Ovid, Metamorphoses, Books 9, 10, 15, and epilogue
(Raeburn trans., Book IX (Hercules, Achelous, Nessus, and Deinaira, 337-52); X (Orpheus and Euridice, 380-86); Book XI (Ceys and Alcyon, 442-58), and XV (King Numa, the teachings of Pythagoras, and the epilogue, 594-616 and 636).)
1) Moses Hadas writes: "The closest
Alexandrian model we know of are the Aitiai of Callimachus, but these,
like Propertius' aetiological [of origins or causes] poems, were disparate
pieces. The framework for other
great collections of individual tales--the Decameron, Canterbury
Tales, Arabian Nights, Don Juan--is more plausible
because more naturalistic. Ovid's
framework makes no concession to naturalism but is pure artifice.
Artifice...is the key to the Ovidian mood.
Homer presumably believed in the historicity of his tale and expected his
auditors to believe it. Callimachus
obviously did not believe in his, but wrote as if he expected his readers to
believe in them. Ovid makes no
pretense of literal belief and is addressing people on the same side of his
fence. His work is pure play,
seriously conceived and respected as such.
But this is not to say that he is oblivious to all truth: it is only for
the archaeological truth that Ovid invites to suspension of disbelief; of the
perennial human truths he is an acute observer..."
2) In the "debate" between Hercules
and Achelous, the river god, what is Ovid saying about relations between gods
and mortals and how might this reinterpret his Greek predecessors' ideas?
3) In the wrestling match between
Hercules and Achelous, how does metamorphosis work as a "coping strategy" and
what does that suggest?
4) What circumstance produces the
poison which kills Hercules, and what circumstance produces the motivation to
use it? What transformation does it
lead to?
5) When Hercules describes himself
as "born for toil" he identifies one of the most singular things about him as a
hero. Given that Hercules was
worshiped in the ancient world (a relatively late addition to the pantheon, who
would you guess would be his worshipers and what would you expect them to expect
as a consequence of his deification in this fashion?
6) Orpheus and Eurydice form an
antitype to Hercules and Deineira in that the former couple loses the female to
death but remains assured of their mutual faithfulness, whereas the later couple
loses the male to death (or at least to mortal life) and suffers the pains of
jealousy. What is special about
Orpheus as a hero? How might we
interpret his defeat at the gates of the Underworld?
7) Ovid's narrative of Orpheus and Eurydice is retold in a medieval Middle English breton lai (short romance) named "Kyng Orfeo" or "Sir Orfew," depending on which of the two surviving manuscripts one reads. The tale tells the Orpheus and Eurydice story in Medieval dress (kings, knights, ladies) but the king is a musician who retrieves his queen from a "land of faerie" which is populated by the shades of those who have died. More importantly, this king succeeds in retrieving his queen. Based on your reading of Daphnis and Chloe and our discussion of romance as a genre, how can you explain this otherwise hard to explain change in the core plot of this myth?
8) Ceys and Alcyon combine a tale of marital disaster with some peculiarly ineffective prayers. The ordinary powers mortals get when they are the son of Lucifer (the morning star) and daughter of Aeolus (king of the winds) appear to be completely absent. They both pray directly and generally for assistance, but the only thing that rouses a god to action is Juno's disgust that Alcyon's prayers for the now-dead Ceys might pollute her sacred altar. Ovid specifically mentions that these prayers go unanswered, rather than just tacitly allowing his readers to notice the fact. What does this mean in the context of the metamorphosis of the lovers when "the gods took pity" on them?
9) Set within the tale of Ceys and Alcyon is a description of the curious family of Somnus, specifically three of his hundred children (Morpheus, Icelos, and Phantasos), all of whom can imitate certain kinds of things by metamorphosis (Morpheus into persons, Icelos into birds, beasts, or reptiles, and Phantasos into earth or water). Geoffrey Chaucer used the tale of "Seys and Alcyone" from Ovid to introduce one of his most compelling dream visions, The Boke of the Duchess, and then proceeds to parody its plot in his own prayer to Morpheus for sleep to relieve his eight-year insomnia. The result is his dream of a "Man in Black" lamenting the death of his duchess, probably in some form the duke of Lancaster, Chaucer's patron, who had lost Blanche ("White" in the visio) to the plague in the previous year. How does Chaucer's use of Ovid reflect a reading of the tale's description of Somnus' strange realm of mimicry and imitation? How does poesis relate to sleep and to dreams?
10) After Pythagoras' discourse on
vegetarianism, he goes on to discuss transformation (i.e., metamorphosis).
What principle does he describe as the governing one in the universe, and
in what ways does he demonstrate its operations?
11) Pythagoras says, "All these
creatures...derive their origin from something other than themselves."
What might that mean for the relations of species to each other
(including humans)? Does this seem
consistent with what you expect a Roman poet to think?
12) In tracing evidence of change
in world time, Pythagoras observes many cities which have risen in power only to
fall: Troy, Sparta, Mycenae, Thebes, and Athens.
Then Ovid has Pythagoras (remember he's a Greek character living before
Rome's rule) predict that "one, born of Julus' line, will make [Rome]
mistress of the world." What
implication does he fail to develop in a text which has as its theme
metamorphosis?
13) How does Ovid handle Caesar's
deification? Especially consider
this in the context of Hadas' comment in #1 above.
14) How does Ovid's claim for his
work in the valediction relate to
the theme of the Metamorphoses itself?
How does Ovid live on?