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Ovid's Metamorphoses Transformation

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Creation myths span the globe in scope, effect, and creativity. Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a mythic-historical narrative poem that weaves many tales of transformation to tell the story of creation. Beginning with chaos and ending with the deification of Julius Caesar and the rise of Augustus, Ovid explores many themes: transformations (metamorphoses), origin, rape, love, art, death, sex, revenge, and so on. This paper will sort through the notable themes of origin and rape– focusing primarily on Jupiter with the latter – and trace their transformations in Metamorphoses, arguing that certain transformations were openings or barriers to origin and/or rape.
Akin to other creation myths, Ovid’s Metamorphoses began without light. Nature was “A lifeless …show more content…

They were the only two spared from the flood, and that was due to their piety (Bk. I, 476-500). And with the couple, the human race was re-created (Bk. I, 523-542). The transformation of Nature from a “lifeless lump,” from Chaos to Nature with earth, sea, wind, and more, was necessary to achieve origin. Without a developed/ sculpted nature, human life could not thrive. The transformations of humankind throughout the ages were also essential to achieve origin because, without these transformations, the human race that persisted throughout the rest of Metamorphoses would not exist. With a transformed human race, Ovid continued by focusing on the gods and their interactions with …show more content…

I, 816-19). Juno, Jupiter’s goddess wife, was suspicious of the fog that had “...overrun The face of daylight…” (Bk. I, 822-3). Knowing that his wife was arriving, Jupiter transformed Io into a cow (Bk. I, 836). Unlike Daphne, who was saved from rape and immortalized as a laurel bough– which symbolizes triumph– Io was raped by the king of the gods and then transformed into a cow; her consent taken away twice. Io did not consent to being with Jupiter and did not consent to being a cow. Io undergoes another transformation when Juno’s anger recedes, and the cow turns back into a nymph (Bk. I, 1026-1041). And from her rape, Io gives birth to a son, Epaphus (Bk. I,

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