Ovid's Metamorphoses

[howshap]

The Age of Iron
Pietro Da Cortona (Barrettini)

(b. 1596, Cortona, d. 1669, Roma)

(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

For Your Consideration:

Week Two: Gods and men learn to interact January 26--?

 First section: The Four Ages

  Bk I:89-112 The Golden Age
  Bk I:113-124 The Silver Age
  Bk I:125-150 The Bronze Age

1. Have you heard other versions of the Four Ages?  Where did Ovid get this story?

2. Why do you think the ages progress from better to worse instead of the other direction?

3. The  Golden Age sounds wonderful, doesn't it?  What would your idea of a "Golden Age" feature?

4. What is your favorite line from Ovid  about the Golden Age?

5. What was it that turned the Golden Age into the Silver Age?

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

Second Section: Giants and Lycaon
  Bk I:151-176 The giants
  Bk I:177-198 Jupiter threatens to destroy humankind
  Bk I: 199-243 Lycaon is turned into a wolf

1. What are the Giants? Why is this chapter there?  Does it accomplish anything?

2. We now meet the Pantheon of Gods for the first time. The imagery here is spectacular.  What line or lines particularly struck you in the writing  about their conference?

3. A direct reference is made to Augustus for the first time in this poem. Who is he being likened to? Why?

4. What would the Romans have seen as Lycaon’s real offense?

Discussion Leaders: PatH and ginny

Of the Four Ages, the Golden  is a bore because it does not support that essential human need to get up and do the things that need to be done (Thanks, Garrison Keillor!), or more accurately, to seek out challenging things to do.

  Ovid's Silver Age is essentially descriptive not of climate change, but of seasonal change  and its stimulation of agriculture.  Next,in two and a half lines he leaves the Bronze Age to Homer and Vergil.  Then he blasts the Iron Age in which people must  live and  struggle to survive in a world Ovid views as motivated by"unholy Greed(Lombardo, l. 133).  That description is the most interesting to me because it expresses the age-old misunderstanding of the function that private property, commerce, and enterprise perform in advancing human welfare.  It required a long journey from Ovid's time before John Locke and Adam Smith got it right.

 Intellectuals, clerics and poets seem particularly prone to rail against the system that shelters, clothes and feed them.  They are uncomfortable  because that system is driven by self-interest instead of some higher altruism.  Ovid and William Wordsworth both complained  that "The world is too much with us; late and soon,/Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers."  Ovid's lament about the privatization of "fields/Once held in common like the sunlight and air" (Lombardo, ll.137-138) ignores realities like the tragedy of the commons, i.e. over-grazing that destroys common pasture lands' productivity.

Of course, privately driven economies have always been afflicted by the duplicity and fraud Ovid highlights, but such problems were addressed by law in his day, and and are so addressed in ours, albeit  imperfectly.  Oh brother Ponzi, where art thou?  Condemning commerce as infra dig smacks more of moral snobbery than of common sense.  But it has always been stylish in academe (except in the Economics Department) and societies structured like Augustan Rome and Downton Abbey.           

[BarbStAubrey]

I feel like Ginny coming in here today - Wow, Wow, Wow and then Wow again...

3 Wow's for Ginny - first one, to share with us a wealth of information about paper, vellum, ancient libraries - I need to read and re-read again and again - seriously to get it all - and the link says paper only hit Rome in 163 or 168  not going back to get it exact but just over a 100 years before Ovid hit the scene - and with all our technology I really like paper - good water color rag paper, lovely printed notes and letter paper, posters, towels to wipe up my kitchen mess, magazines, notebooks, post-its, envelopes to turn into todo lists, and of course books.

Then another Wow to actually own a fragment of an ancient text - oh oh oh - how special is that - just repeating that bit and I feel like a floating spirit surveying mankind.

And the third wow - to have accumulated so much knowledge and shared it with us - I recently found one of my saying's I love to collect that said - Life is to express not impress - and you can hear in the post the expression of what has been a meaningful part of your life - and I am impressed although I can tell the wonderful sharing of information was not meant to impress but, to impart the love of knowledge about this time in our history. Thanks for your generosity.

The fourth Wow is reading howshap's post - the thesis on greed versus enterprise was a window I had never explored - and to think again, as so many of our beliefs today, this difference was noted just over 2000 years ago. There is a lot of entrenched beliefs that we seem to be attempting to step over or bang into within the past 50 years - I do not think any of us really understood how entrenched was the gut level reaction we carry to the social behavior and economic understanding we feel challenged to change. Never really did read John Locke and Adam Smith except to gloss over in school enough to pass a test. Thanks howshap for bringing them to our attention - maybe it took this read to see the dichotomy between the two branches of thought before I could have even appreciated these two authors.   

[chase31]

It seems there are legends of giants in many cultures.  Even in the Bible.
"Genesis 6:4King James Version (KJV)
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

I read a book by Adrienne Mayor titled "The First Fossil Hunters".  In the book she gives much evidence that many mystical beasts were the mistaken identify of prehistoric fossils.  The Griffen came from Protoceratops and other dinosaur remains that littered the ground in Scythia..  The fossilized skull of Mammoths sans tusks and trunk can look remarkably like a giant human scull, as well as the leg bones appearing to be human.

Here is a link to the book.
http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Fossil-Hunters-Dinosaurs/dp/0691150133

As an aside I also found her book on Mithradates " The Poison King:The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy" Linked below, to be a great read.
http://www.amazon.com/Poison-King-Legend-Mithradates-Deadliest/dp/0691150265/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454091801&sr=1-4&keywords=adrienne+mayor

bellamarie:  I am so glad you enjoyed the Cicero quote.  I have always loved that quote myself.

[Mkaren557]

The ancient Chinese social structure had scholars at the top, then farmers, then artisans, and at the bottom were merchants, who lived off the work of others, or so they believed.  I agree that many resent those who lend and buy and sell in our society.  In fact, I who am a consumer of all of that feel as if I am going to be cheated when I buy in the marketplace.  We are distrustful of the seller, who is ofter very far removed from the manufacturer, the banker, and the owner.  However, not much changes:  guilds were formed by artisans in the European Middle Ages, mainly to protect the quality of their goods from unscrupulous artisans among them: bread filled with chalk, rotten fish, shoddy made boots etc. My students never understood why society is willing to pay movie stars and rock stars so much more than those who teach children.  God love my students.

[PatH]

Chase, thanks for the fossil links.  I had no idea a mammoth skull looked sort of like a big human skull.

These giants came from the earth too.  They're the sons of Tartarus and the Earth, many armed, with snake feet.

For those of you not reading online Kline, the site has a wonderful table of the whole cast of characters.  There are links to individual characters where they appear in the text, but there's a link to the whole thing at the top of the first page; it's called Index-Concordance.

My seriously nerdy childhood left me with some familiarity with mythical figures, but it's impossible to keep them all straight.  There are just too many of them.

[JoanK]

I can't miss a day of this discussion -- I miss so much.

A comment on the parrot that was really a parakeet in Ovid's poem: when we read Homer together, I was struck by the fact that apparently today we have to guess at what bird some of his bird names refer to. Homer knew his birds: his descriptions tell us that, so when we see mention of sandpipers nesting in trees, it's a problem with the translator, not Homer. I followed up with some of the references, and found, indeed, places that admit it's a guess what bird is referred to. Probably no one but me cares, but I wonder if that's a problem in Latin as well?

[bellamarie]

MKaren,

My students never understood why society is willing to pay movie stars and rock stars so much more than those who teach children.

As a teacher/daycare provider/parent, grandparent and now a parent instructor for parents of an organization called Heartbeat of Toledo which helps educate mostly unwed mothers, I too have always wondered why people who care for, and educate children to become the leaders of the future, are paid and respected so little.  A person who puts pieces in a socket in an assembly line for a vehicle makes so much more than any person dealing with education on the lower levels, before college. And, without going into too much of a rant I have to say an athlete who wears helmets make enormous amounts more money to play a professional sport than a soldier who wears a helmet and risks their lives to protect our country.   It truly has always baffled me.  Seems we haven't gotten it all figured out and prioritized even today.

Chase, Thank you, those fossil links were very interesting.  I loved when we read the book Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier.  A quote from Publisher's Weekly: The discoveries of fossils on the beaches of Lyme Regis, England, in the 19th century rocked the world and opened the minds of scientists to the planet's unimaginable age and the extinction of species. 

Amazon quote:  "On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, poor and uneducated Mary Anning learns that she has a unique gift: "the eye" to spot fossils no one else can see. When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community on edge, the townspeople to gossip, and the scientific world alight."

http://www.amazon.com/Remarkable-Creatures-Novel-Tracy-Chevalier/dp/0452296722

I was never so intrigued about fossils until I read this book.

howshap, 

Intellectuals, clerics and poets seem particularly prone to rail against the system that shelters, clothes and feed them.  They are uncomfortable  because that system is driven by self-interest instead of some higher altruism

I agree, I think common people do indeed make these others classes feel uncomfortable.  It seems they have little to no tolerance for those less fortunate.  Although I must say, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, or simply Kate, and Prince William, along with Harry seem to have broken the glass ceiling on this attitude for their generation, as has Pope Francis who sneaks out into the night with normal black priestly clothes to visit the poor.   

[PatH]

Bellamarie:

I think common people do indeed make these others classes feel uncomfortable.

Howshap and bellamarie, I agree with you. and duplicity and fraud, as well as altruism cut across all class lines.

[PatH]

JoanK, I'm glad we have you here to keep us straight about anything to do with birds.

[marcustullius]

Relating back to Ginny’s account of reading and writing in ancient Rome, I want to add something to the discussion. 

First, I can just imagine how difficult it must have been to learn to read and write Latin during those times.  It must have been orders of magnitude more difficult than for us moderns to learn to read and write in English, for example.  Considering that texts had no word spacing or punctuations, as Ginny noted, it would be a formidable task to read and comprehend a text.  One would need a lot of time and a lot of perseverance to plow through a text of say five hundred words, which for us is a short essay.  I would think that it would require several readings before one could go through a text without plodding through in one sitting. 

Second, I have read that silent reading was not practiced until much later in time, probably in the middle ages, although I believe I have read somewhere that a few individuals did practice silent reading in antiquity.  I can’t remember if one such individual was Saint Augustine.  Can you imagine how noisy a public library must have been in antiquity, with people reading out loud?  Reading out loud seems to me more natural and easier than silent reading.  Whenever I want to really read a book and retain what I read, I force myself to read out loud.  In that way, I can receive the spoken and written words simultaneously. 

Third, returning to the difficulty of reading texts, picking out words from among long strands of letters would require the power of Gestalt by which one can see patterns in a jumble, that is, see the forest from the trees.  That requires a lot of brain power and probably training and experience.

And let’s not forget the importance of dictionaries.  I don’t believe there was any Latin dictionary in ancient times.  Dictionaries impose a standardization of spelling and meaning of words.  Without dictionaries, spelling varies widely from one moment to the next.  Unrecognized spelling of words in texts would have added to the difficulty of reading and comprehension.

One of the questions posted was:  Why do you think the ages progress from better to worse instead of the other direction? I believe it was a view of mankind held by some, even today, that man’s impact on the world leads to degradation.  Ovid’s view is understandable in view that he lived through horrendous civil wars and there were a lot of corruption.  But it was one view.  There was another view, which is most likely shared by many today.  That other view is that the history of man is progressive, not regressive.  In Ovid’s Iron Age, man’s achievements are not celebrated.  On the other hand, there was Sophocles’ Antigone in which he put in the mouths of the chorus, an Ode to Man, in which he celebrated the powers and achievements of man:   
   
There are many strange and wonderful things,
          but nothing more strangely wonderful than man.
          He moves across the white-capped ocean seas                           
          blasted by winter storms, carving his way
          under the surging waves engulfing him.
          With his teams of horses he wears down
          the unwearied and immortal earth,
          the oldest of the gods, harassing her,
          as year by year his ploughs move back and forth.                                   [340]
          He snares the light-winged flocks of birds,
          herds of wild beasts, creatures from deep seas,
          trapped in the fine mesh of his hunting nets.
          O resourceful man, whose skill can overcome                             
          ferocious beasts roaming mountain heights.                                           [350]
          He curbs the rough-haired horses with his bit
          and tames the inexhaustible mountain bulls,
          setting their savage necks beneath his yoke.
          He’s taught himself speech and wind-swift thought,
          trained his feelings for communal civic life,
          learning to escape the icy shafts of frost,
          volleys of pelting rain in winter storms,
          the harsh life lived under the open sky.
          That’s man—so resourceful in all he does.                                       [360]
          There’s no event his skill cannot confront—
          other than death—that alone he cannot shun,
          although for many baffling sicknesses
          he has discovered his own remedies.

And here is Shakespeare’s Ode to Man from the mouth of Hamlet:
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.

The modern progressive view of man’s history developed in the 17th century by English whig historians who saw a pattern of improvement in man’s lot, with qualitative material improvement in living standards and development of political and individual freedoms.  I think subsequent English philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke built on those interpretations.  The view is still shared by many today.

To view history as progressive, in my opinion, is to apply Aristotle’s final cause for change.  In other words, if there is progress, then there is a purpose or an end to be fulfilled.

[howshap]

What a lovely conversation this has been.  Thanks to all for your insights and observations.  Sophocles' Ode to Man was a revelation.  I had no idea that anything like it existed before Shakespeare wrote  Hamlet.  The contrast with Ovid's Iron Age could not be more vivid.  Now I must add Antigone to my reading list.   

[BarbStAubrey]

howshap we read Antigone here on Senior Learn - maybe a year or so ago - but then time does pass quickly - at any rate it should be in the archive and you may want to refer to it and see our understanding and struggles reading the story.

[PatH]

Barb, time does fly--it was spring of 2012.  For anyone looking for it in our archives, they are listed chronologically, and the heading of that discussion is Women in Greek Drama.  JoanK and I discussed three plays, Antigone, Agamemnon, and Iphigenia in Taurus, all containing examples of strong women.  (There are a lot of strong women in Greek plays, in spite of their powerless position in their society.)

Howshap, I hope you do read Antigone; not only is it good reading, it presents an interesting moral dilemma, on which different generations have taken different sides.  Warning: after an opening conversation, there is a very fanciful two page description of the battle that has just occurred.  It takes a lot of work to make sense of what the chorus is saying.  But the rest of the play isn't like that.  It's very exciting.

[ginny]

Marcustullius, what an interesting comparison and what beautiful words! I want to come back to the dictionary issue, but I love the contrast you have put here, and the insights, too.

Barbara, how nice of you, thank you. I feel the same when I read all of  everybody's posts in here, too, and I agree with Howard, this is dazzling.

Our section today has likewise some dazzling parts to me.

First off, we have Giants suddenly. Of unknown origin.  Why do you think this passage is in here?  These creatures appear to be either Ovid's invention or  that of some unknown Greek writer. Hesiod and Homer mention some of the story but not what's called the Gigantomachy, the war, which some think parallel  the ravages of the Civil War,  and Jupiter's triumph to presage the victory and peaceful rule of Augustus in a "new Golden Age."

In fact even today the writers of this period were called the Golden Age of Latin Literature. These sophisticated writers of the  Golden Age of Latin Literature shunned the very idea of the Giants as lacking in sophistication and wanted nothing to do with it.

But what did YOU think of the Giants and what they seem to represent?


The idea that man has caused this degeneration is fascinating, and we'll enjoy testing it out. Is man the victim or the perpetrator?  Man looks pretty bad in the Iron Age, doesn't he?

But to the "rescue" comes the Pantheon of gods in the upper air. Homer and Ennius had a "Council of the Gods"   I love Lombardo's description:

On a clear night you might see a road in the sky
Called the Milky Way, renowned for its white glow.
This is the road  the gods take to the royal palace
of the great Thunderer.

And this:

...The plebeian gods
Live in a different neighborhood, but the great
All have their homes along this avenue. This quarter,
If I may say so, is high heaven's Palatine.

First off the description of the Way to Heaven is marvelous. Is this what your translation says?

I love the very idea of it.

Note, however, that the Palatine hill (where Augustus and some of the more influential senators who ran Rome lived )  is compared. That's pretty clear and pretty strong. In the Latin Ovid sort of "apologizes" for saying this, or diffidently says "if I may say so," which of course brings lots of attention to it.  How does your translation handle the Palatine? Does it have it IN there in the first place?

Flattering to Augustus? It may have seemed so at first.

Looks like Jupiter, the King of the gods, has decided to make things right again because of an incident where he was a guest at dinner among the mortals. He then relates the tale.

This differs from previous instances of Jupiter and his council by other authors in that Jupiter here has somewhat irrationally (or do you think so?)  decided that because of this one man the entire race of men should die, and he only uses the Council to back him up: it's not their decision.  The "Council" here strongly resembles a rowdy meeting of the Roman Senate.

What was your honest impression of the Lycaon story? 

[Mkaren557]

Lycaon seemed to be the ultimate example of how far man has fallen from the time of the Golden Age and Jupiter needs to impress the other gods and convince them that destruction is the only answer.  So he changes into a human and journeys to Lycaon's house.  What he discovers along the way is far more "iniquity" than he had seen before.  The most heinous offense is the cannibalism that Lycaon tries to trick him into participating in.  This is the "last straw" and out come the thunder bolts.  In the end, Lycaon is transformed into the most hideous wolf for all to see the evil of the world personified.  Ovid reveals this story soon after the comments about the Palatine, thus drawing contemporary (to Ovid) Rome into the myth.  I suggest that this is Ovid's cautionary tale to Romans who are moving further from the "glory days" of the Republic.  Doesn't he even refer to Caesar's assignation at this point? 

[PatH]

Ginny, hou just gave me a rather interesting idea, but I want to think it over a bit.

Marcustullius, whose translation of Antigone is that?  I like it. 

[collierose]

I have always loved the story of the werewolf.  It fascinated me how a person could change into a wolf when the moon was full.  Reading Metamorphoses and the story of Lycaon immediately brought that story to mind.  The villagers were always afraid when the full moon came and the sound of the wolf was heard.  They knew someone was about to be killed.  To the villagers this was a sign of evil and why they hunted the werewolf.  They wanted to rid the world of the horror and evil of the werewolf.  This became a legend but I believe it shows the evil in mankind and the desire to destroy it.

[Jonathan]

'But what did YOU think of the Giants and what they seem to represent?' Your question, Ginny, fits very nicely into the train of thought started by other posts. Wow! What a discussion.

Can we guess at the books that Ovid read. Following up on Chase's tip that giants are mentioned in the bible, I believe it safe to say that Ovid had read his bible. The giants, we read, (Ch 6, Genesis)  were ' the sons of the gods (who) had intercourse with the daughters of men and got children by them....They were the heroes of old.'

It was otherwise with the Lord. He saw only 'that man had done much evil on earth and that his thoughts and inclinations were always evil...I will wipe them off the face of the earth...I am sorry I ever made them.'

It seems to me the determination of a jealous god. And what a quandary he finds himself in. Should he do it by fire or flood? As it turns out, fire is not an option. Too violent. It might set fire to heaven. And isn't that a modern age concern, considering our nuclear capabilities.

I had better post this immediately. I think Pat is thinking along a similar line.

[BarbStAubrey]

The idea of these authors reading other works I think we are thinking from our modern concept of material available - my first impulse was to see if there is any history on how many Bibles were available and where they were located since we know there were no books as such but only scrolls and they were all hand written - and then this - I did not know and was shocked to learn that the Old Testament that even if Ovid could find a copy and read it, is no more.

We have seen just reading Ovid the many translations and so this has to be carried through with all these ancient texts and here we now learn that the Hebrew used to write the old Testament is lost - there is NO ONE in the world today that could read or translate it - that the Old Testament we refer to was as a result of books written in the 13 and 14th century... or to a Greek version, translated into Greek before the birth of Ovid.

http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/ot_manuscripts.html 

There is not one place in the Masoretic Hebrew where they can show that God ever authorized them to change the original language by adding vowel points to it. (the vowels were added in the 10th century) And by adding the vowels, they changed the words, and by changing the words, they have changed the meaning of these words, and by changing the meaning of words, they have changed the Word of God. And if they have changed the Word of God within the Masoretic Hebrew text, we must take care.

The Meaning of Words in the Masoretic Hebrew is Lost

And then this...

...around 285 B.C., they took the original Hebrew Text and translated it into Greek for those Jews that no longer spoke Hebrew, and also to convert many of the Greeks over to Judaism.

... When Jesus and the apostles quoted from the Old Testament scriptures, they did not quote from the original Hebrew Text, for two reasons. One: the writers of the New Testament books spoke mainly Greek; and two, their listeners and readers (who were mostly gentiles) did not speak Hebrew! So, they quoted from a manuscript that was in the same language that they spoke during the first century...the Greek Septuagint! Doesn't this make sense? The Septuagint is the scripture cited by Christ and by the Apostles. By Christ quoting from the Septuagint, he is confirming what he wrote 285 years before he came!

[Frybabe]

The Titans in Greek mythology were giants. Those included Prometheus, and Atlas. They were associated with the Golden Age, I think. Is he referencing them, or some other kind of giant? The ancients did come across dinosaur fossils now and again. For example, t
here has been speculation that mastadon/mammoth skulls may have been a source or confirmation to the ancients that Cyclops existed.

[BarbStAubrey]

I only read more recently that all the talk of dragons both fiery and otherwise was not that this knight or saint slew an animal creature called a dragon but that there was some fierce and aggressive situation, unknown, or even a hostile more barbaric human and to describe the fearful nature of the unknown situation it was referred to as a dragon and we in modern times have taken it literary - again anyone can have a theory and I did not look up to see who was the author of this theory - but it sounds like a possibility - if we were not there and we bring with our interest a sense or seriousness trying to eek out not knowing what is emblematic and what is analogy that better expresses the fears of the times - and so I am wondering if this way of handling what is fearful could also pertain to the giants...? 

[BarbStAubrey]

The more I read this section the more I am amused - sounds to me like whoever is this all powerful being is discouraged that humans were not as peace-loving nor peacekeeping as those in the Golden Age - there are battles between humans labeled as bad and good - and then the Gods gather because the humans went just too far attempting to reach the kingdom of the gods with their giants.

Talk about a parent like figure saying "do as I say and not as I do" - we heard of one atrocity after the other between competing gods - far more outrageous than anything the humans were doing. Just as some parents blame their kids this un-named gods blames the humans for thinking they were as good or at least no worse than the gods.

This whole power trip between the gods and between god and man only underlines the basic thinking - once there is any disagreement it is a power trip to put someone in their place.

As to all these humans - they are the other - we must protect and separate ourselves from them is the message - sounds like the immigrant message of today    - and of all the humans we must carve out those not yet infected using a knife!?! This one sided story has the gods determining punishment in addition to who deserved the punishment - Ovid  quickly parallels the power trip as one between the people and Caesar, scaring the bejeebers out of the masses and horrifying the whole world which became the preparation to usher in Augustus.

And so now we have Augustus on the same footing as the god Jupiter - sound like the Roman Catholic Church borrowed this authority role for the Pope likening him to God as God's spokesmen on earth, no middle man for them in the form of a god like Jupiter between the Pope and the Supreme God  -   

Now the big concession to accepting Augustus there would no longer be punishment without at least knowing your crime. 

OH my we have the wondering disguised god with more atrocities as power meets power and the side the story is being told has to prove their righteous case by depicting the other as turning into a mad wolf or a mad something foaming at the mouth that acts with unspeakable horrors  - sounds like how the Japanese were described to us during WWII. and how the story of Nanjing was described.

This use of authority and the story line that it accompanies to me is like a bad computer game or an old comic book series with Captain Marvel as the ultimate power - looks like the answer to crowd control has always been to crack down and establish order re-establishing the hierarchy of power.  I can just see the more recent example of the Olympiad Wall Street brokers laughing and drinking their campaign on the balcony overlooking the Occupy Wall Street movement that they were able to put the right incentive into the hands of those who successfully silenced and moved along those "murmuring with voice and gesture"

It does not sound like Rome has any truck (as the French say, troquer) for Democracy... the pyramid of authoritarian power is it...

 

[JoanK]

I'm amazed at how many points this discussion brings up. MARCUSTULLUS: "Why do you think the ages progress from better to worse instead of the other direction?"

This might be an example of one of the closely held cultural beliefs that were mentioned in "The Rudy Thing." Certainly as others have said, it would come naturally to those of Ovid's generation and experience.

In the US, the dominant cultural belief has been the one of progress that MARCUSTULLUS mentioned. I grew to adulthood in the heady period after WWII, when all things seemed possible: the depression and war were over and the economy was humming. It was natural to think the future would be glorious.

And the next generation, while rebelling and criticizing the society, also believed they could make it better: would create a better world if they just worked hard enough at it.

It's also natural, in every time, for young people to look forward and older people to look backward. What do todays young people think of the future? Up, down, or sideways?

[ginny]

That's a good point, Karen. And Lycaon really pushed it, didn't he. These gods that appear as people and walk among men, what does that tell man?

The Guest Host relationship was almost sacrosanct among the ancients. You can see it over and over in Homer's Odyssey and Iliad. Here is the traveler,  looking like a beggar, washes up on  the shore. He's a mess, tattered, etc.  But when he gets to the house, the first thing is he's offered a bath and refreshment. We saw that in our Cambridge texts, too. And then once he's all refreshed and cleaned up they have a dinner and only after that will they ask who he is. Imagine that in 2016!

 And what happens when Jupiter goes among men?  Lycaon does the absolute worst in making fun of the piety of the others who are trying to pray to Jupiter.  Then serving him human flesh. PLUS Jupiter says he plans to murder him. He's really pushed it beyond any limit, perhaps the exaggeration is for us, to make a point.

I wonder how Jupiter knew that Lycoan planned to kill him?

I wonder which was worse to Jupiter? I don't think we have to think hard about that. Hubris on the part of mortals, especially something as awful as mocking prayer to the god was almost unspeakable, much less the other offenses.  However to blow away and entire world for this one man  seems to me a bit extreme.

Interesting,  CollieRose, on the wolf.  Is this the first real metamorphosis?  If so it's interesting that it should be  a wolf. I need to go back and read the changes again. I am not sure, there were so many things changing there with the Creation.  What an interesting theory of why a wolf! Never thought of that.

Oh that's a good point Joan K, about referencing  The Rudy Thing and how cultural truth values can be seen here  of Ovid's time. I love that Rudy Thing and am so  glad to see it being applied!

[ginny]

Jonathan, this was really good: It seems to me the determination of a jealous god. And what a quandary he finds himself in. Should he do it by fire or flood? As it turns out, fire is not an option. Too violent. It might set fire to heaven. And isn't that a modern age concern, considering our nuclear capabilities.

The first thing I thought when I read this was Robert Frost: some say the world will end in fire, and some in ice.

And so in your post we can see that the order which has been imposed on chaos is tenuous, and apparently only due to the will of the gods.  And it depends on how stable those gods are. And that, given our cast of characters, is a very scary thought.

Maybe Ovid thought that about Augustus ad the Golden Age of Literature, too.

Barbara,  you mention you were amused.  And later you mention allegory.  How many things it seems to be all at once!  And that's an astute point on "Democracy," but that's several other books for another time. The Optimates (Aristocrats who called themselves  literally "the Best")   ran Rome. That's why Julius Caesar was assassinated.  Nothing to do with freedom fighters. Wonderful article by T.P Wiseman titled "The Ethics of Murder," about the assassination.  Good reading.

And an interesting point about Augustus compared to Jupiter. The Jupiter of Ovid's poem is not quite  what we expect from a god.  He's not the Jupiter of Homer or Hesiod, either. He's a new Jupiter. I don't think anybody is going to benefit from being compared to him and his shenanigans, least of all, Augustus.

Frybabe, what an interesting thought about the Cyclops and the mammoth skulls, did mammoths roam in Italy? (I have no idea). I' m lost on these Giants. They are merging with the Titans somehow. Hesiod's giants sprang from the blood of Uranus when he was castrated. Apparently the argument  went something like: was  man created to be superior and then declined or did an "angry earth" create him as an angry offspring?  Prometheus created man out of the earth but also the chaotic elements. Very interesting speculation.
.

[marcustullius]

PatH, the passage I quoted from the Antigone is Ian Johnston's translation.

JoanK, I hope I didn't give the impression that I thought the ages progress from better to worse.  I intended to say that we tend to view mankind’s journey in one of two ways: either regression or progression.  Come to think of it, I want to add another, and that is our journey could be a zig zag with no obvious direction. 

In order to present and justify my view, which I will end with, I use an analogy of the difference between rational and irrational numbers.  With rational numbers, one will detect a pattern among the sequence of digits to the right of the decimal if one proceeds far enough.  With irrational numbers, on the other hand, no matter how far one goes, no pattern is observed.  The digits are metaphors for events or epochs or ages in man’s existence.  At what point can one feel confident enough to firmly settle on a conclusion that a pattern that extends to time immemorial exists.  May be, as with the irrational number, there is no pattern at all, when extended to an infinite series of digits.  If no pattern exists, the search for it would be interminable.  So, recognizing the brief span of time of man’s existence up to this point, my own mortality (very short life) and my other limitations, I humbly confess that I don’t know whether we are regressing, or progressing, or zigzagging.

[BarbStAubrey]

Are the Giants a separate power structure? I had them as emanating or at least as assigned with the humans - are they a species apart, neither gods nor humans?

I thought their birth was a new group of humans from blood mixed with earth where as the first group of humans was rain water mixed with earth with both groups subject to the whims of the gods.

It sounded to me that the gods were angry because the giants were building to reach the domain of the gods which if reached symbolically would put the giants (large humans) on the same level as the gods. 

Rendering the heights of heaven no safer than the earth, they say the giants attempted to take the Celestial kingdom, piling mountains up to the distant stars

If the giants are another species that puts a different light on this but if they are in common with humans then I see these group responding to what displeases them no differently than the way the gods respond to what displeases them, with raw aggressive power.

[Frybabe]

Ginny, yes, they did inhabit Italy as well as most of the Near East and Asia, and part of Europe. Check out the slide show which includes the pix showing the hole which was for the trunk which the ancients speculated that was a single eye. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon#/media/File:Mammut_americanum.jpg

Another speculation some archaeologists have made is that the ancients mistook leg or thigh bones from dinosaur fossils that eroded out of the soil. Well, they were giants, just not hominid. While dinosaur bones were not recognized as such and scientifically studied until the mid to late 1670's, an ancient Chinese text reports discoveries of dragon bones (Chang Qu, 4th century BC).

Here is an interesting answer to the question of whether or not the Romans and Greeks were aware of these artifacts. https://www.quora.com/Did-the-ancient-Romans-and-Greeks-know-about-the-dinosaurs
The columnist says he is unaware of any ancient Greek or Roman texts that possibly refer to fossil bones. What interested me the most, however, is his mention of Xenophanes of Kos and his discovery and deduction regarding seashells. Darwin certainly wasn't the first, yet he is the one I associate it from his works describing his walks in the Andes during his famous voyage on the Beagle. But that is getting a bit off topic.

[PatH]

Interesting, Frybabe.  Those mastodon skulls sure do look like they might be cyclopses.  Note that answer also says "Greek myths received a lot of influences from Mesopotamian and Egyptian culture", something we've seen and will see more of.

[PatH]

Barb, the Giants are somewhat confusing.  They don't seem to be human.  The index to Kline says they're monsters, sons of Tartarus and Earth, with many arms and serpent feet, but they're not described in the poem, though in Martin's translation they are called the race of giants.  When they are killed, crushed when their tower of mountains is toppled by the gods, their mother Earth reanimates their blood, giving it a human form, also impious and bloodthirsty.  And I'm not clear whether this new form is part of mankind or separate.

The wording is odd too.  Twice Ovid hedges by saying "they say" (Lombardo) or "(we hear)" (Martin).

This, plus some remarks by you, Ginny, and Mkaren make me wonder if this section is an allegory for something in Ovid's own time--something that happened or was feared.  But I don't know enough about the time to know what it might be.

[BarbStAubrey]

My tummy has a mind of its own today - hope it only lasts a day - back tomorrow

[bellamarie]

Sorry you are not feeling well Barb.  Hope you feel better.

Barb, 

Are the Giants a separate power structure? I had them as emanating or at least as assigned with the humans - are they a species apart, neither gods nor humans?

PatH., 

the Giants are somewhat confusing.  They don't seem to be human.

Ovid:

And in this age, not even heaven's heights
are safer than the earth.  They say the Giants,
striving to gain the kingdom of the sky,
heaped mountain peak on mountain mass, star-high.
Then Jove, almighty Father, hurled his bolts
of lightning, smashed Olympus, and dashed down
Mount Pelion from Mount Ossa.  Overwhelmed
by their own bulk, these awesome bodies sprawled:
and Earth soaked up the blood of her dread sons:
and with their blood still warm, she gave their gore
new life:  so that the Giants' race might not
be lost without  a trace, she gave their shape
to humans whom she fashioned from that blood.
But even this new race despised the gods;
and they were keen from slaughter, bent on force:
it's clear to see that they were born of blood.

It seems to me that Ovid is not really clear if the Giants are human or not.  They just appear, yet then it says "so their race might not be lost without a trace she gave their shape to humans, who she fashioned from that blood." Is it just me, or do you see a double narrative here?  I went on a search and found we are not the only ones confused, or seeing double negatives.

William S. Anderson's translation:

Ovid picks up a story whose earliest version is found in Homer (Od.  1.305-20), who called the attackers not Giants, but sons of Aloeus, Otus and Ephialtes. 
154  tum pater omnipotens:  same phrase in same position in Aen. 10.100 where Jupiter quiets the uproar of the gods.  Elsewhere, Ovid prefers the particle at with the noun and epithet (cf. 2.404,  401). perfregit Olympun:
according to Homer, Otus and Ephiatltes piled Ossa on Olymus and Pelion on Ossa:  so Jupiter dislodged the structure by striking the bottom- most mountain.

155 subiectae...Ossae: dative of separation. Ossa was under Pelion, which Jupiter knocked off.

157-58  natorum:  Ovid casually tells us that the Giants were children of the Earth.  According to Hesiod, when Uranus was emasculated, Earth caught the blood from the wound and generated numerous offspring, including the Giants calidum...cruorem158:  Keeping our attention on the blood, Ovid prepares us for the allegorical meaning of the metamorphosis (cf. 161-62).

159  For the double negative or litotes, cf.34.
monimenta manerent:human beings, in their diminutive size, are the paltry "monument" for the huge Giants, but they equal them in their bloodthirsty character.

160  Ovid exploited a doublet of the myth of human origins; one or the other was supposed to stand alone, either that we were created by an act of benevolence and then declined from that ideal state (e.g. 76-150) or that an angry earth generated us to be naturally bloody (151 ff.).  etilla: for Lee, Ovid implies that these men are "like the men of the Iran Age:; but it is preferable to regard these human beings as resembling Earth's previous offspring, the Giants.

161  contemprix superum: Ovid has fashioned a striking phase, which he will reuse in its masculine form in 3.514 of Pentheus.  It varies Virgil's famous characterization of Mezentius in Aen. 7.648 as compemtor divum (same metrical position).  He implicitly prepares here for the tale of Lycaon (209 ff.), who tries to kill a god, lusts for murder, and is violent to his core.

162  scires e sanguine natos: another kind of terminal sententia (cf. 60)  Ovid invites us, as it were, to cross the distance that separates us from the mythical account, to recognize ourselves in these human beings.

https://books.google.com/books?id=t12AuG0q144C&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=were+the+giants+Ovid+speaks+of+in+his+Metamorphoses+from+man&source=bl&ots=CveiwzBFIW&sig=kdcaDkhFKNQl2UYkCPIHQ6Fs6Zk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDgeiyydTKAhWMMSYKHZooD5oQ6AEISDAI#v=onepage&q=were%20the%20giants%20Ovid%20speaks%20of%20in%20his%20Metamorphoses%20from%20man&f=false

Ovid's creation of man:

An animal with higher intellect,
more noble, able__one to rule the rest:
such was the living thing the earth still lacked.
The man was born, Either the Architect
of All, the author of 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 the 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.

So was the earth, which until then had been
so rough and indistinct, transformed: it wore
a thing unknown before__the human form.


Can Ovid have it both ways, or shall I say three ways,
1.  The Architect of All from divine seed,
2.  Prometheus, son of Iapetus mixing new made earth with rainwater, or
3.  Earth soaked up the blood of her dread sons: and with their blood still warm, she gave their gore new life
         (from the blood of the Giants)?

 


 

[Frybabe]

Hope you are feeling better soon Barb.

[JoanK]

"{Twice Ovid hedges by saying "they say" (Lombardo) or "(we hear)" (Martin)."

I've noticed this tentative tone in Ovid before. ("Some god", two different versions of the creation of humans). very different from what we expect in an epic, which is usually presented as THE story. This makes me think of Ovid as a real scholar like a modern scientist, finding his way through the material available at the time and applying (as Polya says) different shades and colors of maybe and perhaps to it. I really like that.

[JoanK]

MARCUS TULLUS: very interesting, especially the part about rational and irrational numbers.(Note: irrational numbers are those that can't be expressed as a ratio of integers. Pi is an example. No matter how many digits you use, you haven't given it exactly).

I was thinking more in terms if teasing out what the "closely held beliefs" of the Greeks were, and how that would affect society. Surely, if you believe in progress, and in "that Rudy thing" this will affect your actions and expectations of others differently that if you believe in degeneration.

[Jonathan]

'the tentative tone in Ovid' That's a wonderful observation, Joan. Tricksy, isn't it? In the most imaginative poem ever written.

'Ovid invites us, as it were, to cross the distance that separates us from the mythical account, to recognize ourselves in these human beings.' Note 162, from your post, Bellamarie.

Can we apply that to our thinking about the giants? Ovid may be judging these guys by their aspirations in assaulting heaven, which may be causing some concern for Jupiter.

And that could explain Ginny's 'new Jupiter'. Roman politics come into play. Augustus is not amused. The Metamorphoses may well be considered a subversive political tract.

It may seem far out, but I do find myself lost in the Milky Way of Ovid's poetic imagination.

[bellamarie]

Jonathan, 

Roman politics come into play. Augustus is not amused. The Metamorphoses may well be considered a subversive political tract.

It may seem far out, but I do find myself lost in the Milky Way of Ovid's poetic imagination.

I tend to lean to the political tract, giving Augustus reason for exiling him.

Don't feel alone lost in the Milky Way, Jonathan.  I know I feel lost somewhere in orbit with this poem.  I'm just glad I have search engines (spaceships) at my fingertips to steer me around the galaxy.  The fun thing is there are no absolutes as JoanK., so eloquently points out: 

This makes me think of Ovid as a real scholar like a modern scientist, finding his way through the material available at the time and applying (as Polya says) different shades and colors of maybe and perhaps to it. I really like that.

I'm beginning to see him as a mad scientist!!      

[PatH]

Barb, I hope you're better today.

Bellamarie, those are helpful notes you posted.  So, according to Anderson, the giant story is yet one more creation story--humans came from the blood of dead giants--that was kicking around, that Ovid puts in.  That would explain the things that confused me.

[ginny]

I'm super glad to see Bellamarie's post here, and  W.S. Anderson making an appearance because for critical commentary he's pretty much it.

He says some things some of us are not going to like, but it's good to have the classicist's view.

I think that's one of the joys of the Internet used wisely: the opportunity to have lots of interesting and credible voices.

Barbara, I hope you are going to feel better, too, there's lots of stuff going about.

Jonathan, I'm with you on the Milky Way, what a picture, imagining it as the road to the gods. I am wondering and I do not know how the gods came to be PUT in the first place in the heavens.  Who was it? Homer? Hesiod? Who?

Latin has different words for even the air. The air of the heavens is different from the air we breathe which is different from that of the Underworld. The Underworld,  despite our modern take on it was quite a different place from which we might imagine.

Nobody can say the ancients lacked imagination.

Karen asked about the conflict of the giants and its parallel to  Caesar, yes, it's thought that this battle represents the Civil War and that the Giants in that section,  I am not sure what the other translations say, but in  (Lombardo about 159: "The Giants went after the kingdom of heaven..."  It's thought that this refers to Julius Caesar attempting a take over. Which is interesting, to say the least.  Of course Shakespeare has Cassius  refer to Caesar:

CASSIUS
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves. (Julius Caesar, Act I scene ii)

It's odd to see Ovid saying this, to me. It's almost as if he's on the wrong side here. Deliberately?  Augustus touted himself as Caesar's "son," and completed many of his projects. Dangerous thin ice here our poet is skating on. Maybe Augustus won't notice.

Lombardo somewhere around 194:

"The human race must be destroyed. By the river
That glides through the underworld grove  of Styx,
I sear that I have already tried everything else,
But gangrenous flesh must be cut away with a knife
Before it infects the rest. I have demigods to protect
And rustic deities-nymphs, fauns, satyrs,
And sylvan spirits on the mountainside.
Although we do not deem them worthy of heaven,
We should at least let them live in their allotted lands,
Do  you think they will be safe there, I ask you,
When even against me, who rule you gods,
Snares are laid by the infamous Lycaon?"

Wow. Now there, to me anyway,  is probably the most self serving rationalization for killing somebody there can be.

He tried everything? When? Is that what your translation says?

This, to me, is a throw out the baby with the bathwater, but let's pretend we're doing it to protect the people, the little people, it's all in the service of the little "people," the little  minor gods, not good enough to be up here but we still need to protect them.

(Have they been harmed?)

I think what we're looking at here is our first example of HUBRIS and the result, that major crime against the gods they can't pardon. This will be a repeating theme throughout the Metamorphoses, but the gods don't seem to need a lot of provocation, if we're honest.  Too bad we won't get to Niobe  or Arachne where we can see it in action, and THAT is a cultural truth value and says a lot about the relationship of the ancient man (in many cultures including China) to their gods.

I know if you've read Pearl Buck's The Good Earth you have seen the peasant  Wang Lung overcome with  joy at the birth of his son, walking down the road talking  out loud about how awful the boy looks and how sad and woeful he is, just so an angry vengeful god might not be struck by his pride and snatch the boy away. That about sums the entire thing up in a nutshell.

So because of one man's heinous offense, let's kill ALL humans? How many are there, anyway? Why not just kill one? Capricious, I call it.

Marcus Tullius and Joan K:  With rational numbers, one will detect a pattern among the sequence of digits to the right of the decimal if one proceeds far enough.  With irrational numbers, on the other hand, no matter how far one goes, no pattern is observed.  The digits are metaphors for events or epochs or ages in man’s existence.   And then Joan K: irrational numbers are those that can't be expressed as a ratio of integers. Pi is an example. No matter how many digits you use, you haven't given it exactly

The two of you take my breath away. I have no earthly idea what you are saying, but it sure is impressive.

[BarbStAubrey]

Just a quicky - worn out trying to get my body back to normal - at least my tummy is cooperating today - now to ply myself with probiotics with lots of long naps - rainy day so not missing anything...

Yes your reminding us of Wang Lung's protecting his good luck reminded me of how often as a child it was typical to hear folks be concerned for the 'eye' of God. Even then they were called superstitious but my grandmother would  faithfully throw salt over her left shoulder if it spilled and knocked on wood which was often the kitchen table and for us kids, it was more than a game that we just would not step on a crack in the road or near our school there was a sidewalk - the old sing song saying about stepping on a crack breaks your mother's back we took seriously.

We do not hear folks today protecting themselves for the gods but they sure had their way up till the mid twentieth century and may even continue to have sway in other cultures.

Reading this cannot decide if it was a recipe of behavior for the future or if Ovid's observations are simply describing man's relationship with his world and the others taking space at the same time, so that his frustrations and considered causes were simply one man's acknowledgment of life on earth that has continued in a similar manner all these years. The only difference seems to be we have different gods - currently it appears to be the god of technology - we keep searching for whatever is that control that is beyond the power of man to completely harness or direct - we've gone past the Milky Way and yet, we still search for what to Ovid was an nameless god that controlled it all.