The Metamorphoses Of Ovid

Ovid, Allen Mandelbaum

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781328787286
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Through National Book Award-winning translator Allen Mandelbaum's poetic artistry, this gloriously entertaining achievement of literature — classical myths filtered through the worldly and far from reverent sensibility of the Roman poet Ovid — is revealed anew. Savage and sophisticated, mischievious and majestic, witty and wicked, The Metamorphoses weaves together every major mythological story to display a dazzling array of miraculous changes, from the time chaos is transformed into order at the moment of creation, to the time when the soul of Julius Caeser is turned into a star and set in the heavens. In its earthiness, its psychological acuity, this classic work continues to speak over the centuries to our time. "Reading Mandelbaum's extraordinary translation, one imagines Ovid in his darkest moods with the heart of Baudelaire...Brilliant."—Booklist

Pythagoras

Crotona had a man, Pythagoras,

who had been born in Samos but then fled

his island and its rulers, for he hated

all tyranny—and so had chosen exile.

Although the gods were in the distant skies,

Pythagoras drew near them with his mind;

what nature had denied to human sight,

he saw with intellect, his mental eye.

When he, with reason and tenacious care,

had probed all things, he taught—to those who gathered

in silence and amazement—what he’d learned

of the beginnings of the universe,

of what caused things to happen, and what is

their nature: what god is, whence come the snows,

what is the origin of lightning bolts—

whether it is the thundering winds or Jove

that cleave the cloudbanks—and what is the cause

of earthquakes, and what laws control the course

of stars: in sum, whatever had been hid,

Pythagoras revealed.

Latin [51–72]

He was the first

to speak against the use of animals

as human food, a practice he denounced

with learned but unheeded lips. His words:

“O mortals, don’t contaminate your bodies

with food procured so sacrilegiously.

For you can gather grain, and there are fruits

that bend the branches with their weight, and grapes

that swell in clusters on the vines; there are

delicious greens that cooking makes still more

inviting, still more tender. You need not

refrain from milk, or honey sweet with scent

of thyme. The earth is kind—and it provides

so much abundance; you are offered feasts

for which there is no need to slaughter beasts,

to shed their blood. Some animals do feed

on flesh—but yet, not all of them: for sheep

and cattle graze on grass. And those who need

to feed on bloody food are savage beasts:

fierce lions, wolves, and bears, Armenian

tigers. Ah, it’s a monstrous crime indeed

to stuff your innards with a living thing’s

own innards, to make fat your greedy flesh

by swallowing another body, letting

another die that you may live. Amid

so many things that Earth, the best of mothers,

may offer, must you really choose to chew

with cruel teeth such wretched, slaughtered flesh—

and mime the horrid Cyclops as you eat?

Is your voracious, pampered gut appeased

by this alone: your killing living things?

“And yet that ancient age to which we gave

the golden age as name, was quite content

to take the tree-bome fruit as nourishment,

and greens the ground gave freely; no one then

defiled his lips with blood. Birds beat their wings

Latin [72–99]

unmenaced in the air; and through the fields,

hares wandered without fear; men did not snare

unwary fish with hooks. All things were free

of traps and treachery; there was no fear

of fraud; and peace was present everywhere.

But someone—he is nameless—then began

to envy lions’ fare, and so he fed

his greedy guts with flesh—and sacrilege

was started. At its origins, confined

to savage beasts, the blade was justified:

our iron shed the warm blood, took the life

of animals who menaced us—and such

defense was not a profanation—but

the need to kill them never did imply

the right to feed upon them. From that seed

there grew still fouler crimes. The first to be

a sacrificial victim was the pig

because, with his broad snout, he rooted up

the planted seeds and spoiled the hoped-for crop.

The goat was also prey to punishment;

they butchered him on Bacchus’ altars since

he browsed the god’s grapevines. Those goats and pigs

were made to pay for what, in truth, they did;

but sheep, what did you do to merit death—

you, peaceful beasts, born to bring good to men,

you flocks whose swollen udders bear white nectar,

whose wool provides soft clothing for us—who

in life are far more useful than in death?

What evil has the bullock done—that beast

who never cheats, never deceives? Helpless

and innocent, he has unending patience.

Ungrateful—and indeed not meriting

the grain he’s gathered—is the man who then,

with harvest done, when he’s unyoked his friend,

would butcher him and aim his ax against

the neck that bears the signs of heavy tasks,

the neck of one who helped him reap the crop,

renewing stubborn soil. And men were not

Latin [99–127]

content with that: they even made the gods

share in iniquity: the deities

were said to take delight in the destruction

of the untiring ox. The stainless victim,

unblemished and most handsome (too much beauty

brings sorrow), all adorned with gilded horns

and fillets, is arrayed before the altar

and, ignorant of what they mean, must hear

the prayers recited; and when they append

upon his head, between his horns, the ears

of grain that he helped gather, he must stand

and wait and watch his executioners.

When struck, he stains with his own blood the blade

whose flash he may in fact have seen reflected

in the clear waters of the temple pool.

At once—while he is still alive—they pull

the vitals from the victim’s chest; and these

they scrutinize, to see if they can read

the god’s intentions. Oh, do you, the tribe

of mortals, dare to feed upon such meat?

Can you lust so for that forbidden feast?

Stop that disgrace, I pray: heed what I say!

But if, in a...