Ovid's Metamorphoses

April 5th, 2017

Manpriya Nahal

Professor: A. Moudrov

Class: CMLIT 101W The secret transformational power of love according to Ovid

The title of Ovid’s poems, Metamorphoses literally translates into “transformation”. The compendium is a transformational work itself, merging a multitude of Greek and Roman historical traditions into one massive epic poem. There are many different types of transformations that occur for different reasons throughout the poem: people and gods change into plants and animals, love into hate, chaos into being. Love is the catalyst that creates these changes in the stories that compose the Metamorphoses. Book Ten of Metamorphoses specifically portrays love as a dangerous and destructive emotion that dooms even the

He puts the characters of his book through great suffering only to test the strength of their romantic love. Going back to the story of Orpheus, who is devastated over the loss of his wife to a point of no return. Rather than ending the story, Ovid transforms Orpheus sexuality. “ … And Orpheus, in all that time, had shunned/ the love of women; this, for his misfortune/ or for his pledged his heart to one- and to no other- woman” (328). Orpheus still believed in his promise to Eurydice- to love her forever. Therefore, he shuns all women by transforming his sexuality and only keeping friendship with the young men of Thrace. Hence, proving his loyalty to Eurydice. In the second story of Hyacinthus, sorrow becomes the cause of the transformation. Apollo, who is filled with unbearable guilt for killing his lover, decides to transforms Hyacinthus’s dead body into a flower. This shows the mighty Apollo preserving the memory of that for which he would mourn forever. Apollo could have walked away after transforming Hyacinthus that but his love for Hyacinthus was so strong that in order to be reminded of crime, he announces the festival of Hyacinthian that would be celebrated each year, hence allowing Apollo to mourn for eternity (334). Lastly, the most tragic story of all, the story of Myrrha. Myrrha knows it was wrong of her to fall in love with her father when she says, “ … to hate a father is/ a crime, but to love yours is worse than hate” (338). Her desire for her father is so intense that she deliberately goes against all the warnings given to her by fate (334) in order to get few precious moments with him. Myrrha satisfies her sexual appetite for her father and becomes impregnated, she runs from her homeland and prays for transformation; thereafter, she is turned into a myrrh tree that produces the illegitimate child.