MetamorphosesWinner of the 2023 HAROLD MORTON LANDON TRANSLATION AWARD The first female translator of the epic into English in over sixty years, Stephanie McCarter addresses accuracy in translation and its representation of women, gendered dynamics of power, and sexual violence in Ovid’s classic. A Penguin Classic Hardcover Ovid’s Metamorphoses is an epic poem, but one that upturns almost every convention. There is no main hero, no central conflict, and no sustained objective. What it is about (power, defiance, art, love, abuse, grief, rape, war, beauty, and so on) is as changeable as the beings that inhabit its pages. The sustained thread is power and how it transforms us, both those of us who have it and those of us who do not. For those who are brutalized and traumatized, transformation is often the outward manifestation of their trauma. A beautiful virgin is caught in the gaze of someone more powerful who rapes or tries to rape them, and they ultimately are turned into a tree or a lake or a stone or a bird. The victim’s objectification is clear: They are first a visual object, then a sexual object, and finally simply an object. Around 50 of the epic’s tales involve rape or attempted rape of women. Past translations have obscured or mitigated Ovid’s language so that rape appears to be consensual sex. Through her translation, McCarter considers the responsibility of handling sexual and social dynamics. Then why continue to read Ovid? McCarter proposes Ovid should be read because he gives us stories through which we can better explore ourselves and our world, and he illuminates problems that humans have been grappling with for millennia. Careful translation of rape and the body allows readers to see Ovid’s nuances clearly and to better appreciate how ideas about sexuality, beauty, and gender are constructed over time. This is especially important since so many of our own ideas about these phenomena are themselves undergoing rapid metamorphosis, and Ovid can help us see and understand this progression. The Metamorphoses holds up a kaleidoscopic lens to the modern world, one that offers us the opportunity to reflect on contemporary discussions about gender, sexuality, race, violence, art, and identity. |
Contents
Lycaon | 10 |
BOOK | 36 |
the | 46 |
Battus | 61 |
BOOK THREE | 71 |
BOOK FOUR | 95 |
Venus and Mars | 101 |
The Daughters of Minyas Become Bats | 109 |
BOOK FIVE | 127 |
BOOK | 151 |
BOOK SEVEN | 177 |
BOOK EIGHT | 211 |
10 | 245 |
14 | 401 |
17 | 478 |
32 | 491 |
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Common terms and phrases
Achilles arms asks bear beauty becomes beneath bird blood body born bring brother called changed chest comes crime dark daughter death earth eyes face fall fate father fear fields fire flames force gave gaze gift girl give goddess gods Greek grief ground grows hair hand head heart heaven Hercules holds horns human husband inside Italy Jove Juno keep kill king land leaves limbs live looks mind mother mouth move neck night nymphs once orders Ovid passed prayers rage rape reached river says seek ship shore sister snake speak spear spoke stand stone stop streams stretched strike sword tears tell things touch transforms tree tries turned virgin voice walls waves wife wind wings wish woods wound young