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    The Metamorphoses: Selected Stories in Verse
    The Metamorphoses: Selected Stories in Verse
    The Metamorphoses: Selected Stories in Verse
    Ebook101 pages2 hours

    The Metamorphoses: Selected Stories in Verse

    By Ovid

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    About this ebook

    One of ancient Rome's most celebrated poets, Ovid (43 B.C.–A.D. 18) wrote during the reign of Augustus. His works reflect a sentiment of art for pleasure's sake, without the ethical or moral overtones, which perhaps accounts for his enduring popularity. For more than two thousand years, readers have delighted in Ovid's playful eloquence; his influence on other writers has ranged from Dante and Chaucer to Shakespeare and Milton, and scenes from his stories have inspired many great works by Western artists.
    This selection of thirty stories from the verse translation by F. A. Wright of Ovid's famous work, The Metamorphoses, does full justice to the poet's elegance and wit. All of the tales involve a form of metamorphosis, or transformation, and are peopled by mythological gods, demigods, and mortals: Venus and Adonis, Pygmalion, Apollo and Daphne, Narcissus, Perseus, and Andromeda, Orpheus and Eurydice, the Cyclops, and Circe, among others.
    Although most of the stories did not originate with Ovid, it is quite possible that had he not written them down, these oral traditions would have been lost forever — and with them, a vast and valuable amount of Greco-Roman culture. This collection of the poet's best and most beloved narrative verses reflects the vitality of classical mythology.
    A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateApr 10, 2012
    ISBN9780486153629
    The Metamorphoses: Selected Stories in Verse
    Author

    Ovid

    Ovid, or Publius Ovidius Naso, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom Ovid is often ranked one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature.

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      Book preview

      The Metamorphoses - Ovid

      APOLLO AND DAPHNE

      APOLLO, fresh from slaying the Python with his arrows, mocks at his brother Cupid’s puny bow. The little god in revenge fires him with love for Daphne, daughter of the river god Peneus, who rejects his suit, and is by her father changed into a laurel.

      THEN from his quiver Cupid took two darts:

      One kindles love, one hate in mortal hearts.

      The first, sharp-pointed, with a golden head,

      The other dull, and blunt, and tipped with lead.

      With this he Daphne smote, and then he drew

      The golden shaft and pierced Apollo through,

      Who straightway burned with passion, while the maid

      Was of the very name of love afraid.

      Within the woods she dwelt, and in her toils

      Caught the wild deer, rejoicing in their spoils,

      Like chaste Diana with her hair unbound,

      Her home the forest brake, her bed the ground.

      Full many a lover sought her for his bride ;

      But all she drove unheeded from her side,

      Impatient of a man, nor cared to know

      The joys that Hymen and young Love allow.

      Oft would her father say : ‘ A husband take—

      It is your due—and me a grandsire make.’

      But still she shrank from wedlock as a thing

      Of evil concupiscence and would fling

      Her arms about him and with burning face

      In coaxing guise would ask him thus for grace :—

      ‘ As Jove Diana, so permit thou me

      To live unwedded and a virgin be.’

      But though her father yielded to her prayer,

      Her own soft body and her visage fair

      Forbade what she desired. On a day

      Apollo saw the maiden, and straightway

      Longed to possess her ; and too soon believed

      Possession certain, by himself deceived.

      As burns the stubble in a corn field dry ;

      As hedges blaze, when travellers passing by

      Have built a fire too close or at the dawn

      Have left it smouldering ; so the god was thrawn

      By fiery passion, and with fancies vain

      Must seek at first love’s burden to sustain.

      He sees her unkempt hair, and fondly cries :—

      ‘ What if it were arrayed ? ’ He sees her eyes

      Gleaming like stars ; he sees her rosy lips

      And with another sense would fain eclipse

      That lovely vision. And, while he admires

      Her hands and naked arms, his hot desires

      Imagine hidden beauties in his dear,

      Which when unveiled shall yet more fair appear.

      But still she flies him, swifter than the breeze,

      Nor cares when Phoebus calls with words like these :—

      " Stay, river maiden, stay ; I am no foe ;

      Not as a wolf do I a lamb pursue,

      Nor as an eagle hunts the timid dove :

      The cause of my pursuit’s not rage, but love.

      How do I fear lest in the thorns you fall,

      With bleeding limbs, and I be cause of all.

      Rash girl, you do not know from whom you fly :

      You do not know ; that is the reason why.

      Nay, do not run with such excessive speed,

      And then I too shall not such effort need.

      I am no common swain, nor do I keep

      Upon these hills a flock of bleating sheep.

      I am the son of the All Highest; mine

      The realm of Patara, and Delphi’s shrine,

      Claros, and Tenedos : by me men see

      What is, what has been, what is yet to be.

      By me the lyre responds to tuneful song.

      To me the bow and its sure darts belong :

      Ah, that Love’s shaft more certain than my own,

      Has pierced my heart and to my vitals flown.

      Throughout the world all herbs obey my call,

      Who did invent the art medicinal:

      Alas, that love cannot by herbs be healed,

      Or those kind drugs that I to men revealed."

      More would he say ; but lo, the timid maid

      Fled from his side and left the words unsaid

      Yet even than she seemed surpassing fair

      As the soft breeze showed all her body bare,

      With garments fluttering in the wanton wind,

      Her hair unbound and streaming loose behind.

      No more, he cries, of loving words I’ll waste.

      Flight spurs desire. He follows hot in haste ;

      E’en as a greyhound, when a hare’s in sight,

      Seeks out his prey, while she in headlong flight

      Herself seeks safety, and can scarcely know

      Whether she be already caught or no ;

      So close the muzzle to her flying heels,

      So near the fangs that closing round she feels.

      Thus ran the god and maid, she sped by fear

      And he by hope, on love’s wings drawing near,

      Nor gave her time for rest, but with hot breath

      Fanned her loose hair and her white neck beneath.

      At last her strength was spent, and loud she cried,

      O’ercome with terror, to her father’s tide :—

      " Help me, dear father, by thy power divine,

      And change the fateful beauty that is mine."

      Scarce had she spoken when a torpor fell

      Upon her limbs; a thin and bark-like shell

      Begirt her bosom ; where her hair had been

      Sprang forth a maze of boughs and foliage green.

      Her face, so fair, took on a leafy dress ;

      Her flying feet the clinging tree roots press ;

      All, all is changed, except her loveliness.

      Metam., I, 468-552.

      PAN AND SYRINX

      Goat-footed Pan, falling enamoured of Syrinx, pursued the reluctant nymph, who, unable to escape from him, in distress called on her river sisters for aid, and was thereupon by them changed into a tuft of reeds. The story

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