Ovid's Metamorphoses

[PatH]

Io by David Teniers the Elder (1582–1649)

Io, one of the 4 main moons of Jupiter. The others are: —Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.   All are featured in Ovid.

(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” Three: Tales of Gods and Humans, February 9--?

  Second and Third Tales: Io, and Pan and Syrinx

 1) Bk I:568-587 Inachus mourns for Io
    Bk I:587-600 Jupiter’s rape of Io
    Bk I:601-621 Jupiter transforms Io to a heifer
    Bk I:622-641 Juno claims Io and Argus guards her
    Bk I:642-667 Inachus finds Io and grieves for her
    Bk I:668-688 Jupiter sends Mercury to kill Argus

 2) Bk I:689-721 Mercury tells the story of Syrinx
    Bk I:722-746 Io is returned to human form

1. What to  you is the saddest thing in the Io story?

2. This story is full of beautiful descriptions. Which lines particularly struck you? Do they interfere with the plot line?

3. What effect do the flashback elements and the interruption of the Pan and Syrinx have on the reader's feelings for Io?

4. What would you say is the tone of the Io story?

5. This is quite a story, it has two metamorphoses and two aetiological myths in it. Which one is the most important?

6. What might Io's struggles to communicate symbolize in our own time?

7. Who actually has the last word in this section?

8. What's your impression of Io's father?

9. If you had to choose between being Io or Daphne, which one would you choose? Why?

Discussion Leaders: PatH and ginny

Thank you, Pat!

[PatH]

I like the Neruda.

Ginny: why are we blaming Apollo?
I guess I automatically blame him for pursuing her because he is deliberately doing so--active not passive--and persists in spite of her rejection.  But he may not have a choice.  The arrow's influence may compel him to keep on, in spite of everything.  Of course he started the whole thing by taunting Cupid, but he couldn't have predicted how Cupid would react.

[Mkaren557]

I agree Pat.  Apollo is overcome with passion after being hit by Cupids arrow. That is not all. Daphne flees after being struck with the rejection arrow. As usual the gods are manipulating humans and other gods.  Is Cupid forcing each of them to go against his or her will?  Apollo is chasing Daphne to satisfy his passion, which he wants to do, and Daphne flees him to preserve her virginity, which she does when she is transformed.
       I don't know if any of you fell into reading romance novels usually set in the eighteenth century.  In the first chapters the heroine is raped but at the conclusion she has fallen passionately in love with the rapist and "they lived happily ever after."  The women's movement revealed to me how destructive these novels could be to women.  Powerlessness was rewarded with everlasting control by this rapist. Daphne may have been better off as a tree.  Especially if she could poke Apollo's eye out with a leaf from her branches.

[bellamarie]

MKaren, 

I don't know if any of you fell into reading romance novels usually set in the eighteenth century.  In the first chapters the heroine is raped but at the conclusion she has fallen passionately in love with the rapist and "they lived happily ever after."  The women's movement revealed to me how destructive these novels could be to women.  Powerlessness was rewarded with everlasting control by this rapist.

Yes, even in some soap operas, like General Hospital, Luke raped Laura and then they became the lovestory of all times in soaps.  Many romance novels I read years ago had the man pursuing the woman against her protesting, and it seemed to be common for the message to say, a woman doth protests too much, meaning she is asking for the pursuant to continue.  So, NO meant YES to the writers of these love stories, soap operas, poems and even operas.  A bit sadistic if you ask me. 

Apollo indeed set this in motion, since he felt the need to brag and insult Cupid.  But, Cupid had no right to act as he did and bring Daphne into the middle of their war of who is stronger.  In today's time it would be referenced to two men's pissing war. (excuse my choice of words  ) lololol    Not sure about anyone else but I am ready to move on.  I can't find much else to say on this topic.   

[JoanK]

Somewhat lost in her flight, fleeing, and fate, is that Daphne starts out:

"Delighting in the deep woods, wearing the skins
Of animals she caught, modeling herself
On the virgin Diana"

In other words, an independent woman who supports herself by hunting and doesn't need men for support or sex. Instead, she becomes a victim who has to appeal to a man for even a limited existence.

I'm wondering if this is, to the ancients, the female version of HUBRIS. if women think they can survive without men, they are punished.

When we read Greek plays here a few years ago, we started out with Virginia Woolf's question: why did Greece, a society that was hard on women, produce a literature with so many strong women characters? We read three plays centering on strong women. we didn't answer the question, but we did see a mix of emotion toward them: admiration, fear, etc.

[BarbStAubrey]

Actually that is what the story of Red Riding hood is all about - the original medieval story she is NOT wearing a red hood or red cap - when Perrault collected and tweaked the story for publication he brought some political overtones and red was already the mark of what later became the French revolutionaries - the original she represents Spring with her May basket and she did have a wreath of red roses in her hair - the message being two fold - girls should be careful if in the woods alone and if they are in trouble only a man is capable of saving them. 

[BarbStAubrey]

I am trying now to figure out why Ovid has lasted as a book so many enjoy reading - Usually a story is about what happens and how it affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result. - What happens is the plot and Someone is the protagonist - the goal is the question and the change is what the story is about.

Kline's translation of the first sentence that Ovid set up his story - I want to speak about bodies changed into new forms. You, gods, since you are the ones who alter these, and all other things, inspire my attempt, and spin out a continuous thread of words, from the world's first origins to my own time.

Ok that sounds to me like we have a goal - but who is the protagonist and what is the over arching plot - so far it sounds like a book of short stories and within each there is a plot and a protagonist as well as change - sometimes the protagonist is earth or water and so far some stories have a god as the protagonist - but what is the over arching story we are looking at here - is it simply a menu of examples that satisfy the goal?

What is pulling us to want to read the next short story? Metamorphose/Change/Transformation may be an intriguing goal but is it enough to read 15 books about how others change within a short story format? Are we seeing any change in Ovid or are we to read this with ourselves as the protagonist asking only what does this mean to me and to observe our own change?

So far the page turners have been learning what these stories mean for those of us engaged in this pursuit and any urgency is created as we share our found background research and our individual take on what we read - however, I am not feeling or seeing the author's burning intent and yet, we seem to have passed a tipping point mostly on the strength of the short stories or antidotes about gods and goddesses and nymphs and all manner of heavenly hosts that we have heard about and are now analyzing.

Are there really 15 books of stories about Roman and Greek gods and goddesses - how is Ovid tying them together differently than say Bullfinch that simply lists them in a table of contents? Since the first sentence starts with I - can we assume the protagonist is Ovid and how will we know when he has solved his goal - is it when he has shared all the stories he knows that show change in the protagonist?

Yep, I am feeling scattered and cannot figure out what is the overarching conflict or what is at stake for Ovid or if he is writing this so that we are the protagonists to our own understanding of change, metamorphose - what is the point of Ovid's book?  So far it is a litany of stuff happening...

[PatH]

Barb, the book might not have the sort of overall structure you're looking for,and be, as you said, more like a lot of short stories.  Ovid does connect his stories, though, at least so far.  Python is the last creature formed by the earth after the flood.  Apollo kills Python, and his boasting about it goads Cupid into shooting Apollo and Daphne.  We're just about to start the next section, which begins with a conference of rivers, implicitly to talk to Daphne's father.  One river is absent, Io's father; he's too sad, because he doesn't know where Io is.  So we move into the story of Io.  At one point, Mercury plays his reed pipe, or syrinx, to distract Io's guard, and that leads to the story of Pan and Syrinx, embedded in Io's story.  The next story, of Phaethon, starts with a squabble between Phaethon and Io's son.

Perhaps a bigger pattern will emerge, but even if it doesn't, it's good poetry, and good stories.

[bellamarie]

Barb,

what is the point of Ovid's book?

Well, now I believe for centuries scholars have been asking this very question.  There really is NO one particular point that I can tell, and it's not just myself, but from all the research I have done since we began this discussion, which has been hours upon hours outside of my comments here.  First and foremost we keep using the word "Hubris" to describe Ovid.  The definition of hubris is:
hu·bris
ˈ(h)yo͞obrəs/
noun
excessive pride or self-confidence.
synonyms:   arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, hauteur, pride, self-importance, egotism, pomposity, superciliousness, superiority; More
(in Greek tragedy) excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.

My personal take on Ovid is he was indeed hubris, or another way to put it, full of himself.  He wanted to create a piece of literature that would withstand the test of time.  In his prologue he said it very clearly: 

Lombardo's translation

Invocation
My mind now turns to stories of bodies changed
Into new forms, O Gods, inspire my beginnings
(For you changed them too) and spin a poem that extends
From the world’s first origins down to my own time.

Interestingly, in Lombardo's translation he has a friend write an Introduction that gives his take on Ovid and the poem:

Since, despite his hints to the contrary, he really has no grand narrative to control, he is not required to invent and maintain a traditional omniscient narrator.  Instead, he can construct a sort of unreliable pseudo-omniscient narrator who, after establishing his credentials early in the poem, is free to pop in and out of the poem as is whim chooses and to play ventriloquist when his imagination has fastened on a new tale or a new protagonist and it seems proper for a new character to tell his or her own story or someone else’s story.  This freedom may make for some degree of disorder, but it fosters a pleasing variety of voices and vantages, and in addition to releasing him from the onerous duties which a traditional omniscient narrator would impose on him it permits him to choose whatever tone suits him in any given tale (dispassionate, skeptical, judgmental, empathetic) without worrying much if this variation in attitude does damage to a unified persona or to its coherent moral code and its omniscience.  Such freedom does not mean that the inventor of this narrative strategy is committed to flippancy (ever the poeta ludens, the poet at play) or that he places himself beyond good and evil.  This narrator cares deeply about injustice and corrupted power and inexplicable suffering even if such concerns are never explicitly announced but instead lie veiled beneath the flux and the flow of the stories told by him or the storytellers who replace him.  This freedom from omniscience means, moreover, that Ovid can concentrate on sharpening his technical skills, that he can focus his attention on inventing the short story, if that seems too wild a claim, on perfecting the idea of the short story.
That oxymoronic fusion of the real and the imaginary is near the heart of fiction, in the creation of his people and their voices, Ovid is among its supreme masters.

W.R. Johnson
University of Chicago

Lombardo writes:  In the process I have come to appreciate the subtle depths below the bright, shifting surface of these stories told in verse, subtleties into which W.R. Johnson has initiated us in his introduction to this volume, as it admirably lays out the general thrust of the entire poem.  Ever since the publication of his Darkness Visible, he has been one of my heroes, and I respectfully dedicate this translation to him.

Stanley Lombardo
University of Kansas
https://books.google.com/books?id=mwMLFWjHpQIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

I tend to agree with W.R. Johnson's analysis of Ovid and his Metamorphoses.  Ovid did not confine himself, his narrator, or his poem to any singular structure.  He intended to show that changes occur throughout life, space, humans, animals, gods, behaviors, and thoughts.  He wanted to create something that would last a lifetime, even though life changes.

PatH., You pretty much nailed it....

the book might not have the sort of overall structure you're looking for.

[PatH]

And you nailed it too, Bellamarie.  I'm reading Lombardo, and I've read that introduction, but I totally forgot it said that.

And Barb, it does look like the book is sort of a short story collection.

[ginny]

Yes Johnson is good. You can't beat him, unless it's Anderson, for analysis. Of course again they are only giving their opinions, but they are learned and are unlikely to lead us astray. We may be astray (hahaha) but at least we are astray with some scholarship behind  it combined with your own acute ability to read texts. I think it's a winning combination.

The hubris I intend is nothing to do with Ovid, it's about the themes, the cultural truth values we can see in his stories.  Interesting to think he himself had it. What theme in his stories, not necessarily moral,  can we identify with? Why would the ancients repeat this story unless it resonated with them? Can it resonate with us?

I loved the Luke and Laura comparison Bellamarie did  and the Romantics comparison Karen did. I have not read a lot of that literature and found that fascinating.

One theme Ovid does repeat is hubris of his characters toward the gods. In the Daphne story I don't see it, actually, do any of you? Who was so proud against the gods (the two gods themselves?) that they needed to be punished? Usually it's mortals vs the gods, think Wang Lung of The Good Earth fame. Not here.   But we all see Metamorphosis, that's for sure.


Poor Daphne.  From my point of view, I think SHE won. She wanted to keep her virginity, she did. She had to give up running about through the woods, but it apparently would have been only a matter of time till Jupiter saw her and she'd be running again. 

Apollo  wanted her, he got a tree. His putting on the laurel crown means nothing. He wanted the maid, he got a tree. He's a god.  He's the biggest loser in more ways than one: he's the god of prophecy, he missed this one.  He got a tree.

Barbara, thank you so much for putting the Kafka in here, that's a beautiful copy too. I think we ought to wait and take up Arachne first and then read IT and compare. What a fabulous experience that would be.

As far as the format, it seems to me it's like Harry Potter for adults. We're about to get to Phaethon, Ovid's crowning achievement in description. It's glorious, just glorious. 

There WERE no "novels" as we understand them in ancient Rome. There WAS no fiction with the one exception of Apuleius and his Golden Ass (titled The Metamorphoses or the Golden Ass). He lived (flourished as they like to say) around 155  A.D.

The Golden Ass is a Latin romance in 11 books. Ovid's Metamorphoses is 15 books.

The Golden Ass is a narrative by a young man named Lucius who goes to  Thessaly, home of sorceries and enchantments. There, while getting too close to the black arts, he is turned into an ass, falls into the hands of robbers, and becomes an unwilling participant in their adventures.

The Cupid and Psyche story is one of the most famous of his exploits. He is transformed back into human shape by the goddess Isis and becomes Apuleius himself.   The descriptions in the book are marvelous, full of tales of what life was like at that time with colloquial speech mixed with Greek.

THIS is the only extant Latin novel of fiction, and you can see Ovid preceded it by a long time, there was nothing like what he's doing  in his time.

[PatH]

Time to move on.  We get Io next.  It's long; let's go up to the embedded story of Pan and Syrinx and stop there for now.

[ginny]

I'm still enjoying everybody's posts, looking for the one from JoanK back there that  I wanted to say something about, but I just noticed PatH's response about what is the continual thread between these and had not noticed when we read that there IS some attempt, at least so far, to link one to the other, almost as if we were in the mind of the poet, as in ...oh that reminds me of Io, or Phaethon or something.

That was VERY good! Never saw that mentioned anywhere before.

Here it is, from Joan K:




I'm wondering if this is, to the ancients, the female version of HUBRIS. if women think they can survive without men, they are punished.

When we read Greek plays here a few years ago, we started out with Virginia Woolf's question: why did Greece, a society that was hard on women, produce a literature with so many strong women characters? We read three plays centering on strong women. we didn't answer the question, but we did see a mix of emotion toward them: admiration, fear, etc.

Now there is a thought. Greek women lived abominably. There was a world of difference in being a Greek woman and a Roman woman. I just wonder, too, now. Super point!  That makes me wonder what point Ovid, a Roman,  is making with his old Greek stories, it's his chance to make it right.  Is he taking it?

[Jonathan]

We couldn't have found a more exciting poem about passionate love on this Valentine's Day. But, oh...what the pagans suffered at the hands of their gods! Don't talk to me about human hubris. These gods are out of control. It's all Cupid's fault.

Somewhere in the house I have an album with a dozen valentines I got in the fifth grade. But not from the girl I really liked. I'm going to hug the first laurel tree I see.

[JoanK]

JONATHAN: 

I like the idea of Ovid as the inventor of the short story. That certainly is the way Pat and I learned the Greek "myths" as children: as a bunch of short stories.

there's also the "compendium" aspect of the poem. To some extent, he's collecting all the stories he knows and preserving him

[BarbStAubrey]

Great - puts a brand mark on the books - Ovid's compendium of short stores. 

I did not know that cupid was the child of Venus - interesting - and that by accident one of cupid's arrows scratched his mother so we have Venus hit by the passion bug from cupid's arrow as she goes after Adonis... tra la making the connections.

[Frybabe]

I was just reading a review (The Cato Policy Report for Jan/Feb 2016) of a book by Matt Ridley called The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge. He applies Darwinian evolution to ideas and society as a whole. One of the paragraphs in the review said:

Gods are another thing that evolve. In the Bronze Age, gods were vengeful and petty tyrants who got very upset if you offended them, and had really rather mundane concerns in their lives. Now they’re disembodied spirits of benevolence, and there tends to be only one of them. That’s a change that you can see gradually coming through history at different times and in different places.

He also mentioned Lucretius and his De Rerum Natura.

Well!

More changes.

I think I am going to see about getting the book. My curiosity is peeked.

[bellamarie]

Oh Jonathan you can always make me laugh out loud.  Valentine's from fifth grade, and hugging a laurel tree!

Frybabe,   

gods were vengeful and petty tyrants who got very upset if you offended them

Well Cupid is a perfect example of this statement.....don't tick him off.

So I have read the next section over and over and over again, and just don't know where to begin.  Ughhh....

And do not be afraid to find yourself
alone among the haunts of savage beasts:
within the forest depths you can be sure
of safety, for your guardian is a god__
and I am he who holds within his hand
the heaven's scepter: I am whe who hurls
the roaming thunderbolts.  So do not flee!"
But even as he spoke, she'd left behind
the pasturelands of Lerna, and the plains
around Lyrceus' peak, fields thick with trees.
Then with veil of heavy fog, the god
concealed a vast expanse of land; Jove stopped
her flight; he raped chaste Io.

I find these actions Ovid has placed on Jove/Jupiter ironic, when in researching this god I found this:
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Jupiter-Roman-god

Jupiter was not only the great protecting deity of the race but also one whose worship embodied a distinct moral conception. He is especially concerned with oaths, treaties, and leagues, and it was in the presence of his priest that the most ancient and sacred form of marriage (confarreatio) took place.

Why does Ovid contradict the behavior of the great protector, having him rape Io?  Is this an oxymoron? 

Jove tells Io she is safe with him because he is the protector and holds the heaven's scepter in his hands, then turns light into darkness and rapes her.

Rape seems to be the theme for Ovid's mindset with man possessing women.  Women protest and run, man pursues and rapes her, then turns her into the form of an animal or inanimate object.   

I am just shaking my head at this ........       

[ginny]

That is fascinating, Frybabe. It sounds like another good offspring book of this discussion. I love what you're making of it.

We are about to move on to the Io story but are not yet decided on whether to stop before Pan or continue on. The Pan thing is an interference. But there are some things we can do first.

But Bellamarie, you are right. Ugg in major detail.

Ovid didn't invent this myth, it's part of an older Greek tradition, Aeschylus in his story Prometheus. The story in  Aeschylus is serious, it's a tragedy. Cruel Zeus. Poor Io. Poor Prometheus.  Happy escape, maybe Prometheus can, too.  There were other takes on it by others too..

But here as Anderson puts it: "Ovid then continues with new story motif: namely the guilt of Jupiter as not only rapist but also adulterer, his trivial sense of morality and commitment as lover, the jealousy of Juno, a new reason for metamorphosis, the continued human awareness of Io after metamorphosis and her half comic half tragic  sense of suffering, and finally her restoration as a human being (or nymph),.  Ovid is a master of this technique of theme and variation."

So this is all Ovid and I wonder why? How would any of us like to be compared to Jupiter in THIS iteration?  He's quite the trickster. Bernie Madoff has nothing on him, does he?

Where are these critics all getting the half comic half tragic issue of Io as a cow?

Are you all finding this funny?

I've read a stupendous commentary on this somewhere about what Io in cow form means to us today and of course I can't FIND it! But I will.  What does her having go about as a cow seem to symbolize to us, do you think? In terms of  2016? Are there other ways today for one  to go about in  this type of hidden identity?

Frantically looking for this opinion because quite frankly that would never have occurred to me but once it does you can't see Io as cow any other way.

What do you think about Io as cow?

[ginny]

And the beautiful, beautiful descriptions of all these rivers, etc. Lombardo:

There is a gorge in Thessaly with steep wooded slopes
That men call Tempe. The foam- flecked water
Of the Peneus River tumbles through this valley
From the foot of Mount Pindus, and its heavy descent
Forms clouds that drive along billowing mist,
Sprinkles the treetops with spray and, cascading down,
Fills even the distant hills with its roar..

Beautiful.. Nothing to do with rape and cows and jealousy. Is this a diversion? How do we feel about Io? Do we have any sympathy? Why or why not? Is Ovid doing something that might cause this do you think?

Why is all this here, any idea?

[bellamarie]

Ginny, that verse of the poem is splendid, and I can close my eyes and imagine the beauty of Ovid's descriptions of nature and all her glory.  He is mixing beauty and the beast in this part of the poem.  Rapture and rape!

I have great sympathy for Io being raped and turned into a cow. Again, the male seems to triumph over the woman, by her no longer being able to go on in her true identity and form.   

[PatH]

Why does Ovid put in the description of the rivers?  For its beauty certainly, but it's also one of his connectivity devices.  The river is Peneus, and its god or spirit, Peneus, is Daphne's father.  Peneus is calling a convocation of the rivers, at which the others notice that Inachus is absent.  Inachus is Io's father, and is too full of grief to come.

Clever device.

[BarbStAubrey]

The cow is a symbolic item in nearly all the ancient mythology and religions - the cow is revered in Egyptian, Chinese, Hindu, Scandinavian, Celtic, and Greek mythology. The cow represents the Great Mother, all the moon goddesses, the productive power of earth, plenty, procreation, the maternal instinct. The horns are in a crescent shape representing both moon and earth.

If we keep confusing the word 'rape' with our present understanding of unwanted, power over, and aggressive action these stories will be lost on us.

As a god there is something about humankind that only later did we understand but in ancient history this 'something' was a power beyond what humans believed they controlled. There was no fleeing your circumstances - No safe home to run home and have a mom and dad make you feel everything was OK.

With no options, the concept of being in a fog is still with us when we describe our being dazed, disoriented, confused, and inattentive - having no idea where that feeling came from it is easy to place it as a god putting a veil over your ability to function.

As to Lo being a cow - this is a goddess not a human - this goddess has a purpose that is being shown - there were no books explaining and seeing the animals and all of nature as a guide to how things worked was common. Lo, as a cow nourishes and can suckle many at the same time - she could not be a pig, which also suckles many at the same time because pigs are, domesticated Boars that did not yet exist and a Boar is a brute of an animal associated with warfare.

We also have to realize sex as a loving act was not a part of a union. The furthering of the tribe was the issue - it is the basis for why women in the Middle East are covered and marriages are arranged so that there is control over the tribe. Part of the Helen story - Helen is a Spartan and Paris is Athenian. To this day in the Middle East, the wealth earned by a tribe is distributed to only those who are pure to that tribe and if a daughter marries outside the tribe than the entire family loses the annual dividends from the tribal investments that can be oil, land, buildings etc.

And so, Lo is put in a fog much as a women from the middle east wears a burka.  Lo as a goddess is a cow and the job of this goddess among others is productive procreation as a mother to the earth.

When we plant a seed in the ground, we do not know how it was fertilized to become a plant. Animals they can see and know but do not yet know the process - and so what is not known must be the work of a god or a goddess or a heavenly identity or an identity from the underworld.   

Without Lo the earth would be like the Sahara - no procreation of trees and grass - only wind and sand - as the great expanse she was fleeing into but was stopped by a fog. We can see that as an analogy to ourselves during a great trauma or sorrow when we want to emotionally flee and we are kept from deep madness by going into some sort of fog to give ourselves time to heal enough to continue. 

After the death of a loved one we often are in a fog before we can cope. Once we are coping so to speak we are creating activity that is beneficial to ourselves and those around us. We are contributing again, we are productive, we have been touched or ‘raped’, as was Lo. Now surrounded with maternal power that helped us heal and as we in turn, take care of ourselves, those around us, our responsibilities to town and country. In other words, we sit down and do our Income Tax now that we are out of the fog of loss. 

[Frybabe]

The Peneus River through the Vikos Gorge.
http://visitheworld.tumblr.com/post/27509304134/vikos-gorge-in-pindus-mountains-epirus-greece

BTW, if you click on "It's a Beautiful World" you will see some totally awesome pix from all aroung the world.

Recent Mt. Pindos (Pindus) news: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/11/25/ruins-of-ancient-greek-city-found-on-mount-pindos/

[PatH]

No wonder it inspires such beautiful description.

[JoanK]

WOW! The story of Io got me from the first word! majestic, beautiful, tragic, and funny!

And a new role for Ovid: the inventor of Science Fiction! The guy with eyes all around who has his eyes take turns sleeping! (Why do I keep thinking of R2D2?)

I stopped at Pan, but can't wait to go on!

[bellamarie]

There are no two ways to understand "rape" in Ovid's poem.  He not only has the female goddess pursued against her will, but then uses the word rape.  I am not looking for any romance, or love in his poem.  No form of taking against one's will and then turning them into a new form to hide what you have done from your wife makes logic, whether you are turned into a cow, a heifer, a lamb or laurel tree.  Keep in mind he was exiled in part because of the immorality of this poem, so even Augustus saw the disgust in it.  He can describe nature in all its splendor, but it does not take away the ugliness of the acts committed against the female goddesses.

This thesis is very interesting and shows Ovid intends these acts of rape to be brutal and in no way turning the goddesses into any certain form is meant for a meaning of honor or heroic.   Here are some excerpts:
University of Colorado, Boulder
CU Scholar
Undergraduate Honors                           Theses Honors Program
Spring 2014
Patterns of Rape in Ovid's Metamorphoses
Nikki Bloch
University of Colorado Boulder

The subject of rape is pervasive throughout Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The myths themselves are
by no means originals of the poet; however, his treatment of these stories is remarkably divergent
from his predecessors’ in that he provides a uniquely female perspective by outlining both the
victim’s suffering and the barbaric nature of the perpetrator. In Ovid’s representations of these
rape myths, rape is never glorified, even when it is committed by the gods. The metamorphoses
of female victims of rape in Ovid’s epic are representations of the victims’ emotional trauma,
even for those who are able to evade rape. The metamorphoses of the male perpetrators
symbolize their brutishness and unrefined power in committing the act of rape. Ovid further
expounds the suffering of female victims in his depictions of victim blaming and secondary
victimization at the hands of the goddesses. Ovid reexamines rape in these myths in depicting
the ongoing torment victims of rape endure and the inexcusable injustice of rape itself.

Rape in the Metamorphoses is presented as a
horrific atrocity, regardless of the characters involved in the act.

The metamorphoses of the victims of rape or attempted rape are highly illustrative of the
psychological toll of rape on them. In the Metamorphoses, the rape of a woman does not always
end in a victim’s transformation. However, the scenes in which transformation does take place
are graphic and unsettling. Metamorphosis of female victims can be broken into two categories,
one in which a victim’s metamorphosis acts as an escape from rape and the other in which
metamorphosis is a result of a completed rape.

As is observed in modernity, rarely does the suffering of victims in Ovid’s mythological
world culminate with the rape itself. These women, forcibly drawn into the affairs of the gods,
are doubly victimized, once by their rapists then again by the goddesses against whom truly the
gods, and not their helpless victims, commit offence. A woman’s beauty, often a source of pride,
becomes a dangerous quality to possess. Victims are faulted for their beauty as the cause for their
rape. Blamed for the very crime committed against them, victims of rape are physically
ostracized through their metamorphosis, a symbolic representation of societal rejection. In
rendering these victims, Ovid illustrates the complex sociological and psychological phenomena
that coincide with rape, namely the emotional trauma a victim undergoes from both the rape
itself and the societal response to the rape.



http://scholar.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1047&context=honr_theses

[Frybabe]

Thanks for that, Bellamarie. As the saying goes, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

[PatH]

That is an interesting article, Bellamarie.

he provides a uniquely female perspective by outlining both the
victim’s suffering and the barbaric nature of the perpetrator

He seems to be saying that Ovid has produced an indictment of rape, by showing how indefensible it is, how brutish the perpetrator, and how touching the suffering of the victim.

[ginny]

I really LOVE coming into this discussion! I absolutely love it. I love your individual ideas and research and opinions, they are all so varied.

Pat, that take on why the water is in there is fabulous. I have never seen it before and it's wonderful!

Frybabe, those gorgeous photos of the actual place, marvelous.  Thank you!

I love the debate on rape with Barbara and Bellamarie. I think I'll stay out of it because there are a string of same to come, but I think everybody's thoughts add to the whole and make a splendid conversation. I  thought Pat's explanation there of what Ovid might be doing in depicting Io, was eye opening. Never saw that either. What a valuable thing you've made of this, and so fun.

It's interesting that in astronomy in our own planets Jupiter's Objects of Desire should we say continue to revolve around him.

Here is Io:


Io is one of 4 moons of Jupiter. The others are: —Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

That should say something to us.



Galileo spacecraft true-color image of Io. The dark spot just left of the center is the erupting volcano Prometheus. The whitish plains on either side of it are coated with volcanically deposited sulfur dioxide frost, whereas the yellower regions contain a higher proportion of sulfur.

Discovered by    Galileo Galilei
Discovery date    8 January 1610

more...

[ginny]

Bellamarie, you said Keep in mind he was exiled in part because of the immorality of this poem, so even Augustus saw the disgust in it. 

Unfortunately this  is not correct.,  The "carmen" part of Ovid's saying why he was exiled poem is thought to be almost certainly  the Ars Amatoria, the art of the lover or how to seduce a married woman.

Dr. Travis explains why and  the background of Augustus and Ovid and the issue here in Part B of the CAMS 1103 Introduction to Ovid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLf4yvpIA7Y

(In going to this or any other internet site, you must have good anti virus protection and Malware installed. They are free. Jane can assist in her Ask Jane column here on the site.)

It's also felt that this change of scene to a place in Thessaly, masks the real subject. Here we have a place called Tempe,  surrounded by mountains, in  which is the Pindus Mountain, an idyllic spot in ancient thought from which there is no exit save the river Peneus foaming down from the Pindus Mountain. I thought Ovid there (beautifully translated by Lombardo) was magnificent.

But the change of place and the descriptions, and the  flashback...all this jumping around caused me to lose sight of the story. I wonder why? I missed the fact that the River  Peneus is the father of Daphne.  The tie in that Pat saw. She wasn't fooled. I was.

And the only river missing  is Io's father, the River Inachus, who is off mourning the loss of his daughter, Io. Another tie in.  It's not a segue at all, it's a tie in to the next story.

I also missed the somewhat salient fact that although the god Apollo did not succeed with Daphne, Jupiter did with Io. But what manliness, as he tries to avoid his wife/ sister's jealousy into something of a...what is he?  Ridiculous and laughable figure. That scene where Juno asks for the cow is priceless. Ovid hints they both know that the cow is Io but they both avoid saying so, so they do a little pas de deux between them.

Ovid is having a good time with this.  Io isn't. And I was totally thrown off guard by the descriptions, change of scenery and flashbacks. I suspect there is a reason for all this. Do you see  ANY indications to you that Ovid wants us to feel sorry for Io? Or has he turned this entire thing into almost slapstick?

Remember how the Romans read or even listened to poetry. Would they have been thrown off track? Why throw the reader off track? Were YOU thrown off track?

What did YOU think  about the Io scenes?

[PatH]

Have any of you seen Io the moon?  When they're in the right position, those four bright moons can be seen around Jupiter with ordinary binoculars.  Once a neighbor let me look at them through his telescope.  I didn't figure out which moon was which though.

[bellamarie]

Ginny,

Unfortunately this  is not correct.,  The poem is thought to be almost certainly  the Ars Amatoria, the art of the lover or how to seduce a married woman.

I suppose depending on which link we choose we will find articles that support the Metamorphoses poem was seen as apolitical and amoral and was in part, of the decision for his exile along with him having an affair with a senator's wife.  I have read numerous sites that say both, and that all his books were banned from the libraries.  Earlier on I have listed different sites that do support this.  But then again, I don't think anyone can determine an absolute.

Ginny,

Ovid is having a good time with this.  Io isn't. And I was totally thrown off guard by the descriptions, change of scenery and flashbacks. I suspect there is a reason for all this. Do you see  ANY indications to you that Ovid wants us to feel sorry for Io? Or has he turned this entire thing into almost slapstick?

I can find NO humor in rape and turning Io into a cow to disguise the rape he has just committed so his wife does not find out.  Io is a victim of a vicious act, as are many of Ovid's female characters. 

Maybe this explains the humor some can find in Ovid's poem where rape has been committed and the taken lightly....
To modern audiences, equating rape with love is unpalatable, but as Richlin noted, Ovid had once written that women secretly enjoy being raped: “force is pleasing to girls”.[33]  When read in this context, Ovid’s “loving” rapists make light of the violence and harm they have inflicted. The forceful passions of the gods and heroes are deemed benevolent, whether the girl wants them or not.

The effect of framing the act of rape in this way, and associating it with all gods and all mortals, is that the narratives normalise and tolerate rape.
http://foundinantiquity.com/2013/10/06/rape-culture-in-classical-mythology/comment-page-1/

So their beauty and refusal are reason enough for the male characters to rape them.....  yep sounds much like today's way of thinking, the woman/girl asked for it because she was too revealing, too sexy, too flirty, too beautiful, too resistant to male advances.  Nothing has changed throughout all the centuries, men committing the vicious act and then joking about it later, seeing it as a triumph.  Makes me wonder what today's male imagines a girl he rapes turns into, a cat, a trophy, a joke about his conquest, etc., etc.  I have dealt with rape victims, and know some personally and so maybe this subject is just a little too close for me to enjoy this poem and try to find slapstick humor here. 

In his book Ars Amatoria, there is a quote on his attitude toward raping his female characters, est vis grata puellis

I find it a bit ironic how the name of this book is Metamorphoses, (change) yet....Quaedam numquam mutant

[PatH]

I finally put up some questions, but some of them cover the whole thing, and will be easier to answer in a bit.

In this story the rape is only the beginning.  Several more episodes follow, and there are several changes of tone, plus some interesting ideas.  What do you think Ovid is doing with these changes of tone?

[bellamarie]

The theme to his Metamorphoses seems to be the narrative of raping the goddesses to go to the next change, whether it be a child is born from the rape, or what consequences and different forms develop from the rapes.

Among the many narratives that appear in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, myths about rape are the most abundant.
http://scholar.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1047&context=honr_theses

While Robson argues that the metamorphosis of gods into animal form is a mark of sophistication and cunning, in the Metamorphoses is rather representative of their savagery.38 The predatory actions of rapists can
assume tragic or horrific proportions. They can also be comic, as a way showing how degraded the gods in particular can be when they are in amatory pursuit

In researching I found this thesis that was able to tell us how many rapes occur in Ovid's Metamorphoses:

There are episodes of rape in Ovid’s earlier and later works, but depictions of sexual violence
are most abundant in the Metamorphoses. In Ovid’s first venture into hexameter, there are
more than fifty tales of rape and attempted rape (Curran 1984: 263), a large number,
considering that the Metamorphoses is made up of only fifteen books. Some accounts are
long and detailed while others are merely referred to in passing. Rape victims are most likely
to be female and their rapists are most likely to be male; however, there is one very graphic
tale of the attempted rape of Hermaphroditus by a nymph, Salmacis. In the Metamorphoses,
male rapists appear to go largely unpunished1 and it seems that it is often the victims of rape
or the potential victims of rape who themselves suffer penalties for the crime.

It really makes me wonder exactly why it is that Ovid seemed to find rape as his segway into the next parts of his poem, and the connection to each of the gods and goddesses?   Very troubling.

PatH., 

He seems to be saying that Ovid has produced an indictment of rape, by showing how indefensible it is, how brutish the perpetrator, and how touching the suffering of the victim.

Very observant of you!  I posted that last night because I did not want to forget to comment on it today. I'm wondering how on earth Ovid a male could have any insight into what a female feels being raped.  He can do his best to describe from his point of view, but unless and until he is a female it is only speculation.  No where do I see his narrator turned into a female so he is able to tell us what it is like and how it feels to be raped as a female.  He can express sympathy, but it is odd for me to understand how he is able to sympathize, yet continue to use this violent storyline throughout his entire 15 books of the Metamorphoses, and other books he wrote.  A bit hypocritical.

This is yet another interesting thesis I found, worth reading to have a better understanding of Ovid the poet and his poems:
 
file:///C:/Users/Marie/Downloads/CHAMPANIS-MA-TR13-233.pdf

FEMALE CHANGES: THE VIOLATION AND VIOLENCE OF WOMEN IN OVID’S METAMORPHOSES
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS of RHODES UNIVERSITY
by  LEIGH ALEXANDRA CHAMPANIS
December 2012
"His interest and knowledge of women is clearly evident in works such as the Amores, the Ars Amatoria, the Heroides and the Metamorphoses.
Nevertheless, this interest in women divides Ovidian scholars and there appear to be three
main approaches taken in interpreting Ovid and this preoccupation with women. There are
three characterizations which are generally attached to Ovid: Ovid the misogynist, Ovid the
sympathetic poet, and Ovid the entertainer. This chapter will describe the relevant Ovid
scholarship and compare the different stances taken by those in the field with regards to the Metamorphoses."

I don't mean to only focus on Ovid's theme of rape, but we simply can not overlook it when he, himself uses it to take us to each new section of his poem.

[PatH]

That's a lot of scholarly research, Bellamarie.  So you can do a thesis on the theories about what Ovid is up to.  I'm working through your references.

[PatH]

The tale of Io has a lot of dramatic mood changes.  We start with the wonderful description of natural beauty, the seat of the great river Peneus.  Then sheer horror, as Jupiter chases Io and catches her.  Then an abrupt change of tone to low comedy, as Juno looks down suspiciously at the mist—aha! that rat is cheating on me again—goes down, and neatly corners Jupiter into giving her the Io-heifer.  Then the mood changes again.

[PatH]

Ovid is punning again.  When Juno first spots the mist and tries to figure out what's going on, she says:

Either I'm wrong or I'm being wronged.              Lombardo

Either I'm mad or I am being had.               Martin

Either I am wrong, or being wronged.                Kline

I wonder what the Latin is.

[Jonathan]

Humpty-Dumpty (Love) took a great fall. How can we ever forgive Ovid?  Or should we thank him. A reaction obviously set in. With Christianity came chastity.

'Maiden, you are fit for Jupiter himself to love, and will make someone divinely happy when you share his couch.'

Being a god, The god,  wasn't enough.

I felt even sorrier for Apollo. He had everything...except a cure for love:


'I am lord of Delphi, Claros, and Tenedos....I am the son of Jupiter (perhaps that was the problem) by my skill, the past , the present, and the future are revealed; thanks  to me, the lyre strings thrill with music. The art of medicine is my invention, and men the world over give me the name of healer. All the herbs are known to me: but alas, there are no herbs to cure love, and the skills which help others cannot help its master.'

Pity the poor 'rapist'. But there were many statues of Apollo around Rome.

[bellamarie]

 "by my skill, the past , the present, and the future are revealed"

Too bad his ability to see into the future didn't warn him of Cupid's arrow heading for him.