The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Vol I

by Ovid, Henry Thomas Riley

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Genres: Mythology, Poetry

Paperback

Published May 11, 2007

About the author

Publius Ovidius Naso (20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horatius, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis, the capital of the newly-organised province of Moesia, on the Black Sea, where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a "poem and a mistake", but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars.
Ovid is most famous for the Metamorphoses, a continuous mythological narrative in fifteen books written in dactylic hexameters. He is also known for works in elegiac couplets such as Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love") and Fasti. His poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and greatly influenced Western art and literature. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology today.

Reviews

[Daniel Callister · Rating 2 out of 5]

Henry Riley's literal translation, books I-VII. This was like reading cliffnotes of Aesop's fables. I guess I thought it would be more detailed and literary. Some good moral lessons in there, occasionally. nearly half the book was translator's notes and explanations of the stories and their meanings by people other than Ovid.

[carli · Rating 5 out of 5]

ARTE

[Katriona · Rating 4 out of 5]

The mysteries and stories of Ancient Greece, but with Roman names for the gods & goddesses. The Latin names did have me constantly trying to remember the Greek, and in some cases the poet uses both the Greek and the Latin, sometimes in the very same stanza. The explanations of the fable were interesting, the translator drawing on knowledge of ancient mythology and how it could be spread to Greece, particularly Egyptian and in some cases it's similarity to Judeo-Christian stories in the Old Testament. The sixth & seventh books are more into the realm of an ancient people instead of long forgotten deities and how their actions became myth & magic. The stories of Progne and Philomela, Medea, Jason and Cephalus are more grounded in actual human involvement and less the metamorphoses into animals or stars, the involvement of the fickle gods & goddesses less as their worship became less.

This is not easy reading but it is extremely interesting and Ovid's poetry is lovely. I know that it has been translated again and again, and maybe this is not the most recent or the best, but the timeless value of these fables shine through.