Comparison Of Ovid's Philemon And Baucis

Thomas Gunn’s adaptation of Ovid’s Philemon and Baucis is very different from Ovid’s version. This is especially visible when considering the emphasis of the works. Ovid focus more on Jupiter’s wrath and xenia. While Gunn focuses more on Philemon and Baucis’s longstanding relationship.

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the tale of Philemon and Baucis is focused on the couple’s interaction with Jupiter and Mercury and the concept of xenia. Out of all their neighbors, Philemon and Baucis were the only ones that treated Jupiter and Mercury in way that was appropriate for a host to treat their guest. As a result, Jupiter and Mercury punished their neighbors. Jupiter and Mercury rewarded them by turning their house into a shrine and making them priests. Philemon and Baucis were also given the gift becoming trees that intertwine with each other when they died so that they would never be apart even in death.

In Gunn’s work, he touches on the the idea that Philemon and Baucis were rewarded for the comfort they gave to the gods, but doesn’t mention which gods they comforted or what happened to the neighbors that did not fulfil their role as hosts. Although Gunn also fails to mention that Philemon and Baucis became priests at the shrine that Jupiter and Mercury made, which was the main reward given to them for being such good hosts, he focuses on the on how Philemon and Baucis became trees that share the same bark for