The Metamorphoses

Selected Stories in Verse

Ovid

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486153629
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient Poetry
• Index: Literature

One of ancient Rome's most celebrated poets, Ovid (43 B.C.–A.D. 18) wrote during the reign of Augustus. His works reflect a sentiment of art for pleasure's sake, without the ethical or moral overtones, which perhaps accounts for his enduring popularity. For more than two thousand years, readers have delighted in Ovid's playful eloquence; his influence on other writers has ranged from Dante and Chaucer to Shakespeare and Milton, and scenes from his stories have inspired many great works by Western artists.
This selection of thirty stories from the verse translation by F. A. Wright of Ovid's famous work, The Metamorphoses, does full justice to the poet's elegance and wit. All of the tales involve a form of metamorphosis, or transformation, and are peopled by mythological gods, demigods, and mortals: Venus and Adonis, Pygmalion, Apollo and Daphne, Narcissus, Perseus, and Andromeda, Orpheus and Eurydice, the Cyclops, and Circe, among others.
Although most of the stories did not originate with Ovid, it is quite possible that had he not written them down, these oral traditions would have been lost forever — and with them, a vast and valuable amount of Greco-Roman culture. This collection of the poet's best and most beloved narrative verses reflects the vitality of classical mythology.
A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

POMONA AND VERTUMNUS

The old Roman gods do not lend themselves very readily to poetical treatment.

anus, Flora, Ceres and the rest, are work-a-day divinities, each with his allotted task, as severely practical as were the people who worshipped them. But Ovid does his best, and in the story of Pomona and Vertumnus produces at least a charming fantasy.

WHEN Procas in old Rome held sway
Of all the nymphs in his broad land
Pomona was most skilled, men say,
The growth of fruit to understand.
For woods and streams she had no care
But only for her garden fair.

 

Hence was her name. No spear she bore,
No javelin; but a pruning hook
With curved blade she ever wore,
Whose aid to curb the trees she took,
Or set a graft within and so
In old boughs make new juices flow.

 

Nor did she leave them parched and dry,
But to the roots of every tree
A trickling stream she would supply,
Making her work her joy to be.
No thought had she of love, but pent
Within her orchard lived content.

 

 

The leaping Satyrs oft essayed
To win her, and Silvanus too.
Oft the young Fauns their heads arrayed
With wreaths of pine-cones came to woo,
And he who does in gardens stand
With sickle armed and phallus wand.

 

 

But most of all Vertumnus burned
With passion never satisfied.
Into full many a shape he turned
That he might reach the maiden’s side,
And gazed upon her with fond eyes
In this one or in that disguise.

 

 

Now as a reaper he would come,
His basket full of ripened ears;
Now as a mower faring home
With temples hay-wreathed he appears.
And now a drover he would seem
Fresh from the stabling of his team.

 

 

Sometimes as a fruit-picker he
Would mount the trees on ladder high:
Sometimes a pruner feign to be
Or a leaf-gatherer’s visage try.
A gallant soldier he would look,
A fisherman with rod and hook.

 

 

At last one day disguised he came,
Grey-haired, with coloured snood, and stick,
Seeming a bent and wrinkled dame,
And begged the nymph her fruit to pick :—
“ Your trees”, he said, “ most lovely are
” But you are lovelier by far.”

 

 

Then, gazing at the comely maid
He kissed her thrice with warmer lips
Than suited with the part he played,
And on the grass beside her slips.
And as he praised the rosy fruit
Determined now to press his suit.

 

 

An elm-tree stood before them there
Within whose branches did entwine
With purple grapes most wondrous fair
The clusters of a spreading vine,—
“ Were yonder tree unwed,” he cried,
“’Twould be but leaves and naught beside.

 

 

“ And so the vine which now at rest
Lies sheltered on her husband’s arm,
If she upon the ground were pressed
Would in the dust lose all her charm.
Why not therefrom example take
And for yourself a marriage make ?

 

 

“ Ah, if you only would be kind !
A thousand suitors even now
Desire in you their bride to find
Would you to their entreaties bow.
No god in all this Alban land
But burns and longs to claim your hand.

 

 

“ Shun not these joys, lest late you grieve.
Be wise and listen to my word :
I love you more than you believe ;
Take young Vertumnus for your lord.
That is a match you ne’er will rue ;
He will be husband staunch and true.

 

 

“ He does not roam about the streets
Nor does he, like your other swains,
Court every maiden that he meets,
He constant to his home remains.
To none is he more known than me
And for him I give guarantee.

 

 

“ You are his first and only love,
To you he will devote his days,
His manly vigour he will prove,
The native charm of all his ways.
He can assume what shape he will
And all you ask he will fulfil.

 

 

“ The same delights both of you please
You can each other’s pleasures share.
He ever is the first to seize
The fruit that is your chiefest care.
And ofttimes comes a-plundering
The gifts that from your bounty spring.

 

 

but nothing now does he require
Of the sweet herbs your gardens own,
Nor has he of your fruit desire ;
He longs for you and you alone.
Take pity : think that he is near
And that these are his words you hear.

 

 

“ Beware too lest your ways offend
The angry gods, and Nemesis
Upon you retribution send ;
For Venus hates such pride as this.
There is a tale—I know it well—
Listen : and I that tale will tell.”

(Then follows the story of Iphis and Anaxaretë, given overleaf ; which proving ineffectual, the god returns to his own shape, and Pomona, enchanted by his manly beauty, consents to his love.)

Vertumnus spoke : yet spoke in vain ;
And straight put off his woman’s guise
And as a youth appeared again.
Bright as the sun when in the skies
His light has put the clouds to rout
And in full radiance he shines out.

 

 

The god was ready force to use :
No force he needed with those charms.
Pomona, when his form she views,
Falls of herself into his arms,
And smitten with an equal fire
Answers his love with her desire.

 

Metam., XIV, 623-771.

THE CRUEL MISTRESS

The tale of cruel Anaxaretë, the girl with the heart of stone, and of her luckless lover’s death is pure romance, and belongs to the same family as many of the mediaeval love stories. Ovid tries, not very happily, to connect it with ...