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In the fourteenth century Ovid influenced poets so great as to belong
not only to the Middle Ages but to all time. For Dante, Ovid was
a favorite and most valuable author. Dante included him among the
five great heathen in the initial Circle of Hell. Elsewhere he com-
mended the Metamorphoses as a model of style. He used this work
in each of his prose treatises and prominently in his Eclogues. In the
Divine Comedy he used it continually. Illustrations from Ovid are
most frequent and pleasing in the Purgatorio and hardly less common
in the Paradiso. But the theme of the Inferno allowed Dante to draw
on Ovid for more than one character and for some of the most justly
celebrated adventures, in which he surpassed his original in vividness
and power. Dante never cited the Metamorphoses to show his learn-
ing or merely for the pleasure of doing so. He took only so much as
would clarify and enforce the spiritual truth on which he was intent.
And his attitude and purpose differed widely from those of Ovid. Yet
so careful was his study of the entire Metamorphoses that he could re-
call from even an unimportant story the circumstance, the detail, or
even the word which his purpose required. He refers more or less
frequently to almost every book.
With the elegant and scholarly Petrarch, Ovid was a favorite
author. In Petrarch's Italian verse, Dante and the writers of
Provpnce were his chief guides, yet Ovid often provided him with
beautiful and important illustration. This was true of the great
lyrical sequence to Laura, which was to be a model for noted sonnet
sequences of the Italian, French, and English Renaissance and for
revivals of such poetry in the nineteenth century. Petrarch often
indicated the grace and importance of his lady by identifying her with
Daphne and suggested the effect of her disapproval by likening it to
the congealing power of Medusa. In one of the early odes he gave an
allegorical description of his suffering when rebuffed by Laura, de-
claring that he experienced successively the grief and transformation
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of numerous characters in the Metamorphoses. And elsewhere he drew
on Ovid for graceful illustration, often at considerable length.
Even more prominent was the roll of Ovid in the first narrative of
Petrarch's dignified series called the Triumphs. This poem, the
Triumph of Love, showed Ovid among the great poets made captive
by the god and it included in the procession an extraordinary number
of his heroes and heroines. And Ovid provided a few characters ap-
propriate for the ensuing Triumph of Chastity.
In both lyrical and narrative poetry, Petrarch showed his fondness
for Ovid by using him more than the occasion required. He was
ready to include illustrations from the Metamorphoses which had
only a distant relation to his theme and to mention details for the
sheer delight of recalling them. Petrarch alluded not only to well
known stories, but to a number which were seldom noticed, and showed
himself familiar with the entire poem, especially the latter half. He
referred clearly to at least fourteen books.
Dante had related Ovid to the deeper meaning of life. Petrarch
found him most valuable for illustrating the vicissitudes of a lover.
Chaucer delighted in him as a storehouse of fascinating tales. He seems
to have read Ovid before he attempted a single poem and he learned
to use skilfully all Ovid's important work, but especially the Heroides
and the Metamorphoses. From the beginning he was familiar also with
the chief medieval versions of Ovid's tales--with Chretien, Machaut,
Boccaccio and others, and was able to combine them deftly with the
original. Chaucer was indebted to Ovid more than to any other
author, either ancient or medieval. With Vergil he did not become
acquainted until much later and he generally used him in relation to
Ovid.
Chaucer's first poem was a new version of Ceyx and Alcyone. It
probably survives with changes in two charming passages of the
Duchess. Other tales suggested the short poems called, The Former
Age, The Complaint of Mars, and The Tragedy of Hercules. In all
these poems, Chaucer adapted Ovidian material gracefully to medi-
eval forms of poetry which even in his hands were apt to be artificial.
But he soon learned from Ovid and other ancient writers to use more
naturalness in subject and form. This appeared in his interesting
House of Fame, which drew effectively on a considerable range ot
Ovid's work. It was even more 'evident in the great Troilus and
Cressida. In this poem Chaucer drew on Ovid for local color, for
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details illustrating the manners and interests of Trojan society. He
began the practice also of allowing one of his characters to recall
many appropriate myths while praying to a favorite deity. In the
Parliament of Fowls he learned how to mention suitable tales from
Ovid as the theme of paintings on the walls of a temple. Both devices
he repeated later in The Knight's Tale. For The Legend of Good
Women Chaucer drew his chief inspiration from the Heroides. Yet
he imitated the Metamorphoses in his charming Prologue and fol-
lowed it rather closely in the three subsequent tales of Thisbe, Ariadne,
and Philomela. In these he omitted the transformation. For
the Canterbury Tales Chaucer used Ovid less frequently, but he was
indebted to him for the subject of the Maunciple's story and for
important material in the Prologue and story of the Wife of Bath.
Throughout his career, Chaucer benefited by the example of Ovid.
He borrowed with discrimination: at times he effected minor improve-
ments in the plot. He was inclined to treat the characters with more
delicacy and sympathy. He avoided subtle monologue, and he raised
Ovid's love stories to a higher level. But he borrowed continually.
His obvious references extend to fourteen of the fifteen books. And
we can hardly doubt that Ovid contributed much to those pervasive
qualities in which the two poets are so much alike--style, understand-
ing of women, and power of dramatic narrative.
Medieval authors rarely attempted a translation from the classics.
Such translation would usually have been futile, for during the Middle
Ages a knowledge of Latin was so important that Roman authors
could be read easily by all who were educated men. But a few ancient
works attracted even those who were not. And two of them were
translated entire. The first was Vergil's Aeneid. The second was
Ovid's Metamorphoses. In 1210, Albrecht von Halberstadt trans-
lated Ovid's poem into German couplets. His work was really a para-
phrase adapted to the interests of his tim<<. He did not try to re-
produce Ovid's rhetoric and abridged his passages of philosophy and
battle. But he did justice to Ovid's humor and his descriptions of
ordinary life and sometimes improved him by a greater human sym-
pathy. Unhappily Albrecht used an unfamiliar dialect. He was
little read until his translation was revised three centuries later by
Georg Wickram. Towards the end of the fifteenth century both the
Aeneid and the Metamorphoses were translated into English verse by
William Caxton, the earliest printer of England.
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Meanwhile Italy was stirring with the great intellectual awakening
called the Renaissance. Men became dissatisfied with medieval culture
and eager to revive, to study, to rival the masterpieces of ancient times.
Ovid's Metamorphoses was among the earliest to receive careful study.
The elder Scaliger and other prominent scholars gave it enthusiastic
praise. Ovid and Lucan were the first authors translated into Italian.
They appeared in prose before the end of the fifteenth century. Many
other translations followed, the most important being that of
Anguillara. During the same period Ovid's work was printed in sev-
eral editions, of which the most famous was that of the great Aldo
Manuzio.
With the sixteenth century, the Metamorphoses began to have a
marked effect on Italian literature. Sannazaro imitated Ovid in Latin
for an admirable poetic narrative of nymphs transformed into willows
and used him again in Italian for his famous pastoral, Arcadia. In
the strange wonderland of Boiardo, Ovid's romantic stories continually
found a place. They combined with other "marvels, old and new, assum-
ing the most fantastic and terrible forms. Ariosto made use of Ovid
more sparingly, yet he alluded at least briefly to almost every book.
He imitated a number of Ovid's stories, often giving them a coarser
tone. And he had Ovid's example for much that was most effective in
his writings--his half serious, half ironical treatment of the past, his
gaiety, and his brilliant fancy.
Tasso wove material from four tales of Ovid into his beautiful
Aminta. He showed also a tendency to give his shepherd characters
such Ovidian names of Daphne and Melicerta--a practice which con-
tinued in the pastoral scenes of Moliere. The success of Tasso's Aminta
encouraged Guarini to compose an even more successful pastoral
drama, The Faithful Shepherd. Although dealing with similar material,
Guarini differed markedly in the treatment. Greek drama and Vergil
were his chief models, and he showed far more severity and restraint.
Yet even Guarini borrowed a few incidents from Ovid and resembled
him in a fondness for witty turns of speech.
Meanwhile Tasso had finished his masterpiece, Jerusalem Delivered.
It was both a noble epic of the First Crusade and a poetical romance
of love and marvellous adventure. In the epic passages Tasso followed
skilfully the example of Vergil; in the romance he turned often and
felicitously to Ovid. The Circe of the Metamorphoses contributed
much to his beautiful Armida, who loved and detained Rinaldo in her
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enchanted isle, and toi the graphic incident of her transforming
Gugliemo to a fish. Ovid guided Tasso in some of the most important
adventures of Erminia and Tancred, in the initial description of
Sophronia and Clorinda, and in the list of infernal monsters who gath-
ered at the call of Satan. And quite Ovidian was Tasso's delight in
clever turns of phrase. Anxious to rival the Iliad and the Aeneid,
Tasso tried to restrain his fondness for romance. This effort was
visible in Jerusalem Delivered, which was published contrary to his
desire, and it became far more pronounced when he revised the poem
as Jerusalem Reconquered. Yet he knew Ovid so well and enjoyed
him so much that he often was inspired by the Metamorphoses almost
in spite of himself. Marini did not share Tasso's epic ambition. He
was content with poetical romance and used Ovid, for moral allegory,
throughout the enormous length of his Adonis.
The Italian Renaissance inspired an extraordinary activity in
painting, sculpture, and other arts. Most frequently artists found
opportunity in glorifying sacred themes for the decoration of churches
or in making portraits of contemporary social leaders. But, when
they were not occupied with such work, they turned often to ancient
mythology and the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Almost every important
painter seems to have attempted at least one subject of this kind,
and some treated Ovid frequently and produced work of enduring
fame. Sculptors appear less prominently, but they too did Ovid
ample honor. Painting and sculpture inspired by Ovid found place
ordinarily in the palaces of the great and wealthy and indicate the
tremendous vogue of the Metamorphoses among all who aspired to
culture.
It was a rather common practice for a wealthy man to have an
artist adorn his palace with a series of mythological paintings, and
such labors engaged Perino del Vaga and several other artists of
moderate ability. In the Roman palace of Farnesina this fashion at-
tained its height and inspired not only numerous paintings of Piombo
and Peruzzi but Raphael's splendid Galatea. Raphael and other art-
ists of first rank preferred to do single pictures; but many of them
returned to Ovid more than once with notable success. This was true,
for example, of Correggio, Veronese, and Tintoretto. Raphael designed
several important works for others to finish, and even the great archi-
tect Bramante, who designed St. Peter's, found leisure for a painting
of Mercury and Argus. But among Ovid's admirers none could vie
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with Titian. He was inspired by Ovid to masterpiece after master-
piece and his methods were admired and applied to other themes by
Velasquez, Van Dyck, and many painters of England. With Titian
Ovid's influence reached a climax. Yet it continued on a high level
in the work of Guido Reni and Salvator Rosa.
In sculpture Ovid probably supplied the theme for two admirable
achievements of Michelangelo. He was prominent in the masterpieces
of Cellini and Giovanni da Bologna. And Filarete carved scenes from
his Metamorphoses even on the door of St. Peters!
The creation of opera was another triumph for Ovid and the
Italian Renaissance. In 1597 the new musical form began timidly
with a private performance of Jacopo Peri's Daphne. This was the
first opera ever given. So enthusiastic was the welcome that three
years later the same composer attempted a public performance of his
Orpheus. The success of his venture attracted a still abler musician,
Monteverde. This composer produced a number of operas. Many of
his stories he took from Ovid, proving most successful in his Ariadne
and his Orpheus. With him opera became established as an impor-
tant musical form.
From Italy the Renaissance had passed quickly to Spain. Here too
Ovid awakened immense enthusiasm. During the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries his Metamorphoses was translated repeatedly into
Spanish and once into Catalan. Among the Spanish versions, none
could compare in popularity with that of Bustamente. He para-
phrased Ovid in prose, not hesitating sometimes to add congenial tales
from other authors also, and adapted him perfectly to the spirit of
the time. Bustamente's translation! passed through edition after
edition and probably influenced every author during the great period
of Spain. In his work there still lingers the medieval belief that Ovid
was a purveyor of hidden moral truth and this belief was at least
affected by the chief authors who followed.
Meanwhile Ovid had become familiar to all educated men of the
fifteenth century in Spain. Such a writer as Juan della Mena could
fill his work with allusions to even the least important parts of the"
Metamorphoses. Among the chief lyric poets Ovid's popularity
rivalled that of Vergil. During the following century, he inspired
lyrists as important as Herrera and Castillejo. In Spain Ovid's
popularity took also a new direction. His Metamorphoses became a
mine of material for works of prose fiction, including two which for a
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time were internationally famous, La Celestina and the Diana of
Montemayor. Ovid's tales of Myrrha and Vertumnus contributed
much to a stock character of this fiction, the old woman who co-
operates in a dishonorable love affair. His Medea and Circe became
models for another favorite character, the sorceress in love.
Equally great was Ovid's favor with the three most important
authors of Spain. Lope de Vega might occasionally ridicule Ovid,
but he regarded him as full of philosophy and moral precept. Ovid
aided him in his chief work of fiction, the Dorothea, and supplied
themes for his poetry and seven of his lesser plays. Although Cervantes
had little acquaintance with Latin, he read Ovid eagerly in translation
and alluded to him continually. He borrowed from him often in his
Persiles and occasionally in his more famous Don Quixote. Even more
important was Ovid's contribution to the work of Calderon. This
poet and Ovid had many qualities in common. The Metamorphoses
furnished Calderon with material for a number of successful plays and
some of these plays are among his best.
To Spanish art the Metamorphoses appears to have been less con-
genial. Yet it inspired at least one work of the great Velasquez.
In Portugal the vogue of Ovid was probably as great as it was in
Spain. During the sixteenth century prose fiction grew up in both
countries under the same influences. Indeed the same author would
sometimes write one of his novels in Portuguese and another in Span-
ish. Ovid's influence was pervasive in Portuguese fiction and appeared
notably in Palmerin of England, a work which enjoyed two centuries
of international fame. But the Metamorphoses proved even more im-
portant in Portuguese verse and contributed much to the one great
poem which obtained lasting favor at home and abroad. In his fine
epic, the Lusiad, Camoens draws on Ovid repeatedly for striking
illustration, for appropriate decoration of a palace, and memorable
incident. And probably in recollection of Ovid he showed the oriental
conqueror Bacchus provoked to jealous hostility by the greater
achievement of the mortal Gama.
With the second quarter of the sixteenth century, Ovid's influence
became obvious in France. The once famous Marot paraphrased two
books of the Metamorphoses; Francois Habert composed a rhymed
translation of the entire poem. Rabelais made merry over the absurd-
ity of Ovid's medieval interpreters. It was from Ovid's Metamor-
phoses that Montaigne first learned the pleasure of reading. At the
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age of eight, he says, this poem seemed to him the easiest and most
congenial book that he knew. He gladly withdrew from all other
delights in order to read it. And before the middle of the century,
French royalty employed the artists Rosso and Primaticcio to deco-
rate with paintings from Ovid the great palace of Fontainbleau. But
in the second half of the century Ovid's favor rapidly waned. Other
ancient authors proved more congenial with those who still tried to
write, and most men diverted their attention to a devastating period
of civil strife.
Yet even here we find evidence of Ovid's continued importance.
During five centuries religious opposition had slept. Ovid and other
Latin authors had triumphed in the culture of Western Europe, and
Roger Bacon's had been almost the only dissenting voice. Suddenly
the old hostility broke out anew among the zealous Protestants of
France. Their poet, Du Bartas, undertook to turn men's attention
from this seductive literature of heathen deity and wanton love. Scrip-
tural lore and the studies of natural science were his theme in a series
of poems, which culminated in his long epic of the Creation, The Divine
Week. The zeal and originality of the new poet awakened enthusiasm
in both France and England. Spenser and Ben Jonson praised him;
Milton felt his influence; and his name was revered even in the pioneer
colonies of New England. But his speculation proved artificial, his
style prolix. He soon began to lose favor and after about a century
was almost forgotten.
Meanwhile Ovid was becoming popular in France of the seventeenth
century. Benserade translated the entire Metamorphoses into
tondeaux. 1 Certain other poets made it the fashion for a while to
parody favorite Latin authors. Scarron led the way with a travesty
of Vergil's Aeneid, and soon after both Richer and D'Assoucy under-
took a similar treatment of Ovid's Metamorphoses. From the begin-
ning of the century, minor poets used individual tales for drama.
And towards the middle of the century Ovid began to inspire many
leading poets of this great period.
La Fontaine adapted his tale of Philemon and Baucis and used
other tales for his two operas, Daphne and Galatea. The great
Corneille took from Ovid the subject of his Andromeda and used him
frequently while collaborating with Moliere in a remarkable opera
called Psyche. The lesser Corneille translated the entire Metamor-
phoses and was inspired by Ovid in his dramatic masterpiece Ariadne.
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During Moliere's last years, the Metamorphoses was one of a few
favorite books kept in his bedroom at Auteuil. And, although
Moliere profited almost entirely by other predecessors, he showed
his familiarity with Ovid by using here and there a name, a graceful
reference, or a touch of incomparable ridicule. From an Italian imi-
tator of Ovid he took one strand in the plot of his comedy he Depit
Amoureux.
Ovid was still more important in French art. He inspired great
masterpieces by the painters Poussin and Claude Lorrain. His effect
was even more interesting in sculpture. At the command of Marie
de Medici, Salmon de Brosse prepared the royal gardens of the
Luxembourg and decorated a great fountain with Ovid's tale of
Galatea. Louis Fourteenth continued the fashion on a grander scale.
His great landscape architect, Le Notre, arranged for statuary in
every division of the famous gardens at the Tuileries and at Versailles.
The chief sculptors of France carried out his designs. More than a
dozen of them were inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses,11 and much of
their work is justly famous. Yet even this was not Ovid's greatest
triumph in French sculpture. Spanish royalty planted a garden of
like splendor at San Ildefonso and allowed the French sculptors
Thierry and Fremin to reach unequalled heights in their great foun-
tains of Andromeda, Apollo, and the Lycian Frogs.
During the later Renaissance, intellectual leaders of the Low
Countries too showed extraordinary interest in Ovid and were in-
spired by him to work of international fame. Heinsius and Burmann
studied him carefully and produced a great edition of his poetry.
Rubens, the foremost artist of his time, took from Ovid the subjects
of innumerable paintings, many of which rank with his best. Jordaens,
though of humbler ability, showed equal enthusiasm. And there were
many others whose paintings appear in the collections of Belgium or
Northern France.
In England the whole energy of the Renaissance found expression
in literature and culminated in drama and epic hardly equalled by any
period of human history. The effect of Ovid appeared early and be-
came increasingly important. Elizabethan England read him even more
than Vergil and felt his influence continually in such favorite authors
as Chaucer, Ariosto, and the lesser Italians. Before any of the great
n Among them were G. Coustou, Nicolas Coustou, Flamen, Girardon, Le Conte,
Le Paultre, Marqueste, Royal and Tuby.
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poets had become of age, there appeared the famous translation of
Golding. The picturesque language and long, swinging verse of this
author suited admirably the feeling of the time. It was widely popular
and frequently guided the phrasing of Shakespeare. Minor writers
soon began to retell stories of Ovid, both in prose and in verse. More
important authors followed: Lodge turned to the Metamorphoses for
Glaucus and Scilla, his most ambitious poem, and Marlowe recalled
Ovid abundantly in his Hero and Leander.
Ovid was even more congenial to the splendid genius of Spenser.
Familiar with all important authors of the ancient world and the best
poets of more recent times, this great Elizabethan readily combined
ideas from many sources and gave them new value by additions of his
own. Yet Ovid fascinated him and was at all times a favorite poet.
Spenser at least alluded to the Metamorphoses in nearly all of his many
poetical works. He referred more or less frequently to almost every
book. Most striking was his indebtedness to Ovid in Muipotomus and
The Faerie Queen. In his great romantic poem, Spenser continually
alluded to Ovid or adapted his material and he associated an extra-
ordinary number of stories with Britomart's adventure in the House
of Busyrane and Mutability's quarrel with the gods. Though occa-
sionally inaccurate in detail,12 Spenser understood well the spirit of
ancient myth. Sometimes he altered a story from Ovid by adding a
new metamorphosis. Not infrequently he imitated the Roman Poet in
a myth of his own invention. Though differing from Ovid in having
a strong, moral purpose, he often showed a similar delight in a story
for its own sake. By Ovid's example he was probably encouraged in
his love of beautiful form and color and his power to move easily in
a world of his own imagination.
Even more interesting was. Ovid's contribution to the work of
Shakespeare. The great dramatist read Ovid continually, both in
Latin and in English. He praised him in Love's Labour's Lost, his
earliest comedy, and elsewhere represented him as important in the
education of young gentlemen. Shakespeare fully understood Ovid's
wit and his dramatic power. He used the Metamorphoses as a store-
house of classical information. All his knowledge of ancient literature
and myth, he could have derived from Ovid and Vergil, and the im-
portance of Ovid exceeded that of Vergil in the proportions of four to
one; Shakespeare's mythology was at all times Ovidian. His direct
"Thus he refers to Daphne as fleeing Apollo "on the Aegean stronde. "
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reference to the Metamorphoses begins with the earliest plays and
extends to every book.
Shakespeare's attitude towards Ovid did not remain constant but
altered with his artistic growth. His genius was the higher, more
serious, and more discerning. Though he loved Ovid, he became in-
creasingly aware of Ovid's limitations and rose above them.
Shakespeare's most enthusiastic admiration of the ancient master
coincided with the years when he himself was experimenting in many
directions and was rapidly gaining an assured control of his art. At
this period he used the last book of Ovid's Metamorphoses again and
again in the speculation of his Sonnets, notably in the passages where
he followed the Renaissance convention of predicting his own immortal
fame. Still more evident was his use of Ovid for Venus and Adonis
and The Passionate Pilgrim. In these poems Shakespeare not only
followed individual tales of Ovid but reproduced to an extraordinary
degree his pervading spirit and style. Important likewise was his
indebtedness to Ovid for the plot of his drama Titus Andronicus. In
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare took from the Metamor-
phoses the name of his fairy queen Titania, associated by Ovid with
Diana, Hecat, and Circe--the whole female empire of mystery and
night. And no play equalled the Merchant of Venice in frequency and
grace of allusion. Yet even at this time Shakespeare admired the ancient
poet with judgment. He used Ovid freely for the wit and embellish-
ment of comedy, but in graver scenes he adopted a more d^ect and
simple style. Like Ovid, he dealt frequently with love; but he was
more careful to distinguish the noble from the base.
The time of Shakespeare's romantic comedy and later historical
plays witnessed a change in his attitude. He began to feel the absurd-
ity of Ovid's mythology and to mention it frequently as an idle jest.
The period of his major tragedies found him using Ovid infrequently
or not at all. But the older poet was still guiding him in the great
funeral orations of Julius Caesar, the character of Ulysses in the
Troilus, and Hamlet's quarrel at the grave. After this period,
Shakespeare experimented with a variety of romantic plays, dealing
frequently with ancient times. Once more he reverted often to myth-
ology; but he was inclined to associate it now with deeper forces of
nature and morality remote from Ovid's thought. Nevertheless in A
Winter's Tale he used the Metamorphoses directly for the character of
Autolycus and the delightful speeches of Florizel and Perdita and(in
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The Tempest he gave Ovid a parting tribute in Prospero's farewell to
magic.
Among other prominent authors of the seventeenth century, Ovid
won favorable attention. Jonson made him an important character
of the Poetaster and translated the conclusion of his Metamorphoses.
Heywood remembered him in the plays called The Four Ages. And
both Heywood and Shirley chose tales from his work as subjects
of their non-dramatic poetry. Cowley borrowed from his myth of
Ceyx. Sandys made a translation of the entire Metamorphoses, the
first great poem written in the British colonies of North America. The
elegant heroic couplets of this translation were later to do much in
forming the style of Dryden and Pope.
More important than all of these was Milton. He seems to have
been acquainted with the whole field of literature. His great and re-
sponsive nature appreciated every literary work at its true worth and
allowed him to emulate what was best in every other author for master-
pieces of his own. Of highest worth and most valuable in their contri-
bution were the Bible, Vergil, and perhaps Homer. But Ovid followed
immediately after and his contribution was large indeed. From Ovid
no other great author took so much or used so intelligently what he
took.
At the early age of fourteen, Milton composed a summary of every
tale in his edition of the Metamorphoses. For this purpose he used
the blank reverse side of any page which bore an illustration. Such
illustrations occurred oftenest in the First and Second Books, so that
in this part of the poem he was able to write most frequently; but else-
where he profited by every available space. Each summary he made
in verse, using the free heroic couplet of the time, and almost every
summary comprised eight lines. Although seldom of any poetical
value, the verses were made with intelligent care and they showed
many traits which afterwards were distinctive in Milton's English
poetry. In all they must have numbered well over fourteen hundred
lines--more than we find in! any other poetical work until Paradise
Lost. This was Milton's earliest attempt in the field of poetry and
must have afforded him invaluable training.
A few years later, Milton's many Latin poems imply intimate ac-
quaintance with Ovid's language and meter. He must have known
all Ovid's important work almost by heart and have mastered all the
niceties of his versification. Ovid had also an important effect on
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? INTRODUCTORY SURVEY
Milton's ideas. 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.