This is a very readable translation of the "Metamorphoses."

The Romans were famous for absorbing the cultures and the religions of the peoples they conquered, so one of the interesting things about reading the "Metamorphoses" is trying to separate the native Italic or Etruscan elements in the stories from the later Greek accretions. And when Ovid tells a Greek story, how does he Romanize it? For example, Jupiter is partly derived from the Etruscan god, Tinia, a god of warning and punishment. He had three thunderbolts: the first was a warning, the second a premonition of punishment, and the third was the punishment itself. Tinia had to have the other gods' permission to use the second and third thunderbolts, which is perhaps why Jupiter seeks the counsel of the other gods before sending the flood to earth (1.163-209).

As an example of a retelling of a Greek myth in a Roman style, the story of the Four Ages of mankind is instructive. Ovid based this passage on Hesiod's "Works and Days." It describes the decline of the human race from an Age of Gold to an Age of Iron. Hesiod, incidentally, inserts a fifth age, the Age of Heroes, before the Iron Age, as it was unthinkable to him that the great heroes of Greek mythology should be considered morally degenerate. The most significant difference, though, is that Hesiod claims that the decline of the human race is the result of pride (hybris), whereas Ovid states that it is greed, which leads to violence, and thus "Justice, last of all immortals, / Fled from the bloody earth" (1.151-52). Given the imperial aims of the Roman Republic in what was, for Ovid, recent history (the Punic Wars, the Jugurthine Wars, and the Civil Wars between martisu and Sulla, then between Pompey and Julius Caesar, then between Marcus Antonius and Augustus Caesar), this might have seemed a much more realistic explanation of the degeneration of the human race's morals than Hesiod's.

Ovid is also that rare Roman, a poet of love. There were other poets, of course, like Catullus and Propertius, but it doesn't seem to have been a theme of very great importance to the Romans. Ovid's interest in love can be seen in his other poetry, Ovid: The Art of Love, for example. But his exploration of the story of Echo and Narcissus in Book 3 is also significant. This is an examination of what Shakespeare would later call “maiden pride.” Narcissus is scornful of others, and doesn’t want to be contaminated by their love. Possibly this is a disgust at the physical. He is a very beautiful youth, but the surface beauty conceals an antisocial refusal to share himself, to take responsibility by loving and procreating. His barrenness is reflected later by the pool, which is very beautiful, but which no shepherd, goats, cow or any other creature visits (409-12), and also in his final speech, which is a series of clichés from love poetry. Even the sunlight, ultimate progenitor of things, will not shine upon the pool (413-14). His revulsion at the physical is paralleled by the fate of Echo who, desiring his love, is transformed into a non-physical thing, a sound merely. She had loved talking—communication being the central function of communal life. Ultimately, then, Narcissus falls in love with a thing that has no substance: he “found a substance / In what was only a shadow” (421-22). The love he has for his own image in the pool is typical, in a way, of young lovers, who rarely love the other person truly, but only love the pleasure they derive from the beloved’s company. This type of love can transform into something more productive—the genuine love for another person—but Narcissus, loving a shadow, is trapped in this early self-absorbed stage, which is ultimately destructive.