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Henk's Reviews > Metamorphosen
Metamorphosen
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This took me a while because of the more than 600 characters and less depth on the individual myths than I imagined upfront. Still nice to have this behind the belt when visiting a museum - 2.5 stars rounded up
Bernini’s famous transformation of marble in flesh, inspired by a tale in the first book of the Methamorphoses:
General
Metamorphoses is a treasure trove on myths of the Greek and Romans. Ovid takes us from the creation of the world to the murder on Julius Caesar. Don't expect something chronological like the History of Herodotus, but prepare on being buffeted by more than 250 distinct narratives divided over 15 books. I personally would have like more depth on some myths, like Theseus, Perseus and Jason their adventures. Also the book felt a bit fragmented for me, and I had trouble with keeping my attention with it at times.
Is it overall about conformity? Following higher forces (and the state in the time of Ovid) or else be punished/killed/transformed in a horrible manner? Being humble, except if you are a descendent to the powers that be, like Perseus as son of Jupiter, seems to be the only option in the stories Ovid narrates. This is especially true for women, in Metamorphosis you have an extraordinary high chance of being literally and figuratively screwed, with Medusa at the end of book IV being the sad highlight. After being raped by Neptune in a temple of Minerva she is turned into a monster by the goddess and later beheaded by Perseus.
Some highlights per book
Book I: The whole set up of the poem, from creation to current time, reminded met of The Silmarillion of J.R.R. Tolkien, interesting to see where his inspiration came from.
The reminiscing on a lost golden age is also interesting given Rome was the force of the day and it’s fall heralded the “dark” middle ages. The described golden age reminded me of Yuval Noah Harari Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, where the foraging men was seen as most blissful in the human history till after the industrial revolution.
Then as a bonus there is Lycaon as a proto werewolf and ah, a primordial flood to punish us humans for our sins, how familiar. Deucalion and Pyrrha as Adam and Eve.
Myths as an understanding of the world, convenient explanations on why Ethiopians are dark skinned (burned by the Sun wagon coming to close to earth), laurels (a rivernymph trying to escape Apollo) and Egyptians worshipping gods that have animal forms (a lover of Zeus changed into a cow to avoid Juno).
Did people really believe that or where this just tales told to children?
Book II
Phaeton as epitome of youthful over ambition
In strophe 252 we have swans being toasted by the sun and in 377 we have a mourning relative, Cycnus, of Phaeton transform in a new bird species, the swan, which seems a bit conflicting.
Crows and old men being punished for their nosiness and gossiping
Wishes go as awry as in Alladin for Semele
Because no deity can negate the actions of an other deity, interesting concept, this explains a lot about The Iliad
Narcissus being popular with men and girls before turning into a flower.
Book IV
Piramus and Thisbe being the Babylonian predecessors to Romeo and Juliet
Book V
The wedding of Andromeda and Perseus ends up being described as a scene from 300, when her fiancee and uncle shows up to the party and get gruesomely killed.
Book VII
Medea is still hard to understand for me, thought this might be a full account of the journey of the Argonauts but it turned out quite fragmented and short.
VIII has Scylla betray her father for love of king Minos, and has her cutting a string of hair from him as show of betrayal, quite reminiscent to the story of Delilah and Samson.
Book X is the gay book with Orpheus, Ganymede and Hyacinthus (who dies rather stupidly in a friendly match of disc throwing with his lover Apollo)
Pygmalion meanwhile invents the first sexdoll from ivory.
In book XI Alcyone and Ceyx, transforming into kingfishers, has an emotional impact.
Book XII has an invincible transgender Caenis/Caeneus (who got the body and strength of a man after being raped by Neptune) and a fight scene between Centaurs and men that would make Quentin Tarantino jealous. Brainpudding is pushed out of cracked skulls like its a sieve. Wow!
Book XIII has Ajax his “I don’t like words but action” speech four pages in an epic burn of Odysseus
Which is than eloquently returned (“not because my father did not kill his own brother I claim these weapons”) by the master of deception and words himself.
Hecuba ripping someones eyes out (and the general misery of the women of Troy) is quite touching.
And not to forget: nymph Galatea being compared to swan down and white cheese by her cyclops admirer.
Book XIV has the founding of Rome and the many wars preceding and following this event (parties are lambasted for fighting because they just want to win and are ashamed of peace).
In XV we have Pythagoras as first vegetarian, with a speech against eating meat due to the belief the soul reincarnates in an ever repeating manner, maybe influenced from stories from India after the conquests of Alexander?
Interesting that he says that ancient anchors have been found on mountains as well. Father of archeological research besides mathematics?
Bernini’s famous transformation of marble in flesh, inspired by a tale in the first book of the Methamorphoses:
General
Metamorphoses is a treasure trove on myths of the Greek and Romans. Ovid takes us from the creation of the world to the murder on Julius Caesar. Don't expect something chronological like the History of Herodotus, but prepare on being buffeted by more than 250 distinct narratives divided over 15 books. I personally would have like more depth on some myths, like Theseus, Perseus and Jason their adventures. Also the book felt a bit fragmented for me, and I had trouble with keeping my attention with it at times.
Is it overall about conformity? Following higher forces (and the state in the time of Ovid) or else be punished/killed/transformed in a horrible manner? Being humble, except if you are a descendent to the powers that be, like Perseus as son of Jupiter, seems to be the only option in the stories Ovid narrates. This is especially true for women, in Metamorphosis you have an extraordinary high chance of being literally and figuratively screwed, with Medusa at the end of book IV being the sad highlight. After being raped by Neptune in a temple of Minerva she is turned into a monster by the goddess and later beheaded by Perseus.
Some highlights per book
Book I: The whole set up of the poem, from creation to current time, reminded met of The Silmarillion of J.R.R. Tolkien, interesting to see where his inspiration came from.
The reminiscing on a lost golden age is also interesting given Rome was the force of the day and it’s fall heralded the “dark” middle ages. The described golden age reminded me of Yuval Noah Harari Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, where the foraging men was seen as most blissful in the human history till after the industrial revolution.
Then as a bonus there is Lycaon as a proto werewolf and ah, a primordial flood to punish us humans for our sins, how familiar. Deucalion and Pyrrha as Adam and Eve.
Myths as an understanding of the world, convenient explanations on why Ethiopians are dark skinned (burned by the Sun wagon coming to close to earth), laurels (a rivernymph trying to escape Apollo) and Egyptians worshipping gods that have animal forms (a lover of Zeus changed into a cow to avoid Juno).
Did people really believe that or where this just tales told to children?
Book II
Phaeton as epitome of youthful over ambition
In strophe 252 we have swans being toasted by the sun and in 377 we have a mourning relative, Cycnus, of Phaeton transform in a new bird species, the swan, which seems a bit conflicting.
Crows and old men being punished for their nosiness and gossiping
Wishes go as awry as in Alladin for Semele
Because no deity can negate the actions of an other deity, interesting concept, this explains a lot about The Iliad
Narcissus being popular with men and girls before turning into a flower.
Book IV
Piramus and Thisbe being the Babylonian predecessors to Romeo and Juliet
Book V
The wedding of Andromeda and Perseus ends up being described as a scene from 300, when her fiancee and uncle shows up to the party and get gruesomely killed.
Book VII
Medea is still hard to understand for me, thought this might be a full account of the journey of the Argonauts but it turned out quite fragmented and short.
VIII has Scylla betray her father for love of king Minos, and has her cutting a string of hair from him as show of betrayal, quite reminiscent to the story of Delilah and Samson.
Book X is the gay book with Orpheus, Ganymede and Hyacinthus (who dies rather stupidly in a friendly match of disc throwing with his lover Apollo)
Pygmalion meanwhile invents the first sexdoll from ivory.
In book XI Alcyone and Ceyx, transforming into kingfishers, has an emotional impact.
Book XII has an invincible transgender Caenis/Caeneus (who got the body and strength of a man after being raped by Neptune) and a fight scene between Centaurs and men that would make Quentin Tarantino jealous. Brainpudding is pushed out of cracked skulls like its a sieve. Wow!
Book XIII has Ajax his “I don’t like words but action” speech four pages in an epic burn of Odysseus
Which is than eloquently returned (“not because my father did not kill his own brother I claim these weapons”) by the master of deception and words himself.
Hecuba ripping someones eyes out (and the general misery of the women of Troy) is quite touching.
And not to forget: nymph Galatea being compared to swan down and white cheese by her cyclops admirer.
Book XIV has the founding of Rome and the many wars preceding and following this event (parties are lambasted for fighting because they just want to win and are ashamed of peace).
In XV we have Pythagoras as first vegetarian, with a speech against eating meat due to the belief the soul reincarnates in an ever repeating manner, maybe influenced from stories from India after the conquests of Alexander?
Interesting that he says that ancient anchors have been found on mountains as well. Father of archeological research besides mathematics?
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Reading Progress
April 11, 2020
–
Started Reading
April 11, 2020
– Shelved
April 11, 2020
–
17.84%
"Basically as a women in Metamorphosis you have a extraordinary high chance of being literally and figuratively screwed."
page
81
April 14, 2020
–
29.3%
"Perseus is rather unsympathetic, taking the backstory of Medusa into account"
page
133
April 15, 2020
– Shelved as:
owned
May 2, 2020
–
Finished Reading
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by
Laysee
(new)
May 06, 2020 03:19AM
What a feat to have read this! Thank you, Henk, for this comprehensive review. Now I know where to look for reference if I ever wish to take on this reading challenge.
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Thanks Laysee, I really love mythology but this was indeed a rather hard read. When the museums reopen it is a boon to have this background so at least that is nice :-)
Fascinating to read how these stories influenced so many later authors and the overlap with the Bible. Great review!
Thanks Allie, yes indeed, it is a very influential book and mythology is always interesting I feel.
