Metamorphoses: Book One

by Ovid, A.G. Lee (Editor)

This intermediate reader offers text, vocabulary, and notes that are both informative and entertaining. The notes focus on fine points of grammar and rhetoric, shades of meaning, and allusions to both classical and modern literature.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

162 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 1988

About the author

Publius Ovidius Naso (20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horatius, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis, the capital of the newly-organised province of Moesia, on the Black Sea, where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a "poem and a mistake", but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars.
Ovid is most famous for the Metamorphoses, a continuous mythological narrative in fifteen books written in dactylic hexameters. He is also known for works in elegiac couplets such as Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love") and Fasti. His poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and greatly influenced Western art and literature. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology today.

Reviews

[sophie ~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Greek (and Roman) mythology

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ovid's work itself is charming. A wonderful source of mythology, masterfully crafted and skillfully told. This selection, the first book in the Metamorphoses, relates the creation of the world and mankind, the attempt of Lycaon to feed human flesh to the gods, the flood, Apollo's unsuccessful pursuit of the nymph Daphne, the story of Io with its frame story of Pan's chase of Syrinx, and the first part of the Phaethon episode. The Latin was a little difficult at first, but started to unravel more easily during the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, perhaps because I became used to Ovid's style or because the Latin really was easier.

As for A. G. Lee's commentary, I found it pretty useful. The layout consists of a thorough introduction to Ovid, the Latin text with no footnotes or provided vocabulary, the commentary, critical notes on the text, and finally, an index. I really would have appreciated a vocabulary section at the back of the book; I know that some people prefer to wrestle over the meanings of a Latin word themselves, but I would think that most students reading this text would prefer to have the Latin more handy. Most of the commentary was very good, but a good deal of it referred readers to other Latin quotes with no translation. I think I am safe in saying that most students will not take the time to translate the Latin in the commentary, so it would have been good of Lee to include one himself.

This book will probably be a little too advanced for high school students reading Ovid for the first time but suitable for undergraduates.

N.B., Goodreads says that this book is edited by D. E. Hill, but the cover clearly says A. G. Lee.

[Cory · Rating 5 out of 5]

A staple of for beginning Latin students, Ovid's Metamorphoses is contains picturesque and beautiful stories of transformation--all in dactylic hexameter.