Kalliope’s Comments (group member since Aug 28, 2018)

Kalliope’s comments from the Ovid's Metamorphoses and Further Metamorphoses group.

Elena wrote: "From the call for papers of the 2019 Renaissance Society meeting in Toronto: "Paul Barolsky, for example, has argued that Ovid's Metamorphoses lies at the heart of Renaissance aesthetics, whether i..."

I am very much looking forward to reading the book you recommended, Elena.. but I think I will read it after we have finished with the Met... from what I could gather his approach is thematic - so I don't want to jump ahead.

Barbara wrote: "I am very much behind, but that's due to the time of year. From Nov. to New Years I am swamped not only with holiday prep and activities, but the end of fall semester (I work in academia). But I pl..."

Barbara, we realised that this part of the year would be complicated. That's why we have let one extra week for the reading. Besides, it is such a complex work that even those members who are on schedule can spend this extra time reviewing aspects...

Peter wrote: "
nudaque marmoreis percussit pectora palmis
pectora traxerunt roseum percussa ru..."

Beautiful - and poetic - flower.

The attention to the colours reminds me of a section in which Ovid is contrasting nature and artifice..

I will look for it later on.

Peter wrote: "The additional time before we will start with Book IV allowed me to look deeper into the text. As part of the respective internet research I found the following website by a Latin teacher who colle..."

Thank you, Peter for the link to the website of the Latin teacher. I like the way he gives the synopsis in five languages.. I am surprised Italian is not one of them.

Yesterday I found a new book in the Prado bookshop.

Los mitos en el Museo del Prado

Good timing for me...

I will try go go through it quickly to see if we have missed any works based on the myths we have already read, before I read it properly.

Roman Clodia wrote: "Haha, I'm sure we can all share that excitement of being given a desired book - let's just hope it is what you think it is! .."

And so it was... Le Metamorfosi di Ovidio

But I am not sure yet how to handle it.

Ce Ce wrote: "In 186 B.C. the senate of Rome, acting at the urgent request of the city's chief executive officer, banned the private celebration of the rites of Dionysos throughout Italy and authorized a witchhunt to trackdown and arrest all the religion's leaders. In accordance with this decree, mass arrests and confiscations of property quickly followed. Panic swept Rome and the entire Italian peninsula, as many people fled abroad." Recorded, in detail, by the Roman historian Livy."

Interesting, CeCe. Thank you. I always found Bacchus a difficult god to comprehend (except when I drink).

I just sent the message for Book IV... Sorry, but as we advanced our celebrations (my family seems to change Xmas day every year to accommodate for everybody's plans.. haha..) I have been very busy.

Nora wrote: "
I feel like a child in candy shop :) Don't know from where to start! (so, picked this last answered topic). You can not imagine how useful is this disc..."

Thank you Nora, for your kind, encouraging and informative comment.

7 volumes of Ovid...!!!!

I will check on Anderson's edition.. I am getting hooked on Ovid.

We will celebrate today the Xmas dinner and I am very excited because rumours have reached me that one of my gifts is a dual edition with Latin and Italian...

Roman Clodia wrote: "Roman Clodia wrote: "Another diversion: who else has read Rachel Cusk's Outline? I ask because I'm reading it at the moment and it's making me think of Narcissus and Echo."

Another..."


You have made me curious about Rachel Cusk.

Historygirl wrote: "Pentheus loses his identity and metamorphosizes before his death. He can’t be seen or heard even though his shape is the same. As Roger notes above, the tragedy is revealed when his mother recovers..."

Historygirl, interesting take.. My interpretation was that it was the women (mother and sisters) who in their frenzy had being transformed... Pentheus may be suffers as result of hubris - his strong opposition to Bacchus, and his arguably unfair treatment of Acoetes ultimately brought him down.

The morals in Ovid are certainly complex.

Peter wrote: "Still relating to the Cadmus story and risking to destroy the pean of renaissance and other paintings I found a very different picture showing "dragon teeth" as they are still used in our times.

"

Oh, I like these Dragon Teeth... perfect...

Roman Clodia wrote: "The Pentheus story is brutally violent: I'm planning to have another look at it tomorrow. .."


Yes, very brutal, and somewhat unexplained unless one were already familiar with the tale by Euripides... Pentheus appeal to his people to behave heroically turns nastily against him - worse than what Actaeon suffered with his bad luck.

It makes Bacchus and everything he represents really a very uncanny presence - in spite of the jolliness with which he surrounds himself.

I look forward to more of Bacchus in this work - to see how he next appears.

The violence of the scene is what made for me the painting by Charles Gleyre (#150). Spooky rather than violent.

Jumping back to the Diana bathing..

My edition points to the names of her accompanying nymphs. All their names relate to water/liquid in some way or other.

Crocale = Sea pebble.
Nephele = cloud.
Hyale = crystal.
Rhanis = raindrop.
Psecas = drizzle.
Phiale = saucer.

Ce Ce wrote: "
I am reading two...Simpson (for its clarity [as much as is possible] and t..."

I am glad someone else is reading the Simpson. I am also finding it very helpful.

Roman Clodia wrote: "
Kalli, the The Bacchae i.e the story of Pentheus is by Euripides. Many of So..."

Absolutely, I want to read that one too.. You mentioned it as part of the bases for this Book and then that is also in the footnotes in the Simpson edition.

It also mentions the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus for the story that Acoetes tells Pentheus about what happened in the boat. It says that the name 'Acoetes' is probably taken from Pentheus by Pacubius, a 2C BC Roman playwright. This character combines the role of the Stranger in the Bacchae and that of the helmsman in the Hymn

And this is the thing with this chapter, Ovid is patchworking various traditions/texts and the seams show somewhat.

Another example is that the reader has to adapt from the horrible Serpent at the beginning to its being praised by Pentheus as a model of courage and manliness when he addresses his people (children of Mars - we are reminded that the Serpent had been presented as the offspring of Mars)...

Also, for a reader of the 21C the reference to Acrisius and his kingdom of Argos is somewhat of a distraction.

In a way, I also wonder what the full significance of Acoetes story of the boat - apart from the arrival of Bacchus - which, by the way, was shown to be going to Naxos as Bacchus wished, but which however arrives to the shores (?) of Thebes.

Anyway, I am thinking of proposing the Euripides and the Aeschylus works for my 'real' book club here. We read a couple of years ago one by Sophocles and one by Aristophanes.. It is time we visit the Greeks again.

Just a comic note.. reading yesterday something else, set in mid 18C, I run across the carriage 'Phaéton' (French text). Generally, before, I did not pay too much attention to the sort of horse-drawn carriages mentioned in books or seen in films or in museums... but of course I gave a start when I encountered the word and looked up the kind of carriage this referred to.

There are many variations; they can be for two or four seaters, but the main thing is that the carriage is very high up..

This made me smile... Phaeton seeking altitudes..





Then I also saw that VW has a Phaeton car, a plain berlina.. I wonder if that is a good name for a modern car if one cares about safety.

When it became more clear to me that Actaeon, Pentheus and Bacchus are first cousins (their respective mothers - Autonoë, Agave and Semele - are sisters), and that they are the grandchildren to which the Narrator alludes to at the beginning, just after narrating the Cadmus story, is what for me held the Book 3 together.

It also made me want to read Aeschylus play - but I will wait until we are done with this.

I have more to say on this, but have to run now... Very busy days here right now since we are celebrating Xmas earlier because several people in my family set off on various trips this weekend.

Elena wrote: "We are only on book three and I'm starting to lose track of all the different characters, names of nymphs etc...somewhere I read the Met has 250 different stories...so glad we are reading slowly, t..."

Elena,

As I had a great interest in tracking the art in this work - I had dipped into it into a few of the myths in the past but had not read it through continuously. I started making my own index, listing all the artworks that go with each story. It has proved a great thing, not just for having it, but because the process of making it is also helping me.

When I noticed the abrupt changes from one to the next myth, I also began to add how Ovid makes the transitions. One of my editions also pays attention to this, since it has baffled scholars and the various methods have been analysed.

Doing this with Book 3 made me realise that the key to what holds everything together was not just the literary means but the genealogy of the Cadmus family, which Ovid assumes his readers are very familiar with.

And this takes me to another comment.

And a very different Narcissus by one painter I have been looking at lately in my Prado Seminar on Dutch painting.

Striking is the absence of landscape and the cropped reflected image.

Dirck van Baburen. ca 1595. Private collection.

Sorry, the image comes in an 'object' and with a skewed view.. the original is from Sotheby's and cannot be referenced.