The Narrator Of Ovid's Metamorphoses

The humans of ancient Greece revered their gods. Festivals and rites of worship honored their divine superiors and proved people’s piety. Ovid’s narrator in the Metamorphoses offers a valuable note of caution in response to the tragic episode between the talented mortal Arachne and the goddess Minerva: “do not compete with gods, and do not boast” (183). The gods acknowledge their lofty position above the mortals; the mortals, more often than not, willingly accept this relationship. The exchanges between the gods and the humans, however, indicate otherwise. Following the account of the earth’s formation, Ovid’s narrator describes the need for “[a]n animal with higher intellect…. / Then man was born. / Either the Architect / of All, the author of the universe… / created man from seed divine… / and when he fashioned man, his mold recalled / the master of all things, the gods” (5-6). Man is not a lesser version devised in the form of the gods. The gods and the mortals are equal in both design and ability, which is perhaps best demonstrated in the tale of Arachne. The reader should consider the circumstances of the tale. Ovid’s narrator introduces Minerva, the goddess of art, wisdom,

Minerva, threatened because she learned of a human’s remarkable capacity for an art over which she presides, felt obligated to protect her reputation. Her pride drove her to engage Arachne in a contest. Arachne, confident in her ability, accepted the challenge. It was ultimately Minerva who claimed victory because she used her divine powers to humiliate and to penalize a human whose skill seemed to match her own. Pure ability, however, did not determine a victor, and there was not to be one. Minerva’s emotional display and human inclinations may not be explicit signs of her innate humanity and thus of her equality to Arachne, but it does serve to present her as alike in nature to