Ovid's Metamorphoses

[BarbStAubrey]

"Hand of God" Spotted by NASA Space Telescope

Metamorphosis. We all know what it is every time we look in the mirror. And we are all familiar with Midas Mufflers, and the Midas Touch. We eat cereal with no thought as to where the word originated, and we think of Pluto, Jupiter, Callisto,  Saturn, Mercury et al.  as only planets, but have you ever wondered where those names all came from, and what they really mean? We know what an echo is, but do we know who she was?

2000 years ago Ovid wrote an epic poem called The Metamorphoses, about change and transformation. He was the favorite poet of the Renaissance,  and influenced Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe, and Milton.

When did you last read him?  Here's your chance! Why not join us in a bold new experiment in the New Year with something old and something new, (for us) : Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book I?  It's available free, online,  and can be read in 1/2 hour. We'll compare translations and see which we think is best and enjoy talking about the issues it raises. Come join us!

(The Lombardo translation is highly recommended, but there are tons of them available online, free.   Here is a sampling, or please share with us another you've found which you like:)


---http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph.htm#488381088---Translated by  A.S. Kline...(This one has its own built in clickable dictionary)...

---http://classics.mit.edu         /Ovid/metam.html...---Translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al


----    http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses1.html----Translated by Brookes More

Family Tree of the Gods and Goddesses of Greece and Rome:

-------http://www.talesbeyondbelief.com/roman-gods/roman-gods-family-tree.htm

-------http://www.talesbeyondbelief.com/greek-gods-mythology/greek-gods-family-tree.htm


Week One: January 21-? Chaos and Order:

Bk I:1-20 The Primal Chaos
Bk I:21-31 Separation of the elements
Bk I:32-51 The earth and sea. The five zones.
Bk I:52-68 The four winds
Bk I:68-88 Humankind


What do you think about: :

1. How is this creation story like and unlike other creation stories?

2. The god that creates the world isn't named, and it's not clear whether mankind was created by a god or the forces of nature.  Why do you think it's said this way?

3. What is the shape of the newly created world?

4. Why did Ovid settle on "changes" as the theme of his poem?

5. What do you know about Ovid?  What else did he write?

6. What is "Classical Mythology?" Do you have time to watch less than 10 minutes of Dr. Roger Travis of UCONN explain what "The Rudy Thing" is,  so we can discuss it? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvt3EazHqXY

Discussion Leaders: PatH and ginny

Thank you, Barb.

[BarbStAubrey]

Halcyon what I am wondering - since it took so long for anyone to look closely at Chaos and see how it functions and some of the benefits and the religions of old all saw Chaos as something bad as something that helped them develop the idea of a 'hell' in the afterlife - could it be that so much of what was labeled bad should now be looked at and examined in light of what we know now about Chaos - that the so called bad was not an abhorrent of evil but a necessary outcome that promotes growth and change - and that what we are really trying to control is predictability and that is impossible given the various influences that affect the system of the universe. 

I do not think we will like Chaos but we could see its affect in history and in our own lives as a moving force and accept it is part of our life in the Universe. And we do have the cancellation that order is the natural response to chaos - so that our work to continue creating order and the attributes that add to order is the goal however, just not wanting Chaos to no longer affect our life.

[marcustullius]

I wasn't planning on writing anything, but after reading the many great commentaries, it stimulated me to gather some of my thoughts on the subject.  So here goes:

The Metamorphosis is Ovid’s attempt, it seems to me, to enter the debate about the nature of the world in which there are competing and opposing forces at work all the time.  There are forces that propel toward chaos and disorder – I am thinking of the laws of thermodynamics, and there are those that push for order and form – for example gravitational and biological forces .  Preceeding Ovid in time, there were the two pre-Socratic philosophical views of nature: constancy versus change.  By the evidence of the Metamorphosis, Ovid shows that he held the latter view.  Change is the constant and it is everywhere and has been happening from the very beginning and is going on all the time.  And so he made that his theme of this work, namely, Metamorphosis. 

I believe also, with his work here, he is showing his vast knowledge and intellectual power to extract order out of chaos.  He imposed order on the chaos of all the mythical stories inherited from the ancestors; that order is the common theme of change or metamorphosis.  He begins his work with chaos, an unrecognizable, formless entity.  But it eventually becomes ordered though some force, or forces in the world.  The movement from chaos to order represents man’s coming out of ignorance and into knowledge.  Chaos comes from ignorance, and order from knowledge. 

A problem that arises from change is the one of identity.  Is the thing that undergoes change the same thing as before the change?  When Daphne was changed into the laurel tree, Apollo still retained the love for her by making the tree sacred.  Was the laurel tree Daphne?  Was Daphne the laurel tree?  In another example, Zeus changed the princess Io to a white heifer in order to conceal his affair from Hera.  Later the heifer was changed back into Io, the human.  Was she still Io when she was the heifer?  It seems like one can change and still remain essentially the same.  After all, we all change throughout our lifetime, and yet remain the same individual even though our outward appearance undergoes dramatic changes.  I think Ovid was touching on that idea.

Finally, although we moderns of today possess the concept of infinity, I am not sure if the Greeks accepted it.  With the idea of infinity, we can imagine a world that goes on for an infinity of time.  There are astronomers who propose that the universe is expanding and that that expansion will continue into infinity.  Others hold that existence is cyclical; the universe expands and then contracts and exands again.  I believe the ancient Greeks saw the world as cyclical.  Life appears that way.  Days become nights and back again.  There are the same seasons every year.  The idea in the Metamorphosis is change.  But is it change from chaos to order only?  It appears that way to me.  For us moderns, with the concept of infinity and thermodynamics, we can imagine a world that goes from chaos to order and finally to total emptiness, a dark and cold void.

[bellamarie]

howshap, 

Thinking about the unnamed god or superior nature"....whoever it was" reminds me that the God in Genesis has no name, at least none that can be uttered.   When, in the burning bush episode in Exodus, Moses asks for God's name the answer is simply "I am who I am."  Ex. 3.13.  So the "World Fabricator" needs no name, at least for followers of the Old Testament.

That brings on another thought.  In Genesis, God existed before the beginning, like the unnamed god in Ovid. But unlike the "superior nature" in Ovid, the Creator in Genesis does not establish a subset of gods to rule humankind.  And "whoever it was" does not drop out of the picture as in the Metamorphoses, but takes direct charge by commanding "you shall have no other gods before me,"  and by forbidding the making and worship of graven images.  Ex. 20, v. 3 and 4.

I was thinking about this while I was out today and came in and saw your post.  You touched on exactly what I had intended to.  The creator God existed before anything else.  He does not have, nor does he need a name, but in the New Testament, God has decided to send his son Jesus who is God in human flesh, he is given the name "Jesus" which in Hebrew means: "God saves."  God also sends the Holy Spirit who is the third person of the Blessed Trinity to live inside us.  Ovid has created many gods, yet he calls upon the god of creation to breathe breath into him, which I can see him asking God to fill him with the Holy Spirit. 

marcustullius,   

Change is the constant and it is everywhere and has been happening from the very beginning and is going on all the time.  And so he made that his theme of this work, namely, Metamorphosis.

If I may expand on your thought, time is never ending.  Time does not stand still, time is always changing, tick, tock, tick, tock, the seconds tick off and it is yet another day.  A new day for change to occur. Although our life can change, and our body can die, our soul lives on forever.  I see Ovid showing us the metamorphosis of the gods turning into non human/inanimate objects, and then back into themselves again similar to when God turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. 

Ovid has Daphne and Io transformed because of Apollo and Zeus's sinfulness, just as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes due to sinfulness.  Ios, Lot's wife turned back and looked at the city because even though she was leaving with Lot, her desire was to remain with the sinners in Sodom and Gomorrah.  Genesis 19 - The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

A lesson the world could learn from Ovid's Metamorphoses, which I believe was inspired from the Bible, God saves, Ovid wants this to live on, "seamless" from the world's beginning to our day.....infinity.

Thank you marcustullius, I for one am happy and enlightened with your thoughts on the subject.  Please do not hold back.  We are all just throwing things out here and hoping it makes sense, and at least to us it does, and that is important for sharing.  I believe JoanK., said earlier we will never figure it out, but we sure will have a great discussion in trying. 

[ginny]

Wow. All I can say is wow. You all dazzle. I almost feel like Phaethon coming into the palace of his father the Sun god.   I was amazed when I went to bed last night  at your profound thoughts on this poem. I like to read such thoughts and go away and think about them, it makes a very rich experience, at least for me.


But we'll get to Phaethon, we're still on the first 88 lines. Let's try, me included, To confine ourselves to the material in the first 88 lines.

I hope everybody trapped in the storm will have some relief today, the floods in NJ and the scenes of Times Square are just unreal. The storm was unreal. I am still struggling with connectivity issues have lost just this minute again   the Internet and the phone  this morning right after making this post, which Siri and I are struggling to edit.   I'm going to have wait until it comes back on so that I can continue because I can't do anything on an iPad I don't know how the rest of you do.

We can immediately notice several things today:

The biggest shock to me is difference in translations.  How much more widely could it stretch?  It's the same Latin words!  It's amazing what one little word or turn of phrase or interpretation of the translator  does to a concept,  and how it distorts it. We can certainly see from this experiment how important a translator IS. Because we form OUR ideas on what we think we  see in the translation and how it mirrors our own beliefs. I am not sure I realized before what a difference it makes. One could project almost anything into it. I'm fascinated.

I liked what Dana said about the film on Classical Mythology (link now in the heading) and how it relates to us today: the cultural truth value.

I thought his definition of a myth was worth considering...a story about a person that we can resonate with, that gives us hope, that fills us with exultation......but I wonder....not all myths do that. I guess any lasting story could be a myth, and the reasons for it lasting may be diverse.

I agree, I thought he was talking about The Rudy Thing which was exactly what you say: we can identify  with his hope and rejoice and  if you keep on trying you can win ethos, but that was, I think, specific to the Rudy instance and others like it. 

I think there are other cultural truth values which also resound  in ancient and modern myth, such as the desire of a child to know his parents. Adopted children sometimes want to know who their birth  parents are. How many movies have been made on this subject? Tim McGraw, the country singer did not know his father was Tug McGraw the baseball player,  until a later age. People want to KNOW where they came from. Genealogy is BIG. And Phaethon at the end of this book of the Metamorphoses (breaking my own rule in talking about)  wanted to know who his father was. That's just one cultural truth value we can believe in, and understand, (while not exulting every time),  which spans millennia. But what of the negative ones? I thought that was an excellent question.

Can there be  both positive and negative "truth values?"  Why or why not?  Can you think of any?

When the signal allows, like The Terminator,  I'll be back. 

[Dana]

I happened to catch part of an interesting talk on fairy tales (BBC radio or NPR).  It was saying that fairy tales are our oldest stories, some traceable back over 8000 years BC.  Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood were mentioned as two of the oldest, traceable thru many cultures.  Then I fell asleep.......
Reminded me of The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettleheim, that dates back to the 70s, but an interesting book, tracing the origins of fairy tales to common human psychological preoccupations.  Maybe we have to look at Ovid's descriptions of ancient myths/fairy tales similarly.   

[chase31]

I think that many believe that "QUID EST VEITAS" could be taken as a negative.  Multitudes have pondered that for centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_18:38

On change and Chaos:  My wife and I found these lectures on The Great Courses that we watched a couple of years ago to be very fascinating and informative.
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/search/?q=chaos
It has been called the third great revolution of 20th-century physics, after relativity and quantum theory. But how can something called chaos theory help you understand an orderly world? What practical things might it be good for? What, in fact, is chaos theory? "Chaos theory," according to Dr. Steven Strogatz, Director of the Center for Applied Mathematics at Cornell University, "is the science of how things change." It describes the behavior of any system whose state evolves over time and whose behavior is sensitive to small changes in its initial conditions.

Two quotes on change that have always made ne think about the subject of change in my life.

“I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once.”   
Thomas Wolfe , You can't go home again.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
Heraclitus

On another topic:
More, lines27-29.
"The earth more dense attracted grosser parts and moved by gravity sank underneath"
I wonder just how much the ancients understood the scientific concept of gravity?

[Dana]

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35358487

Here's the link.  Essentially I see no difference between a fairy tale and a myth, defining them both as stories that have existed over time because they answer some human need.
 I don't see Ovid's description of the beginning of the world as any more valid than, for example, Rudyard Kipling's description of early times in the Just So Stories, (when the world was new and all), which are more fun to read. 

[PatH]

So, chase31, the choice of change as a theme is far from trivial.  I wondered about their idea of gravity too.  There are a lot of hints of present day scientific concepts in this work.

[BarbStAubrey]

Basic to Ovid's tale of Order from Chaos strikes me as a lesson in 'Power' - and the belief that at the time, man believed the gods were in control of their fortune, good or bad, based on man's walking the correct path honoring the values of the gods. Then reading this philosophical poem there is an unnamed greater power that controls the gods -

Interesting to me, there is much work carried out today finding the writings and life experiences of women philosophers - how much they were ignored by men during and after their lifetime we can only surmise - however, about 400 years before Ovid some of the work of Perictione II has been found - She lived and did philosophy in Greece as a "stranger". They were highly talented and educated women who emigrated from other city states to live in the great cultural center of Athens. These women, like their male counterparts as 'free strangers in Athens' had no protection under the law. Many established liaisons with male Athenian citizens in order to obtain such protection.

Perictione II is known as the author of a text named, On Wisdom, which begins:

"Mankind came into being and exists in order to contemplate the principle of the nature of the whole. The function of wisdom is to gain possession of this very thing, and to contemplate the purpose of the things that are."

Perictione II continues by saying that wisdom is to grasp what belong to all things....it seeks the basic principles...and so the wise person catches sight of god and all that is "separated from him in seried rank and order"

Then a huge factor that must have had an influence in Ovid's thinking and writing the Metamorphosis is Augustus - he came into power when Ovid was 16 years old - "...a self-proclaimed “Restorer of the Republic.” He believed in ancestral values such as monogamy, chastity, and piety (virtue)... he introduced a number of moral and political reforms in order to improve Roman society and formulate a new Roman government and lifestyle. The basis of each of these reforms was to revive traditional Roman religion in the state.

First, Augustus restored public monuments, especially the Temples of the Gods, as part of his quest for religious revival. He also commissioned the construction of monuments that would further promote and encourage traditional Roman religion. For example, the Ara Pacis Augustae contained symbols and scenes of religious rites and ceremonies, as well as Augustus and his “ideal” Roman family – all meant to inspire Roman pride. After Augustus generated renewed interest in religion, he sought to renew the practice of worship.

...Augustus revived the priesthoods and was appointed as pontifex maximus, which made him both the secular head of the Roman Empire and the religious leader. He reintroduced past ceremonies and festivals, including the Lustrum ceremony and the Lupercalia festival... Augustus established the Imperial Cult for worship of the Emperor as a god. The cult spread throughout the entire Empire in only a few decades, and was considered an important part of Roman religion." http://www.ancient.eu/article/116/

The power story in the poem's first sections suggests a power force separating and changing Chaos into Order - Chaos is as if an anathema to Order - there is no effort as Perictione II says, "to contemplate the principle of the nature of the whole," as Perictione's II says, opening her text On Wisdom - nor does Ovid share the concept in her other quote, "the wisdom to grasp what belong to all things...the wise person catches sight of god and all that is separated from him in seried rank and order".

From Ovid we learn that there is an unnamed power that separates by "rank and order" but does not see god in Chaos as he tells of how the earth, sea, mountains, trees etc. are separated to be 'controlled' by various gods and goddesses.

Agstustus wants order - not the order that will arrange itself but order without Chaos. The concept of Chaos has been given the role of something to fear, take control of, defame with words that will later include the word, Satan, who is supposed to rule 11 dark gods.

Our legal system is based on organizing good behavior from the bad, which is chaotic behavior.  How long was medicine attempting to rid us of the bad before the realization that bad could be our most successful form of inoculation.

To see this drive for power as the answer to man's explanation for life written over 2000 years ago is not just a horrific philosophy but the loss of so much because of a lack of courage to look at Chaos and include Chaos as an equal favored god. Over the course of the human story how much human shame that freezes rather than empowers would have freed humanity to act on its full potential

Yes, it is mind boggling and a form of blame to imagine life with all the 'what ifs' - however, to realize as Dana you and chase31 suggest that the Metamorphosis is a myth and myths are similar to fairytales - Where I knew about Santa I did not recognize the Santa of power and that good versus bad that included Chaos as bad is very entrenched in our human story and this story is one more example of not honoring the whole - no wonder men have excluded women philosophers from their canon.

[JoanK]

HALCYON: that translation of the “Hear[3] Israel, y-h-v-h is our God; y-h-v-h is one.” That is only one translation. What it actually says it "eluchay ahad" (my transliteration, probably wrong) which could be translate one God, or God is one. The 4 letter acronym isn't used there.

[ginny]

Cross fingers, it looks as if I am to be allowed 6 seconds on the internet, what a BOTHER this has been, so much for Uverse.

Meanwhile lots of great new thoughts!

Going back, however, too many good things to comment on.

Joak K: very aware of change. Interestingly, he sees it as constant.
  Yes and isn't THAT strange? The are opposites, aren't they?

This is SUCH a good point!  This is a pattern that seems to recur in history, where chaos is followed by dictatorship, bringing order but eventually problems. (as in Nazi Germany)

I'm glad you liked the film on Classical Mythology, and I agree we'll want to watch this thing for that.

Wonderful points, Howard!  Ginny's "nam" mystery comes from the parenthetical in Ovid's second line: di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas), which Lombardo translates as "Oh Gods, inspire my beginnings (for you changed them too).  Could "the beginnings" changed by the gods be biographical, and refer to the changes in Ovid's life as he moved  from his origins outside of Rome to the shores of the Black Sea?

That's close. The source (and I have reread 3 books to try to find it ...the salient pages, of course....which I can't find to save my life but did find the Anderson (no relation)  resolution on the controversy over illas and illa I hope to bring here later when my Uverse will stay on.I think this one little example will serve to show the tremendous interest readers and scholars  have taken in analyzing this poem for the last couple of thousand years, and they are all different.

All the other gods are named.  Perhaps it means Ovid deliberately means to be vague. For instance, we have the appearance of man.

Does YOUR translation (Everybody) indicate who made man?

How does it handle that? Do you all  have Prometheus at all? Where did the animals come from? The stars have been smothered (in Lombardo) and they come peeking out.  We have a Titan appear  in Lombardo and Prometheus molding human forms,  as if in clay, as if a craftsman, and artist  (like Ovid) performing the second artisan inspired creation in the poem.  There are "other animals" when man gets there. Where did they come from? Does it matter?

Actually is there any order IN this creation? There  does seem to be some ambivalence here as to who made man, doesn't it? What does your translation say and what did you understand this process to be in the poem?


Karen, that was spectacular. It really was.  And perhaps that's the living modern embodiment of what Roger Travis means by a cultural truth value. You can see a type of  chaos and a new form in your own life. That's just super.

Chase, that's a much more scientific and impressive take on the weight of the planet than I had, gravity! I have no idea what the ancients knew about gravity, that would make a great thing to look up!   For some reason it never occurred to me when reading that..

Jonathan, I agree totally!  Wonderful company to bounce ideas around with, snow or no snow. . I loved this: But I'm dazzled by your audacity...to tell the history of the world, from the beginning, in your inimitable style. What a progression from those charming little love elegies  you used to write  You do put your finger on it, every time. So his readers would be expecting an Elegiac poem, which he was famous for. These poems have a certain meter. This one doesn't have it.  But is it an epic?  Chaos maybe is what it is, very carefully planned chaos. Even in the meter.  More on that later.

You did it for your own amusement.  Now this translator has read the whole poem and is aware the behavior of certain  gods is not quite what one would expect. In spades.  I am interested in how he seems to see a line drawn to man's disadvantage so early in the Prologue. 


Barbara, thank you for those different translations, aren't they something, and the definition of Chaos and the thoughts on it. That is SO interesting! And I was interested in your Santa thoughts and Dana's thoughts about fairy tales as myth.

Can you all think of a modern myth other than Rudy? And fairy tales? It wasn't so long ago that the New Yorker had an article in it which snarled at the building up in a movie of the  "mythical career of Steve Jobs."   You mention Santa, Barbara.  Unlike you, tho who didn't see any power in him, to me Santa had all the power, didn't he? That's a good comparison to myth! He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.  AND he has the power to come down the chimney, fly in a sled with reindeer and bring you presents or a lump of coal.  We could  riff on this one and add Superman, Spider Man, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Bat Man, The Hulk...who else? What is that team of 4 which the kids like, one has flame, one...How about the Transformers?

I just realized there is a LOT of "change" and "metamorphosis" going on with Superman, Batman, the Hulk, and a lot more of them!

Can you all think of any modern myths about anything?  The fairy tales alone and the Bettleheim and the book on how the Grimms brothers got them from  old wives tales, literally, passed down for generations but not written down, all fabulous.

More....

[JoanK]

"from Ovid's Metamorphoses, which I believe was inspired from the Bible,"

We forget that the Old Testament was around then, although whether it was translated into Latin and how likely Ovid, a non-Jew was to have read it, I don't know. I'm guessing that Ovid's version of the creation was taken from some current source, and to him the idea of change was more important.

I'm interested in what the Romans knew about geography. We've already seen him describe the world as a sphere, later, iwe find it has five regions: the middle hot, the edges cold and in between temperate. I wonder if this is a result of the voyaging they had done, noticing it was hotter toward the South and colder toward the North, but didn't change much East or West.

[ginny]

That is a wonderful question, Joan K. I am sure  you all have seen the Peutinger Table,  all 20 feet long of it,    which  in Mary Beard's new book she says may have been modeled on one that Augustus put up in Rome of the known world. Obviously this is a later copy. Actually this is a pretty good 5 minute film on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC_qEvXpCts

I'd love to know the answer to that one. They eventually covered a lot of territory,as we've all seen in the maps of the Roman Empire.  What an interesting question. I hope somebody can find out and bring it here.

Halcyon, how interesting about Hebrew beliefs of the Old Testament. And Howard and Bellamarie also mentioned Genesis.

I can't say if Ovid read the Old Testament, or even knew anything about Jewish theology and nobody else can, either. I CAN say that just about everything mentioned and the way it's mentioned in Ovid's  Creation story in the Metamorphoses can be, and has been,  traced to many different theories by  Greek scholars who wrote before him. Which he obviously knew. That's one reason why I hoped we could look at Homer and Hesiod and all the others and see what THEY thought to better appreciate what Ovid did with the  same material so to speak. Makes one appreciate his genius.

There were women philosophers in ancient Greece, good point,  Barbara, always a shock to learn , I think, because of their miserable treatment of women. But that's another story.


Marcus Tullius, what a beautiful post. I am so glad you decided to join in, your thoughts have enlivened and enriched the discussion.

 I loved this:
The Metamorphosis is Ovid’s attempt, it seems to me, to enter the debate about the nature of the world in which there are competing and opposing forces at work all the time.  There are forces that propel toward chaos and disorder – I am thinking of the laws of thermodynamics, and there are those that push for order and form – for example gravitational and biological forces

You and Barbara and others are saying "  Change is the constant."

What's the opposite of constant? How can change BE constant? Aren't they opposites?

THIS is very astute and is something I really want to touch on when we get there:  Was she still Io when she was the heifer?  It seems like one can change and still remain essentially the same.  After all, we all change throughout our lifetime, and yet remain the same individual even though our outward appearance undergoes dramatic changes.  I think Ovid was touching on that idea.

Super points on the change/ constant but ARE we the same individual  that we were as children? Has there been no change in any area at all? Are the things which are changing different from the things which are constant?

I just read a really startling theory on Io and this very thing, and it stunned me.   As you've said it pertains to today, too. I hope we can look at it when we get to Io.

Just super conversation and research and thoughts  on so many different levels on 88 lines of poetry. You've all outdone yourselves!

So what about Prometheus? Who in YOUR translation seems to have created man?

[bellamarie]

JoanK., 

We forget that the Old Testament was around then, although whether it was translated into Latin and how likely Ovid, a non-Jew was to have read it, I don't know. I'm guessing that Ovid's version of the creation was taken from some current source, and to him the idea of change was more important.

I could not forget the Old Testament was around then, and I do believe there had to be some way Ovid knew of Genesis, because his creation is just too close to it to imagine he actually came up with it on his own in my humble opinion.  As I was re reading Book One last night as I was falling off to sleep, I realized so much of this book aligns with Genesis.  After doing a little Google search I am not alone in my theory.

http://sites.psu.edu/mil5246cams045/2015/10/02/metamorphoses-vs-the-bible/

Metamorphoses vs. The Bible
October 2, 2015 mil5246 2 Comments

There are many people who debate the similarities between Ovis’ Metamorphoses and the Bible’s genesis story. As both recount the tale of creation, it begs the question whether the similarities between these two works are based off of each other.

To dive into this, I’d like to first discuss the timeline. Ovid was born 43 BC and died 17 AD (courtesy of Wikipedia). Right here we can see the possibilities of this. This was a few years before the great fire in Rome during 64 AD where christianity started to be persecuted. Prior to that time period, the Jews were a strong influence in society. Based on these considerations, a conclusion can be drawn that it was technically feasible that Ovid’s work was at least partially inspired by Genesis. If we look at potential motivations, connections can also be seen. It is possible, that to gain more traction, Ovid used stories that the common people were aware of, such as the Noah and the Great Flood.
______________________________

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, there are myths that have clear parallels to stories found in the Book of Genesis from the Bible; this indicates that Ovid and his audience were at least aware of the book of Genesis and/or Judaism which in turn influenced their own stories. Specifically, each text has a version of a flood that wipes out the human race. The flood is a specific event that each text shares and the similarities between the stories are not coincidental or inconsequential enough to be ignored.

From the New International Version of the Bible:
“The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time,” (Gen. 6.5) and “Every living thing that moved on the earth perished – birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind,” (Gen. 7.21) and “But Noah found favour in the eyes of the LORD…Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God,” (Gen. 6.8-9) and “But God remembered Noah…and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded…The water receded steadily from the earth,” (Gen. 8.1-3).

From Metamorphoses:

“But this new stock [of man], too, proved contemptuous of the gods, very greedy for slaughter, and passionate,” (159-61) and “Most living things are drowned outright. Those who have escaped the water slow starvation at last o’ercomes through lack of food,” (310-12) and “…Jove saw…that only one man…and that but one woman…[were] left, both innocent and both worshippers of God, he rent the clouds asunder…showed the land once more to the sky, and the heavens to the land. Then too the anger of the sea subsides…by that signal to recall the floods and streams,” (323-34).

The passages quoted above show the similarities in how the god figures felt toward mankind, how they destroyed life on Earth, how they found humans to spare from the flood, and how the humans influenced the god figures decisions to take the floodwaters away. Another similarity between the texts is that after the floodwaters receded the humans created/went to altars/shrines to pay their respects to the god figures. These examples show that Ovid and his audience had to have at least periphery knowledge of one story from the Bible. At most, Ovid and his audience felt the stories from the Bible had some importance or clout in order to adopt the themes into their own cultural mythology. This similarity of flood stories from the two texts is just one example, of possibly many, that shows the influence the Bible had on Ovid and the Roman people at large.
[/i]
http://sites.psu.edu/cjr5375cams045/2015/10/02/weekly-blog-post-4-floods-and-the-bibles-influence-on-metamorphoses/#more-119

These are just a couple of sites, I found many others that compare Ovid's Metamorphosis to Genesis.

I agree, to Ovid, change was important, thus the title of this book, Metamorphosis, but I also see the importance he has placed on the god of creation, on canon, morals, and religion.  For me and I don't know why, I feel I am missing the importance of "chaos."  Is it because of my translation?  Change is indicative in the world, but change does not have to be seen as chaotic.  Hmmm.....this is me scratching my head.   

[Mkaren557]

Many cultures have creation myths and we know that Ovid had many sources for the Metamorposes.  I suspect he was familiar with the Sumer creation myth and the Hindu and perhaps even Genesis.  The interesting piece for me is not which came first, but the similarities in the myths.  Ovid's rendering of the Creation myth is unique in that it springs from Roman mythology.  It reflects what is accepted in Roman culture at this time. I am fascinated by how much was known about the earth and its geography at this time. The death of Octavian begins a period of growing chaos and decline in Roman power.  Out of chaos change is born once again

[BarbStAubrey]

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes, Mkaren - thanks for the reminder - there appears to be creation myths for every society on the globe.

Hindu creation myth - http://www.read-legends-and-myths.com/hindu-creation-myth.html

Germanic creation myth - http://www.read-legends-and-myths.com/hindu-creation-myth.html

Navajo creation myth - http://www.navajolegends.org/navajo-creation-story/

Polynesian creation myth - www.educationscotland.gov.uk/Images/PolynesianCreationstory_tcm4-730167.pdf

[marcustullius]

What about modern myths?
If by ‘myth’ I mean a commonly held or believed story about a beginning, a creation story, in this age of ours, where reason and science instruct, no longer transmitted by word of mouth like that of the ancients, but by the written and recorded word, I would have to say that our new myths emerge from and are supported by the new understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.  So may I propose that the new myths are now the creation stories as explained by scientific investigation of the material world.  And there are lots of stories.  We have the story of the beginning of everything: the Big Bang and the expansion of the universe.  We have the story of the beginning of life on Earth.  We have the story of extinctions, like that of the dinosaurs.  We have the story of the origin of mankind and of Homo sapiens in particular.  We have the story of the founding of new nations.  One does not need to be a scientist to hold or to believe these stories.  Most of us would not be able to narrate the details of them.  That requires great study.  We, the regular people, can only tell the bare outlines.  We get the stories in simple, condensed, understandable forms from various sources, mostly schools, but also mass media like television, books, and magazines; no longer is there the need for the itinerant rhapsodes with their formidable memories of the long lost past.

[marcustullius]

A note about change:
We see in Ovid things change.  Chaos changes to something recognizable and something with form, versus unformed globs.  I believe also when considering change, we need to account for cause.  For nothing changes without a cause.  I think Ovid recognized that.  The gods were usually the cause of many changes.  But are there other causes beside gods or God?  It seems that with change, we humans seek causes.  Isn't that natural for us?  We wouldn't accept that something underwent a change without recognizing that a cause preceded and led to it.  Aristotle proposed four causes for all changes in nature: material, formal, efficient, and final cause.

[marcustullius]

I wanted to add one more thing.
Homer included several transformations in his Odyssey.  Athena changed forms; Odysseus changed forms; some of his soldiers were changed into pigs.
Shakespeare also included transformations in one of his plays, from what I can remember.  It was Twelfth Night.  Not sure the reason was.  Maybe for comedic effect.

[hullwmr]

I think Marcus is right on in suggesting that contemporary theories of creation are  new myths. I would also add political myths of progress, etc. If myth is a process by which we attempt to see or impose order on the reality of chaos, are we not the creators of  order? Why do we need an exterior force to bring chaos into more managable perspectives?  Quantum physics suggests that reality is in the eye of the beholder and has blurred the distinction between a wave and a particle.  That is very exciting  to me because the  myths we embrace are themselves in the process of transformation as we grow and change. 

[Roxania]

One of the things in the "Rudy Thing" video that struck me was the idea of "cultural truth values."  The first thing that leapt to mind was the Roman idea of "mores," the shared beliefs about what it meant to be Roman and what a Roman should be.  The second thing was that, when I (and I suppose most of us) were growing up during the Cold War, it seemed that we used to have something like that shared value system, and although we might have disagreed on various things, we could do so civilly because there was so much cultural agreement on other things.  After the Civil Rights Movement and Viet Nam and Watergate and lots of other things, we no longer seem to share the same cultural truth values--there seem to be, if I may oversimplify, "red state" and "blue state" mores and mythologies. In Ovid's Rome, people would convene in houses to listen to recitations by the same group of poets, reinforcing their shared mores; when we were growing up, we all watched the same TV shows on three networks.  Now nobody reads the same things, watches the same shows, listens to the same music.  Where are we going to get our cultural truth values? Is "consumer choice" really the only value that we share?

I think hullwmr touched on this when he said, "I would also add political myths of progress, etc. If myth is a process by which we attempt to see or impose order on the reality of chaos, are we not the creators of  order?" That's why this stuff matters--what kind of order are we going to create?  And what if we can't agree about it, or about what our cultural truths are?

[PatH]

Dana, thanks for reminding me of the Just So Stories.  Yes, Kipling's fun.

"Before the High and Far-Off Times, O my Best Beloved, came the Time of the Very Beginnings; and that was in the days when the Eldest Magician was getting Things ready.  "First he got the Earth ready; then he got the Sea ready; and then he told all the Animals that they could come out and play."

The importance of the Greek myths isn't so much a question of validity, but of how thoroughly they are woven into our Western culture, into our literature and thinking.

[PatH]

Marcustullius--scientific theory as the modern myth.  If one of the functions of myth is to make the world around us less threatening, does science do this for us?

[Roxania]

I think of science as more of a competing method of looking at the world to myth-making.  Scientists don't make up stories to explain things, and most of them would very much resent being accused of doing so. And their findings aren't necessarily comforting--as anyone who saw last week's Nova, about the krill die-off that has essentially yanked the bottom of the food chain out from under many species of fish, whales and penguins that depend on it, can attest.  Science can be very threatening indeed.

[BarbStAubrey]

I could be wrong but what I understood from Marcustullius' posts was our shrinking into a simple story the science that explains the universe and it is that shrunken story that is our current myths.

After reading last night Marcustullius' posts all of a sudden it hit me - the issue is not Order versus Chaos - Order is a system that came from Chaos - and after reading here last fall Darby Nelson's book For Love of Lakes we know how the earth was carved into the land mass we see today and how lakes and rivers were formed. While reading Darby Nelson, on PBS the documentary was aired explaining how all of our Flora through out the US all coming from the one state not affected by the ice age, Alabama. Again, we know that trees and flowers were not the whim of Antheia, goddess of flowers and flowery wreaths or Demeter, goddess of the harvest, the fertility of the earth, grains and the seasons or even, Satyresses, female rustic nature spirits.

It was so easy to get caught up in Ovid's story of Chaos and Control to overlook there are many systems in Chaos and separating into Order is simply one system - yes, it took a few more thousands of years but for instance, Britain's annual budget for coastal maintenance, repair and emergency services is not running red as it did all because of Fractal Geometry. A system more recently extracted from Chaos by Mandelbrot and his uncle while incarcerated in the Nazi concentration camps. Their original search was to explain and measure the action of a waterfalls that led to Britain's ability to measure accurately its coastline that include coves and rocky extensions.

So yes, the concept of reading this as a fairy tale - a myth - is right on - the concept of remembering how a butterfly in Brazil affects the weather in the US is another delightful story that can explain Edward Lorenz, of MIT
work on the chaotic behavior of a nonlinear system - a mouthful compared to a story of a butterfly - and so, regardless in historic time we are still sorting through Chaos and we simply started with Order, that as we learned earlier is natural to most bodies - humans simply added to it and adjusted the use of Order further than what was its natural inclination.

Now this unknown force that is called natural by some, the work of this force is gradually showing itself as computers allow more data and mathematics to analyze the universe then any time in history and where Ovid did not name the force some cultures have given this force the name, God.

Yes, I can see the whole now and can move along seeing what and how we value what we named. 

[bellamarie]

By simple definition of the word myth, we must keep in mind that Ovid as any other mythological writer's work is fictitious.  They may in fact which I believe Ovid has done, take from a real source (the book of Genesis), but ultimately their work is not real.  It is made up of falsehoods, supernaturals, and phenomenons.


Definition of Myth:
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=definition%20of%20myth

myth
miTH/Submit
noun
1. a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
synonyms:   folk tale, folk story, legend, tale, story, fable, saga, mythos, lore, folklore, mythology
"ancient Greek myths"
2. a widely held but false belief or idea.

Merriam - Webster Dictionary
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/myth

myth:
noun \ˈmith\

Simple Definition of myth

: an idea or story that is believed by many people but that is not true
: a story that was told in an ancient culture to explain a practice, belief, or natural occurrence
: such stories as a group
 
Full Definition of myth

1 a :  a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon
b :  parable, allegory

2 a :  a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone; especially :  one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society <seduced by the American myth of individualism — Orde Coombs>

b :  an unfounded or false notion

3:  a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence

4:  the whole body of myths

parable:  a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle

allegory:   a story in which the characters and events are symbols that stand for ideas about human life or for a political or historical situation

[marcustullius]

Does YOUR translation (Everybody) indicate who made man?

How does it handle that? Do you all  have Prometheus at all? Where did the animals come from? The stars have been smothered (in Lombardo) and they come peeking out.  We have a Titan appear  in Lombardo and Prometheus molding human forms,  as if in clay, as if a craftsman, and artist  (like Ovid) performing the second artisan inspired creation in the poem.  There are "other animals" when man gets there. Where did they come from? Does it matter?

Actually is there any order IN this creation? There  does seem to be some ambivalence here as to who made man, doesn't it? What does your translation say and what did you understand this process to be in the poem?

Here is a passage from the translation by Ian Johnston. In it, man was made when Prometheus mixed the seed of a god with river water:

Scarcely had he separated all things         
within specific limits in this way,
when the stars, which had remained long hidden,      70
buried in thick mist, began to blaze forth            
through the entire sky. And to make sure
no place would lack its forms of living things,
the stars and the forms of gods occupy
the floor of heaven, the waters yielded
to let glittering fish live there, the land
took in wild beasts, the gusting air took birds.
What was still missing was an animal
more spiritual than these, more capable
of higher thinking, which would be able
to dominate the others. Man was born—
either that creator of things, the source
of a better world, made him from god’s seed,   
or the Earth, newly formed and divided                       80
only recently from lofty aether
still held seeds related to the heavens,
which Prometheus, Iapetus’ son, mixed
with river water and made an image
of the gods who rule all things.* Other creatures
keep their heads bent and gaze upon the ground,                     
but he gave man a face which could look up                       
and ordered him to gaze into the sky
and, standing erect, raise his countenance
towards the stars. Thus, what had been crude earth
and formless, was transformed and then took on
the shapes of human life, unknown till then.

I heard a college professor say that the ancient Greeks did not place much emphasis in their myths on the creation of man.  It did not seem important to them.  They emphasized the creation of the world instead.

[marcustullius]

If one of the functions of myth is to make the world around us less threatening, does science do this for us?

I don't know the answer to the question.  Maybe someone will attempt it.  It appears to me there are different kinds of myths.  There are creation myths that tell the story of the creation.  And there are other myths, or stories, most of which are in the Metamorphosis, which seem to be like morality stories.  They tell what happens when somebody does something bad.  Look at the passage with Lycaon.  He was behaving very badly and the god came down and punished him, turning him into a wolf.

[BarbStAubrey]

Some really lovely lines in that quote aren't there...

the stars and the forms of gods occupy
the floor of heaven, the waters yielded
to let glittering fish live there, the land
took in wild beasts, the gusting air took birds.

and then

ordered him to gaze into the sky
and, standing erect, raise his countenance
towards the stars.

I wonder if 'ordered' is to command or arrange?

[PatH]

In Lombardo, it's

He gave to humans an upturned face, and told them to lift
Their eyes to the stars.

[bellamarie]

My translation by Allen Mandelbaum regarding the creation of man, says:

No sooner had he set all things within
defining limits than the stars, long hid
beneath the crushing darkness, could begin
to gleam throughout the heavens.  That no region
be left without its share of living things,
stars and the forms of gods then occupied
the porch of heaven; and the waters shared
their dwelling with the gleaming fishes; earth recieved the beasts, and restless air, the birds.

An animal with higher intellect,
more noble, able__one to rule the rest;
such was the living thing the earth still lacked.
Then man was born.  Either the Architect
of All, the author of the the universe.,
in order to beget a better world,
created man from seed divine__or else
Prometheus, son of Iapetus, made man
by mixing new-made earth with fresh rainwater
(for earth had only recently been set
apart from heaven, and earth still kept
seeds of the sky__remains of their shared birth);
and when he fashioned man, his mold recalled
the masters of all things, the gods.  And while
all other animals are bent, head down,
and fix their gaze upon the ground, to man
he gave face that is held high; he had
man stand erect, his eyes upon the stars.
So was the earth, which until then had been
so rough and indistinct, transformed: it wore
a thing unknown before__the human force.

The words that leaped out at me in all of this was, "in order to beget a better world, created man from seed divine"


For me, Ovid is saying man was created from the divine seed, (of God).  And I like how he says, in order to beget a better world.  What good would creating all the earth, animals and nature be if man were not created in human form, to procreate and bring about more human life, that was to rule over all the animals. 

marcustullis,

He was behaving very badly and the god came down and punished him, turning him into a wolf.

I see Ovid's parallel to Adam and Eve's story here: 

God knew when he created man, that sin would be a part of our nature, and punishment would be a form of teaching man to be more pleasing to God. One of the first things Adam and Eve did after being created was to sin. The constant in life is sin.  It is when man learns from sin, and punishment, he is able to transform himself into a better person, hence....to beget a better world.

The "creation of man from clay" is a theme that recurs throughout world religions and mythologies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_of_man_from_clay

[PatH]

Here's Lombardo on the creation of mankind:

Still missing was a creature finer than these,
With greater mind, one who could rule the rest;
Man was born, whether fashioned from immortal seed
By the Master Artisan who made this better world,
Or whether Earth, newly parted from Aether above
And still bearing some seeds of her cousin Sky,
Was mixed with rainwater by Titan Prometheus
And molded into the image of omnipotent gods.
And while other animals look on all fours at the ground
He gave to humans an upturned face, and told them to lift
Their eyes to the stars.  And so Earth, just now barren,
A wilderness without form, was changed and made over,
Dressing herself in the unfamiliar figures of men.

[PatH]

And here's Martin:

    An animal more like the gods than these,
more intellectually capable
and able to control the other beasts,
had not as yet appeared: now man was born,
either because the framer of all things,
the fabricator of this better world,
created man out of his own divine
substance--or else because Prometheus
took up a clod (so lately broken off
from lofty aether that it still contained
some elements in common with its kin),
and mixing it with water, molded it
into the shape of gods, who govern all.
    And even though all other animals
lean forward and look down toward the ground,
he gave to man a face that is uplifted,
and ordered him to stand erect and look
directly up into the vaulted heavens
and turn his countenance to meet the stars;
the earth, that was so lately rude and formless,
was changed by taking on the shapes of men.

[bellamarie]

BabrStAubrey,

I wonder if 'ordered' is to command or arrange?

I think if you look at all the different translations, it is stating man was to look to the skies, rather than the ground like the animals.  He is giving human life a more splendid view of life, separating them from animals.  IMO

Various translations:

ordered him to gaze into the sky

to man
he gave face that is held high; he had
man stand erect, his eyes upon the stars.

he gave to man a face that is uplifted,


and ordered him to stand erect and look
directly up into the vaulted heavens
and turn his countenance to meet the stars;

He gave to humans an upturned face, and told them to lift
Their eyes to the stars.

[PatH]

Yes, that seems clear.

[BarbStAubrey]

hmm looks like our translators are mixed - some suggesting it was a command to lift our faces and other it was arranged that we could and would lift our faces.

Ouch the bit that lasted for too many folks is "that was to rule over all the animals" - and "A wilderness without form" - where as this translation,
 
And so Earth, just now barren,
A wilderness without form, was changed and made over,
Dressing herself in the unfamiliar figures of men.

shows, instead of our hubris towards animals and the wilderness that for many they believe is their right, a wilderness changed and made over, dressing herself in the unfamiliar figures of men which does not say the man is doing the changing and making over but rather the wilderness "was changed and made over" when the wilderness "dressed herself in the unfamiliar figures of men".

We've read so much about our belief that we are superior rather than a part of the wilderness and the animal world. Susan Nance says it succinctly in her paper, "On Wild Animals, Hubris, and Redemption" when she says, 

"We document in film and book the nature of wild animals, a conversation complicated by those animals’ frequent ability (while juveniles, at least) to accommodate human demands by surviving peacefully in captivity.

...stories of well-meaning people who take wild animals captive—most prominently elephants and lions—believing that only they can keep those animals safe and fulfilled. Where we have not humanized animals we have made them human pets. In each context, humans labor under profound, self-interested and emotional attachments to their nonhuman captives, providing a neat conclusion asserting that animals can indicate morality in humans by their tame response."

Susan continues in her paper, "...animals are domesticated becoming dependent upon the charity of humans and artificially separated from other animals of it kind, who could provide the separated animal with an appropriate life experience—" and asks without elaborating, what it would mean if "young humans were separated from other humans at an early age."

Her paper continues with how those animals we do not domesticate we capture and euthanize to 'tame' the wilderness to our liking.

These various translations allow me to see how we bring our values with us - if we value living as a part of, entwined in, blended, combined as one with the earth including its wilderness the words we choose will reflect that value and if we believe the wilderness is the chaos we must bring into order and therefore we have hubris over animals than that value will speak by our chose of words. 

[marcustullius]

Did Ovid make up that part about man's creation? Or did he get it from somewhere? What is Ovid trying to do?  What is he trying to accomplish with that story?  It seems unique.

[bellamarie]

Yet another translation I found, which I actually like a lot. 

Translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al

A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was Man design'd:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heav'nly fire
The God of Nature did his soul inspire,
Or Earth, but new divided from the sky,
And, pliant, still retain'd th' aetherial energy:
Which wise Prometheus temper'd into paste,
And, mixt with living streams, the godlike image cast.

Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,
Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes
Beholds his own hereditary skies.
From such rude principles our form began;
And earth was metamorphos'd into Man.

http://classics.mit.edu//Ovid/metam.1.first.html

BarbStAubrey, 

And so Earth, just now barren,
A wilderness without form, was changed and made over,
Dressing herself in the unfamiliar figures of men.

shows, instead of our hubris towards animals and the wilderness that for many they believe is their right, a wilderness changed and made over, dressing herself in the unfamiliar figures of men which does not say the man is doing the changing and making over but rather the wilderness "was changed and made over" when the wilderness "dressed herself in the unfamiliar figures of men"

And to go one step further....by this translation, so too was "earth was metamorphos'd into Man."

So man is exalted to all on earth, so it seems it is up to man to protect not only animals, but also, nature and the earth.  Man was made, to bring order to the world, inspired by the God of nature.

marcustullis, In answer to your question, I believe Ovid was inspired by the book of Genesis, and turned it into a myth of creation.  Not so unique in my opinion.