovid noted that Venus departed in her car drawn
by swans. Afterwards he implied that she left Cyprus, perhaps to visit
her temple at Cnidus.
Although Adonis offered no objection to the warning of Venus, he
was high spirited, and he disregarded it at the first temptation. Ovid
followed the older tradition that death resulted merely from an acci-
dent in hunting. He seems to have invented the details and skillfully
to have made his account of the boar hunt differ from his earlier descrip-
tion in the tale of Meleager (Bk. 8). The dogs, he said, following a clear
trail, roused a boar from his hiding place. As the animal came out
from the trees into some open ground, Adonis threw a spear. The
weapon hit the creature at an angle so oblique as to make only a super-
ficial wound. The boar, wrenching out the bloodstained point, charged
Adonis as he ran for safety and stretched him dying on the tawny sand.
This last detail Ovid took almost verbatim from Vergil's account of the
boxer Dares killing Butes.
Greek authors had imagined that Venus went on foot to the scene
of the disaster. Ovid made the circumstances far more picturesque.
Venus, he said, was returning through the air in her car. Although she
was not yet above the island of Cyprus, her divine ear recognized the
groans of Adonis. Turning her swans in the direction of the sound, she
observed him lying far below, lifeless in his blood. Venus leaped out of
her car and descended through the air to his side. Scripture often had
noted that some one in extreme distress rent his clothes. A similar prac-
tice appears to have existed among the Alexandrian Greeks. Bion had
attributed such conduct to Venus and had observed that she tore her
hair. Ovid repeated Bion's description and noted also that she beat
her breast.
While giving her words of lament, Ovid appears to have recalled
those of Apollo for Hyacinthus, particularly Apollo's regretting the
superior power of the Fates. Venus reproached these goddesses for
taking the life of Adonis and declared that they should not wholly de-
stroy him. Like Bion, Ovid showed her predicting that her lament should
have annual repetition ; and, like Nicander, he showed her declaring that
her lover's blood should become a flower. Ovid associated the transfor-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
mation with the traditional rivalry of Venus and Proserpina. He
showed Venus observing that she did no more than Proserpina had been
allowed to do for the nymph Menthe, whom Proserpina turned into
mint. This tale Ovid probably found in the work of Nicander. We
know it only from him.
In the tales of Actaeon and Ascalabus, a goddess had transformed
a man by sprinkling him with water. Venus transformed the blood of
Adonis by sprinkling it with nectar. Ovid gave a brief, and obscure,
description of the process. The clotting fluid swelled, as if clear bubbles
were rising from tawny mud, and in an hour's time there grew up a
blood-red flower. Ovid likened the color to that of a pomegranate
blossom. Probably following Nicander, he explained the name "wind-
flower" by the fact that its delicately hung petals remain only until a
wind arises and shakes them off.
In later times Ovid's version of the tale was the most accessible and
the only full account that survived. Medieval and modern writers seem
always to have recalled Ovid, even when they used the work of others.
Many poets retold the story. Jean de Meun included a brief ver-
sion in the Romance of the Rose. Three minor Italian poets treated the
theme towards the middle of the sixteenth century. Ronsard retold the
tale with pathetic charm, Lope de Vega made it the subject of a drama,
and Marini elaborated it into a long poetical romance, with continual
moralizing and allegory. He showed both Mars and Diana plotting the
hero's death and the boar making an apology to Venus. Thomas Lodge
retold Ovid's tale in Scilla's Metamorphosis, and Greene treated it in a
lyric.
Ovid had intimated that love was shown chiefly on the part of Venus
and that Adonis cared more for hunting than for her wishes. Several
poets retold the story with emphasis on this idea. Spenser in his descrip-
tion of Castle Joyous told how Venus used elaborate courtship and im-
plied that Adonis felt unwillingness like that of Ovid's Hermaphroditus.
Allusions to the idea appeared in Marlowe's Hero and Leander and
Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare in Venus and Adonis
made the hero's reluctance the most important element in the story. His
version inspired Griffin's three sonnets in The Passionate Pilgrim. Keats
followed both Spenser and Shakespeare in his Endymion.
Many poets alluded to Ovid's tale. Dante compared the brilliant
eyes of Matilda to those of Venus, when Cupid accidentally inflamed
her. Chaucer in his Troilus and his Knight's Tale and Pope in his pas-
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? VENUS AND ADONIS
toral, Summer, recalled the passion of Venus. Guarini in the Faithful
Shepherd and Moliere in The Miser noted Adonis as typical of youthful
beauty. In The Princess of Elis, Moliere remembered the warning to
hunt only timid animals. In Paradise Lost, Milton observed that Adam
mingled kisses with words, as he told a story. Spenser in the Protha-
lamion recalled the swans which drew the car of Venus, and Shakespeare,
after introducing them correctly in his Venus and Adonis, referred in
As You Like It to Juno's swans. Pope in his pastoral, Winter, men-
tioned the death of Adonis. And both Camoens in his description of the
Isle of Love and Milton in his Nature and Old Age remembered the.
origin of the flower.
A number of modern authors combined with their recollection of
Ovid some idea of a garden of Adonis. To the Greeks a garden of this
kind had meant the plants grown in shallow pots for the annual festival,
and Plato had observed in his Phaedo that such gardens were proverb-
ially fast growing and transitory. To this idea Shakespeare alluded
vaguely in the First Part of Henry Sixth. But Pliny had mentioned a
permanent garden in some unvisited region of the earth, where after
death Adonis enjoyed a new and happy existence. A French poet of the
sixteenth century, Charles d'Estienne elaborated the idea. Spenser
referred to this Garden of Adonis in two passages of the Faerie Queene,
one of them of great length. Milton recalled the subject both in Comus
and in Paradise Lost, and Keats remembered it in his Endymion.
The story of Venus and Adonis often attracted modern artists. It
was treated in painting by Peruzzi, Giordano, Tito Ghisi, Furini,
Rubens, van Haarlem, Lemoyne, Terraval, and Lecomte. Veronese
treated the subject twice. And both Titian and Prudhon were inspired
to create masterpieces. Rubens and Brueghel pictured Adonis beginning
to hunt. The death of Adonis was portrayed by Caracci, Piombo, Mor-
etto, and Poussin. The windflower attracted Albani and van der Near.
Venus and Adonis were treated by the sculptors Nicholas Coustou and
Thorvaldsen. The death of the hero appeared in a cast of Michelangelo
and in statues by Danti and Rodin.
Modern scientists gave the name Adonis to a European variety of
blue butterfly and to a genus of plants which have either yellow or red
flowers.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
HlPPOMENES AND AtALASTA
The story which Ovid showed Venus telling Adonis was concerned
with Atalanta's unsuccessful attempt to avoid marriage and its ill
consequences. The first part of the tale dealt with a theme popular in
Greek lore, that of a bride won by an athletic contest. In this it re-
sembled the stories of Pelops contending in a chariot race for Hippo-
damia (cf. Bk. 6) or Hercules contending in archery for Iole and in
wrestling for Deianira (Bk. 9). But the tale of Atalanta was unusual
in having the hero contend with the heroine. He was required to van-
quish her in a foot race.
The earliest version of this tale appeared in the Catalogues. The
account ran as follows. Atalanta, daughter of Schoeneus of Boeotia,
was beautiful, despite a fierceness in her gaze. She was averse to mar-
riage. A certain Hippomenes courted her and desired the consent of her
father. Schoeneus appears to have been favorably disposed, for he
offered to consent and add gifts and good will, if Hippomenes should
vanquish Atalanta in a foot race. But the penalty of failure should be
death. This penalty was to be inflicted after the race, but the method
was not stated. Fearing the result, Hippomenes obtained three apples
from Venus. The author implied that they were of more than ordinary
charm. Atalanta ran swiftly, with the breeze fluttering the light gar-
ment over her breast. Hippomenes addressed her as he ran, offering
gifts, and then threw down successively the three apples. Atalanta de-
layed to pick them up and was vanquished. The modern reader might
be surprised that Hippomenes should be allowed to win by such irregu-
lar methods. But in the Aeneid, Vergil described a race where Nisus was
allowed to defeat an opponent by tripping him.
The Catalogues had given an impression that Schoeneus prescribed
the test of the foot race. A later version, repeated by Hyginus, made
this clear. Atalanta asked her father to let her remain a virgin, and he
tried to fulfill her wish by the requirement of a race. According to this
version, Hippomenes was the offspring of a certain Megareus. Although
athletes of the Heroic Age appear to have worn light clothing, the
Catalogues declared that Hippomenes ran naked. Greek artists went
further and showed Atalanta doing likewise. They pictured a number
of spectators watching the contest.
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? HIPPOMENES AND ATALANTA
Euripides referred to the hero's success, and Ovid alluded to it both
in his Epistle of Paris and in his Ibis. Plato observed in the Republic
that, after the death of Atalanta, her soul was reincarnated as an ath-
lete. Theocritus, mentioning the use of apples, referred to the heroine
as yielding to mad desire. This might imply that she fell in love with
Hippomenes. Catullus expressed the idea clearly. The swift maiden, he
said, welcomed the apple that loosed her girdle, too long tied.
Some authors described Atalanta as a daughter of Iasus of Ar-
cadia and declared that she took part in the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Following this version, the Manual introduced many further changes.
It spoke of Atalanta as herself prescribing the test of the foot race. Her
father urged her to marry, and she resorted to this means of avoiding it.
The Manual described the race as having an unusual form. Anyone
desiring to marry Atalanta must run from a certain stake to a distant
goal. Meanwhile Atalanta, carrying weapons, pursued him in order to
overtake and kill him. Many suitors tried and failed. Where a number
of youths were concerned, it became improbable that Atalanta could
have enforced so harsh a penalty. According to the Manual, the suc-
cessful contender was named Melanion, and he resorted to the apples
when in danger of being overtaken. Since Atalanta was pursuing him,
it would have been easy for him to attract her attention.
The Manual recorded another tale about Atalanta, which seems to
have been unknown to Plato and which appears to have been introduced
after his time. The story was as follows. One day, while Melanion and
Atalanta were hunting wild animals, they visited an area sacred to Jove
and profaned it by sexual intercourse. Jupiter transformed them into
lions. The Manual seemed to use the word as a generic term, with the
implication that Melanion became a lion and Atalanta became a lioness,
and it seemed to imply that Jupiter desired to punish them with a less
attractive existence. Ovid afterwards accepted both ideas and made
them clearer. The Manual indicated that Melanion and Atalanta were
transformed somewhere in Arcadia. This idea may imply recollection of
actual lions in prehistoric Greece (cf. Death of Hercules, Bk. 9).
The story of Atalanta which afterwards was repeated by Hyginus
included a similar transformation of Hippomenes and Atalanta. This
version differed in the circumstances. The lovers were traveling from
the scene of the race to the residence of Hippomenes. Their journey
took them near an area on Mt. Parnassus which was sacred to Jupiter.
In visiting it their original intention was to offer a sacrifice. This ac-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
count specified that Jupiter transformed them into a lion and a lioness.
It assigned a different purpose for the change -- to prevent them from
ever repeating the offense. It then explained mistakenly that lions never
mate with their kind. Other mythographers added, also mistakenly, that
lions mate only with leopards. In the Ibis, Ovid mentioned the trans-
formation of Hippomenes into a lion.
Propertius called the victorious suitor Milanion and spoke of his
winning Atalanta by assiduous courtship. He noted that Milanion
helped her first in the pursuit of dangerous animals and then in a battle
with two centaurs, in the course of which he received a painful wound.
Although Propertius did not mention the race, he probably thought of
it as the final test. Ovid followed this version in his Art of Love.
Both the Catalogues and the Manual attributed the three apples
to Venus, but said nothing about their nature. An Alexandrian author
whom we cannot identify appears to have added that Venus aided the
successful youth with apples of solid gold, which came from the Garden
of the Hesperides. To this idea Vergil alluded in the Sixth Eclogue.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid had told of the Arcadian Atalanta as
a huntress loved by Meleager (Bk. 8), and he had given examples of
assiduous courtship in the tales of Hyacinthus and Adonis. He thought
it best to have Venus tell of the Boeotian Atalanta, daughter of Schoe-
neus, and to begin with the subject of the race. By this means he also
avoided any problem of historical time. Venus recounted an isolated tale
of the indefinite past.
Although Ovid took his outline from the Manual, he invented a
close relation between the two parts of the tale. According to the Man-
ual, Schoeneus had urged his daughter to marry. Ovid imagined that
she visited an oracle to inquire about a suitable husband.
The god bade
her avoid marriage and added, with true oracular obscurity, that she
was not destined to escape but was to live after losing herself.
Frightened by the answer, she heeded the part that she understood.
She avoided marriage and retired to live in the dark forest. When
suitors followed her, she arranged for the ordeal of the race. Regard-
ing its nature, Ovid agreed with the Catalogues and the Greek artists.
He described the race as conducted in the usual manner and implied
that Atalanta had some one else inflict the penalty, after the finish.
Evidently he imagined the race as occurring near some town and as
attracting many spectators. He seemed to have in mind athletic events
of his own time and to imitate them, even in the irrelevant detail of
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? HIPPOMENES AND ATALANTA
showing the winner crowned with a wreathe. He imagined a circular
course, about which he may have supposed that the contestants ran sev-
eral times. The total distance was considerable, requiring not only
speed but endurance.
Following the Manual, Ovid observed that many suitors contended
for Atalanta. He spoke at first as if she ran only on one occasion, but
later he agreed with the Manual that there were a number of such occa-
sions. The Manual had left it ambiguous whether Atalanta contended
with more than one suitor at a time. Ovid gave the impression that at
least in one race she contended with a number. Just before this race, he
said, the hero arrived.
Ovid called the youth Hippomenes. He imagined him as a stranger
unacquainted with Atalanta, who chanced to be near the place and who
attended out of curiosity. This gave Ovid an opportunity to empha-
size the girl's charm. At first, he said, Hippomenes called the suitors
foolish for risking their lives to get a wife. But, when Atalanta ap-
peared, Hippomenes withdrew his rash opinion. Recalling the work of
Greek artists, Ovid observed that Atalanta laid aside her clothing; and,
recalling the Catalogues, he noted that she wore colored ribbons, which
fluttered at her knees and ankles. He declared that Atalanta, the swift
racer, had a beauty like that of Venus, an idea which would seem im-
probable. Hippomenes began to fear lest one of the other youths might
win the race. He decided that, if all of them should fail, he would try
his own fortune.
Ovid described Atalanta's appearance in running. He spoke of her
hair as tossed over her white shoulders and of a flush that suffused her
tender skin. He likened it to the hue which a purple awning reflects
over a marble court. This illustration from Roman life of Ovid's day
was neither happy in itself nor appropriate for Venus to use in the prim-
itive times of Adonis. Atalanta won the race, and the young men with
groans paid the penalty.
Then Hippomenes boldly challenged Atalanta to race with him.
He declared that she would incur no disgrace, whatever the result, for
his father was Megareus of Onchestus and his great grandfather was
Neptune, and he was worthy of his divine origin. Ovid probably found
this ancestry in the work of an Alexandrian predecessor. Theocritus
and Catullus had hinted that Atalanta felt willing to be vanquished by
Hippomenes. Ovid imagined that she loved him at first sight. He
showed her, like many of his other heroines, debating the problem in a
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
soliloquy, and he imagined that Venus was able to repeat every word.
In the case of Atalanta the soliloquy was less effective than usual, for a
number of reasons. In the beginning of the speech, Ovid allowed the
reader to suppose that her words were addressed to Hippomenes. For a
simple, athletic maiden vacillation seemed out of character. And Ovid
increased the difficulty by allowing her words to sound weak and silly.
In the course of her meditation Atalanta praised the girlish beauty of
Hippomenes and even desired that he might win, but declared that for
her, marriage was forbidden by an evil fate. Ovid observed that she was
so naive as to love without realizing it.
While she pondered the matter, her father and the other spectators
called insistently for the race. Apparently no one thought it unfair to
have her run twice in so short a time. Hippomenes prayed Venus to
favor the love that she herself had kindled. Venus heard with approval.
Ovid gave a new account of the golden apples. In the middle part of
Cyprus lay a district rich in copper and in fertility of soil, which was
called the Field of Tamasus. It was sacred to Venus. Philostephanus
appears to have added that in the field was a tree with golden apples.
Ovid imagined that here Venus gathered the fruit. He described the tree
as itself golden, like the tree of the Hesperides (Bk. 4). When Hippo-
menes prayed to Venus, he said, the goddess chanced to be carrying
three of the apples. Without revealing herself to anyone else, she gave
them to Hippomenes and told him their use.
In describing the race Ovid recalled the work of epic poets and
especially the Iliad and the Aeneid. As in Vergil's account of the boat
race, the signal was given with a trumpet. The Iliad had mentioned
certain horses of Erichthonius, whose father was the North Wind, and
had told how they would run over standing grain without breaking down
the ears or would run over the topmost waves of the hoary sea. Apol-
lonius had told how the Argonaut Euphemus used to run over the waves
of the gray sea, not wetting his swift feet but just dipping the tips of
his toes. Vergil, recalling both the Iliad and Apollonius, had attributed
similar lightness and swiftness to Camilla. But he stated the idea more
cautiously. She might have flown over the tops of standing grain and
not bruised the tender ears or sped over the mid sea, poised on the swell-
ing wave, and not dipped her swift feet in the flood. Ovid ascribed the
same ability to his hero and heroine. But in stating the thought he was
even more cautious than Vergil, and he reversed the order of ideas. You
would think, he said, that Hippomenes and Atalanta could run over the
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? HIPPOMENES AND ATALANTA
sea with dry feet or pass lightly over the ripened heads of standing
grain.
The Catalogues had shown Schoeneus favorable to Hippomenes.
Perhaps for this reason Ovid imagined the spectators in general as
favoring him. He showed them urging him on, and he echoed the words
which Vergil had shown Mnestheus using to his oarsmen in the boat
race. Ovid described this encouragement as welcome not only to Hip-
pomenes but also to Atalanta. He declared that often she delayed pass-
ing the youth; and, contrary to probability, he added that, while run-
ning with extraordinary swiftness, she gazed long at his face, then reluc-
tantly drew ahead of him.
Ovid imagined that, so far as possible, Hippomenes relied on his
fleetness of foot and that, repeatedly, after falling behind, he overtook
Atalanta. But, when he still was far from the goal, his strength began
to fail; and dry, panting breath came from his weary throat. In this
last detail Ovid once more echoed Vergil's account of the boat race.
Hippomenes resorted to his golden apples. As Ovid pictured the
race, this required skill. Hippomenes must throw each apple obliquely
forward at such an angle as to have it pass in front of Atalanta, attract
her attention, and then draw her away to the side. He succeeded with the
first apple, and the spectators applauded as he gained the lead. Ata-
lanta passed him again. He threw the second apple, once more with
success. But she recovered the lead.
In the foot race of the Iliad, Ulysses had prayed Athena to help
him overtake Ajax Oi'leus, and Athena had defeated Ajax -- by causing
him to slip and fall. Ovid showed Hippomenes praying to Venus, as he
threw the last apple, and Venus defeating Atalanta. When the maiden
hesitated to follow the apple, Venus constrained her to pursue it far to
the side. And that was not all. Atalanta might well have found three
apples in her hands an encumbrance, and three golden apples a consid-
erable weight. But Venus gave the last apple a preternatural heaviness.
With this advantage Hippomenes won the race.
In the reply given by the oracle, Ovid had associated Atalanta's
race with the future violation of the sanctuary. He now introduced a
further connection. He stated that Hippomenes showed no gratitude
to Venus and that Venus resolved to make him a warning example. She
incited him to profane the sanctuary. Ovid spoke of a shrine which had
been established by Echion, one of the original settlers of Thebes. It
included wooden images of several deities.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
In telling of Medusa (Bk. 4), Ovid had observed that she profaned
a shrine of Athena. The goddess, he said, turned away her eyes in
horror, and she punished the offense by transforming Medusa's hair
into snakes and by using Medusa's head as the Aegis of her shield. Ovid
decided to imitate this tale and to associate Hippomenes and Atalanta
permanently with the offended deity.
Instead of Jupiter, he imagined the goddess Cybele. Her worship
had originated in Asia Minor, a region which Assyrian monuments and
early Greek epics had described as infested with lions. Greek authors
and artists often had imagined her as drawn in a car by two or more of
these animals, and afterwards Ovid in his account of the Trojan ships
(Bk. 14) mentioned lions as transporting her even through the air.
Lucretius and Varro had explained Cybele's lion car as representing
her power of taming even the wildest creatures. This idea Ovid noted
in the Fasti. But in his tale of Atalanta he explained the lion car as a
means of punishing Hippomenes and Atalanta, and he added that Cybele
regarded the punishment as more grievous than death. Evidently re-
calling some work of art, Ovid described the transformation in detail.
The Greek artist had shown two lions with manes. And, although Ovid
implied clearly that Atalanta became a lioness, he gave her a mane.
In later times both Landor and William Morris retold the tale of
Atalanta, taking a few circumstances from Ovid. According to Landor,
the maiden ignored the first and second apples but stopped for the third.
Petrarch in his Triumph of Love referred to Atalanta as vanquished by
three golden apples and a beautiful face, Boiardo mentioned her rac-
ing, and Shakespeare referred in As You Like It to her nimble heels.
Guido Reni treated the story in a famous painting. The subject
attracted also the French artist Paynter and the sculptors Gaspard
Coustou, de Paultre, Inj albert, and Derwent Wood.
*******
Most of the longer stories in Ovid's Tenth Book had been of early
origin and had attracted a number of Greek authors and artists. And
many of these tales had interested Ovid's Roman predecessors. But the
tales of Pygmalion and of Atalanta's metamorphosis were of Alexan-
drian origin and were little known. Of the seven lesser tales only that of
Erigone was either old or familiar. Ovid contrasted stories well known
to his Roman audience with stories which were new. Readers of medieval
times found available some earlier Roman accounts of Orpheus and
Ganymede and versions of Orpheus and Eurydice by Roman authors
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? BOOK TEN
after Ovid's time. But Ovid gave the tales of Hyacinthus and Myrrha
their fame, and he saved from oblivion the important tale of the sculptor
Pygmalion.
In choosing his material from earlier versions, Ovid made some use
of the Iliad for the tale of Ganymede and of the Catalogues for that of
Atalanta's race. Otherwise he followed predecessors of Alexandrian
and Roman times. Phanocles helped him repeatedly in the first half of
the book; Philostephanus, the Manual, and Nicander became important
in the second half. Theocritus, Euphorion, Bion, and Theodorus each
proved valuable for one or more tales. For incidents in the stories of
Eurydice, Ganymede, and Atalanta's race, and for three minor tales,
Ovid relied on Alexandrian authors whom we cannot identify. Greek
artists contributed to the stories of Orpheus calling together his audi-
ence and to both stories of Atalanta. Cinna suggested part of the tale
of Myrrha, and Vergil was a very important source in the earlier part
of the book. Ovid used his own account of Medusa for his version of
Atalanta transformed. To the Alexandrians and their Roman follow-
ers the themes of the entire book would have been congenial.
In improving this material, Ovid took suggestions from many
authors, a number of them the greatest of ancient times. The Iliad
provided him with details from the thr^e stories of Hyacinthus, Myrrha,
and Atalanta's race. Sophocles contributed to the tale of Myrrha,
Euripides to the stories of Myrrha and Pygmalion. Aratus furnished
the prologue to the tale of Ganymede. Ovid took suggestions often from
the earlier Roman poets. Horace added valuable incidents to the tales
of Eurydice and Adonis, Propertius contributed to the tales of Eury-
dice and Myrrha, Vergil offered improvements either of incident or of
phrase in almost every important tale and in the lesser narrative of Cy-
parissus. And oftener than in any previous book Ovid profited by his
own earlier work -- the Heroides, the Art of Love, and at least nine
tales of the Metamorphoses. He contrived to do this both unobtrusively
and with good effect.
In handling the chief problems of the book, Ovid was unusually
successful. He introduced novelty into the familiar tales of Ganymede
and Adonis; he reconciled conflicting versions of his predecessors in
the stories of Myrrha, Adonis, and Atalanta ; and with remarkable skill
he varied the account of Eurydice from that of Vergil and the story of
Myrrha from his own earlier tale of Byblis.
He solved also the formidable problem of giving many separate
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK TEN
tales a plausible connection. As Ovid found his material, it had no re-
lation to the proceeding books of his poem, and most of the tales had no
relation to one another. There was only a rather close connection be-
tween the two stories about Orpheus and a vague association of the tales
about Pygmalion, Myrrha, and Adonis.
Ovid invented the transition from his Ninth Book to the tales
about Orpheus and included the other important tales in a song of the
minstrel. Then he sought further connection. By contrasting one tale
with another, he related the stories of Ganymede, Hyacinthus, and the
Cerastae and Propoetides. He invented a relation between the story of
the Propoetides and that of Pygmalion, and he caused Venus to tell
Adonis the two stories about Atalanta. Ovid succeeded also in finding
an appropriate background for the minor tales. He introduced a plaus-
ible relation between his account of Orpheus assembling an audience and
the metamorphoses of Attis and Cyparissus and also between the trans-
formation of Adonis and that of Menthe, and he contrived to associate
with the dismay of Orpheus two accounts of petrifaction.
The first half of Book Ten attracted a number of later Roman
authors. The book as a whole interested men of the middle ages and the
modern period. Of the nine longer tales, seven won attention during the
centuries that followed. Of the lesser tales only two were remembered
for their own sake, those of Attis and Cyparissus. But the tale of the
Propoetides was mentioned sometimes in relation to Pygmalion.
Among authors who rarely noticed the Metamorphoses, the Tenth
Book attracted a remarkable number. They included Calpurnius Sicu-
lus, Marston, Congreve, Thomson, Fielding, Freneau, William Hazlitt,
Bulwer Lytton, and W.
