Most of the Greek and Roman myths you read in high school were re-tellings of stories from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Choose your favorite myth and read Ovid's version of that myth. Read also one of the Ovid myths that you *hadn't* read before. Cite one example for each myth that shows particularly well Ovid's "insight into the human condition."If you want to get the overall picture of the Metamorphoses, see this excellent introduction and commentary by Larry Brown.
Arachne:
ReplyDeleteIn Arachne, we can see that Arachne herself is not from any particular prestigious family. She has no royal claims and is not backed by any particular wealthy merchant or name that she can throw around to improve her image.
Instead, it is her work that becomes her reputation. Clearly, the world of gods and nymphs deeply enjoy her work, both in terms of its creation and of its completion.
Such attention has caused Ariadne to become quite prideful - while it can be understandable as to why she would be upset at being questioned if Minerva herself taught Ariadne (especially if she learned how to weave via her own methods and skills), there is also the sense that some of this pride is unjustified, an ego that has grown to the size of that of Minerva's.
But let us remove the 'god' portion of this.
A woman who is famous develops a big head and insults a well-known weaver who is better than or on equal ground to Ariadne. Ariadne is questioned if she learned from the other woman, which infuriates her, and she challenges others to a duel (a duel which, should she lose, would result in her admitting she learned from the other woman, even if she didn't).
Even when confronted by Minerva herself, Ariadne (in a very human fashion) does not back down but instead insists upon the contest, with the only evidence of her embarrassment and shame being the flush to her cheeks.
To me, this is very reminiscent of humans in general. Those of us who have climbed our way to the top and have worked hard do not want to credit anyone else, perhaps feeling insulted at the implication that we learned from someone else. At the same time, there is no doubt that there are people who are good at what they do, but this fame increases their ego to unbearable degrees.
I must do this in two parts, as the original comment was too long.
DeletePhilomela-
We see many versions of the human condition here, most notably that of royalty.
We see two different kings: one is old, assumedly kind, and cares deeply for his daughters, entrusting both to one man; one daughter is entrusted in marriage, the other is entrusted via a voyage.
The other king is younger. Once upon a time, he may have been kind, sweet, gentle. Loyal to his wife, deeply in love. Yet now power and lust have overtaken his mind. He travels to appease his wife and fetches her sister, but upon seeing her beauty, he thinks only of sleeping with her. And, no doubt he knew of this, he would have to rape her, as she did no want to be her sister's rival. She loved her sister deeply and would never try to become the second woman.
So he kidnaps her, rapes her, keeps her imprisoned within a castle within woods. He lies to his wife that her sister died during the journey. It is doubtful that he would have told his wife what happened to her sister before he laid on his deathbed.
To add further insult to injury, this king, in a desperate bid to keep Philomela quiet, cuts her tongue out despite her asking for him to kill her (I can only assume he did not kill her so he could further rape her at his leisure).
Wrapping all of this up, we see the sisters driven to insanity, killing the young child of the king and feeding him to his father. Upon the discovery, they flee from the king's anger and all are turned to birds.
We are seeing so many different human perspectives here, all of them being true in some way, shape, or form.
We have innocent Itys, slaughtered by his own mother, no doubt afraid and questioning what he did to deserve his mother's furious wrath.
Philomela, a gentle and kind woman who loved and cared for her sister only to become a victim to men's selfish, lustful desires and was forever changed as a result of the damage inflicted to her mentally and physically.
We have Procne. A wife who trusted her husband to fetch her sister, who loved her child. She grieved her beloved sister when she heard of her supposed death, only to suffer a vastly more cutting grief over learning the truth. Perhaps in this cloud of grief, she went insane, which would explain her later actions. She lost everything because her husband was selfish and cruel, so she took everything from him, including their lives foreverafter.
Truly, one of the most tragic characters is Philomela and Procne's father. Losing both daughters in his final years was a harsh blow, adding onto the horrific details involved. This kind and loving king must have suffered and grieved over trusting the wrong person for the rest of his life.
The first story I'm familiar with was that of Icarus and his son. The line I chose was:
ReplyDelete‘Let me warn you, Icarus, to take the middle way, in case the moisture weighs down your wings, if you fly too low, or if you go too high, the sun scorches them. Travel between the extremes. And I order you not to aim towards Bootes, the Herdsman, or Helice, the Great Bear, or towards the drawn sword of Orion: take the course I show you!’ While he worked and issued his warnings the ageing man’s cheeks were wet with tears: the father’s hands trembled.
He gave a never to be repeated kiss to his son, and lifting upwards on his wings, flew ahead, anxious for his companion, He urged the boy to follow, and showed him the dangerous art of flying, moving his own wings, and then looking back at his son. Some angler catching fish with a quivering rod, or a shepherd leaning on his crook, or a ploughman resting on the handles of his plough, saw them, perhaps, and stood there amazed, believing them to be gods able to travel the sky.
And now Samos, sacred to Juno, lay ahead to the left (Delos and Paros were behind them), Lebinthos, and Calymne, rich in honey, to the right, when the boy began to delight in his daring flight, and abandoning his guide, drawn by desire for the heavens, soared higher. His nearness to the devouring sun softened the fragrant wax that held the wings: and the wax melted: he flailed with bare arms, but losing his oar-like wings, could not ride the air. Even as his mouth was crying his father’s name, it vanished into the dark blue sea, the Icarian Sea, called after him. The unhappy father, now no longer a father, shouted ‘Icarus, Icarus where are you? Which way should I be looking, to see you?’ ‘Icarus’ he called again. Then he caught sight of the feathers on the waves, and cursed his inventions. He laid the body to rest, in a tomb, and the island was named Icaria after his buried child."
This to me shows the human conditions of two things. One is the ambition of young men. Young men regardless of advice want to explore, defy, and try new things. This leads to the death of Icarus's son. The other human nature is that humans always want more. Even though Icarus son just needed to stay in the middle he kept climbing higher and higher, reflecting the human nature to always crave more.
The second example came from Ovids remembrance of Caesar as Venus takes him to the heavens. He states:
"Seeing his son’s good works, Caesar acknowledges they are greater than his own, and delights in being surpassed by him. Though the son forbids his own actions being honoured above his father’s, nevertheless fame, free and obedient to no one’s orders, exalts him, despite himself, and denies him in this one thing. So great Atreus cedes the title to Agamemnon: so Theseus outdoes Aegeus, and Achilles his father Peleus: and lastly, to quote an example worthy of these two, so Saturn is less than Jove."
This shows the human nature of fathers to wish for thier sons to surpass them and to be greater men than they were. Hoping they left a world for them to prosper. This is a major driving factor of humans to prepare the next generations.
I read about Phaethon going to the Palace of the Sun to meet his father. His father granted him his request to drive the chariot of the sun across the sky, but his father knew that it would be too much for him and justifiably feared for his son's safety. Nevertheless, Phaethon, whether because of greed or desire to prove himself, did not change his mind.
ReplyDeleteHis father admonished him, “What you want is unsafe. Phaethon, you ask too great a favour, and one that is unfitting for your strength and boyish years. Your fate is mortal: it is not mortal what you ask” (Bk II, 50).
I believe Ovid keenly pointed out a fault that humans have of wanting things that are only for the Divine and are not allowed to us, for our own protection. Yet often we try to get these things for ourselves anyway and it ends terribly.
I also read about, Mercury, Battus, and the stolen cattle. Mercury gave Battus a shining heifer in exchange for not telling anyone where all the cattle were. Mercury wanted to test Battus, so he came back in disguise and promised him a heifer and bull if he would betray Murcury. Battus did, and Murcury revealed who he was and punished Battus by turning him into flint.
Ovid shows this great example for how quickly one man can turn on another. “The fellow accepted it (the heifer) and replied ‘Go on, you are safe. That stone would betray you quicker than I’ and he even pointed out a stone.” and then “The old man, hearing the prize doubled said ‘They were at the foot of the mountain, and at the foot of the mountain is where they are’” (Bk II, 681-683).
Ovid showed that loyalty can be bought, but if there is no internal sense of duty in a person, that person's loyalty can also be bought away from another.
Bk VIII:183-235 Daedalus and Icarus
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile Daedalus, hating Crete, and his long exile, and filled with a desire to stand on his native soil, was imprisoned by the waves. ‘He may thwart our escape by land or sea’ he said ‘but the sky is surely open to us: we will go that way: Minos rules everything but he does not rule the heavens’. So saying he applied his thought to new invention and altered the natural order of things. He laid down lines of feathers, beginning with the smallest, following the shorter with longer ones, so that you might think they had grown like that, on a slant. In that way, long ago, the rustic pan-pipes were graduated, with lengthening reeds. Then he fastened them together with thread at the middle, and bees’-wax at the base, and, when he had arranged them, he flexed each one into a gentle curve, so that they imitated real bird’s wings. His son, Icarus, stood next to him, and, not realising that he was handling things that would endanger him, caught laughingly at the down that blew in the passing breeze, and softened the yellow bees’-wax with his thumb, and, in his play, hindered his father’s marvellous work.
When he had put the last touches to what he had begun, the artificer balanced his own body between the two wings and hovered in the moving air. He instructed the boy as well, saying ‘Let me warn you, Icarus, to take the middle way, in case the moisture weighs down your wings, if you fly too low, or if you go too high, the sun scorches them. Travel between the extremes. And I order you not to aim towards Bootes, the Herdsman, or Helice, the Great Bear, or towards the drawn sword of Orion: take the course I show you!’ At the same time as he laid down the rules of flight, he fitted the newly created wings on the boy’s shoulders. While he worked and issued his warnings the ageing man’s cheeks were wet with tears: the father’s hands trembled.
He gave a never to be repeated kiss to his son, and lifting upwards on his wings, flew ahead, anxious for his companion, like a bird, leading her fledglings out of a nest above, into the empty air. He urged the boy to follow, and showed him the dangerous art of flying, moving his own wings, and then looking back at his son. Some angler catching fish with a quivering rod, or a shepherd leaning on his crook, or a ploughman resting on the handles of his plough, saw them, perhaps, and stood there amazed, believing them to be gods able to travel the sky.
And now Samos, sacred to Juno, lay ahead to the left (Delos and Paros were behind them), Lebinthos, and Calymne, rich in honey, to the right, when the boy began to delight in his daring flight, and abandoning his guide, drawn by desire for the heavens, soared higher. His nearness to the devouring sun softened the fragrant wax that held the wings: and the wax melted: he flailed with bare arms, but losing his oar-like wings, could not ride the air. Even as his mouth was crying his father’s name, it vanished into the dark blue sea, the Icarian Sea, called after him. The unhappy father, now no longer a father, shouted ‘Icarus, Icarus where are you? Which way should I be looking, to see you?’ ‘Icarus’ he called again. Then he caught sight of the feathers on the waves, and cursed his inventions. He laid the body to rest, in a tomb, and the island was named Icaria after his buried child.
The first myth that I knew was the story of Icarus. This is a very famous story that teaches people to stay on track, and teaches the consequences of greed. This story gives a great example of the insight to human tendencies because we are often greedy people. This shows that even though Icarus was warned what would happen he still wanted to go higher. That greed led to his death, as greed often leads to he downfall of humans.
I also had to put this into two parts!
DeleteBk III:402-436 Narcissus sees himself and falls in love
As Narcissus had scorned her, so he had scorned the other nymphs of the rivers and mountains, so he had scorned the companies of young men. Then one of those who had been mocked, lifting hands to the skies, said ‘So may he himself love, and so may he fail to command what he loves!’ Rhamnusia, who is the goddess Nemesis, heard this just request.
There was an unclouded fountain, with silver-bright water, which neither shepherds nor goats grazing the hills, nor other flocks, touched, that no animal or bird disturbed not even a branch falling from a tree. Grass was around it, fed by the moisture nearby, and a grove of trees that prevented the sun from warming the place. Here, the boy, tired by the heat and his enthusiasm for the chase, lies down, drawn to it by its look and by the fountain. While he desires to quench his thirst, a different thirst is created. While he drinks he is seized by the vision of his reflected form. He loves a bodiless dream. He thinks that a body, that is only a shadow. He is astonished by himself, and hangs there motionless, with a fixed expression, like a statue carved from Parian marble.
Flat on the ground, he contemplates two stars, his eyes, and his hair, fit for Bacchus, fit for Apollo, his youthful cheeks and ivory neck, the beauty of his face, the rose-flush mingled in the whiteness of snow, admiring everything for which he is himself admired. Unknowingly he desires himself, and the one who praises is himself praised, and, while he courts, is courted, so that, equally, he inflames and burns. How often he gave his lips in vain to the deceptive pool, how often, trying to embrace the neck he could see, he plunged his arms into the water, but could not catch himself within them! What he has seen he does not understand, but what he sees he is on fire for, and the same error both seduces and deceives his eyes.
Fool, why try to catch a fleeting image, in vain? What you search for is nowhere: turning away, what you love is lost! What you perceive is the shadow of reflected form: nothing of you is in it. It comes and stays with you, and leaves with you, if you can leave!
This second myth is about a named named Narcissus. Narcissus who is known for his beauty gets many admirers, but rejects all of them. Narcissus later sees his reflection in a pond for the first time, and upon seeing this he immediately falls in love with his own beauty. This shows human tendency very well, because we as people often choose to put ourselves before others, and be narcissists.