Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'

Author(s): Alan H. F. Griffin

Source: Greece & Rome , Apr., 1977, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Apr., 1977), pp. 57-70
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/642689

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 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES

By ALAN H. F. GRIFFIN

The amount of Ovid's surviving poetry is almost exactly equa

the sum total of poetry which has come down to us from Luc
Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, and Propertius. Ovid wro
because he was a compulsive writer, 'a poet utterly in love wi
poetry' as Gilbert Murray aptly put it.' He was the only cl
poet to leave an autobiography, and in it he records that as a
'I tried to write words freed from rhythm, yet all unbidden
would come upon befitting numbers and whatever I tried to w
was verse.'2 The quantity of Ovid's poetry, of course, cann
made an excuse for lack of quality, but no indulgence need
begged and no allowances made for his masterpiece, the Metam
phoses. When the blow of exile fell on Ovid in A.D. 8 the
Metamorphoses was substantially complete, much more so
the Aeneid had been when Virgil died in 19 B.C.
Ovid's reputation as a poet has been at a low ebb generall
educated circles in England for about four centuries. An anti-
Ovidian prejudice has become inbred in the educational sys
The Reformation is partly to blame for this: the Archbishop
Canterbury and the Bishop of London, for example, ordere
translation of Ovid's love poems to be publicly burnt in 15
the puritans of the next century went a step further and den
Ovid as pagan as well as immoral.3 The Romanticism of the
1770-1870 did nothing to help Ovid's reputation. His poetr
thought to be unromantic, lacking in feeling. We are, doubtle
victims of the literary prejudices of our own time, but we m
accept unquestioningly or uncritically the literary criteria of
Reformation period, or of the Romantics and Victorians.
At British universities, if Ovid is read at all, the comparati
dull (from a literary point of view) Fasti or the clever, thoug
profound, amatory works tend to be chosen rather than the
Metamorphoses. Wilkinson took account of the widespread
trust and misunderstanding of Ovid when he entitled his boo
Ovid, Ovid Recalled. A revaluation of Ovid's poetry, especia
his magnum opus, is under way.
The bimillennium of Ovid's birth was marked by an interna
conference at Sulmona, Ovid's Italian birthplace, in 1958.
there was another conference at Tomis, now called Constan
the Black Sea coast of communist Romania. Ovid spent the

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58 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES

years of his life in exile there.

proud of this fact and have ere
of Ovid in the town square. Th
Romanian poet. Nowadays the
Mamaia (meaning Granny) be
thing but a popular resort in O
maliciously exiled the poet, f
the most godforsaken outpost
likely (though entirely unsubst
somehow involved in the adult
Julia with Decimus Silanus.4 Th
fact that Julia and Ovid were e
Ovid, Roman and urban to the
very seriously and personally t
uncongenial place of exile.
There is no shortage of impre
Ovid's Metamorphoses. Wilam
scholars of the last century, b
was fit to stand beside the Aen
art.5 Gibbon, as a boy, preferr
and so did Wordsworth, chiefl
youthful imaginations. Shake
the imaginative quality in Ov
where Holofernes puns on Ov
indeed, Naso, but for smelling
the jerks of invention.'6
The Elizabethan age, the Ren
no doubts about Ovid's merits
any art gallery in the British
evidence in pictures and sculpt
inventiveness of Ovid. Convent
and conventional modern opini
dismisses him as insincere and
is true that Ovid is easier to re
Latin poets, but Ovid's easy m
highly disciplined product. In
art." An examination of two
give us some evidence for decid
the Middle Ages, the Renaissa
Ovid as a great poet and storyt
in England since the Reformat
his work.
Before looking at the Narcissu
ever, there are two topics whic

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 OVID'S MhiTAMORPHOSES 59

put the Metamorphoses into its historical and

first topic concerns a generation gap, the sec
Generation gaps are not peculiar to the twe
New Testament Mary and Joseph cannot un
and attitude of their twelve-year-old son.8 O
into sharper focus when we remember that h
side of a generation gap. Ovid was born in 43
Horace in 65 B.c., and Propertius in 54 B.C. O
appreciably younger than the two great poet
virtually synonymous with Augustan classica
Virgil. Both of these men had lived through
of the forties and thirties and had good reas
peace and security which Augustus achieved
Ovid had no memory of this cost. He was a p
boy of twelve when civil war came to an end
ative teenage years coincided with a period
stability unparalleled during the previous cen
were the factions and gangsters which Horac
well. In the twenties cultural and literary lif
Ovid's early poetry reflects the elegant and s
which flourished during that decade.
Virgil and Horace both lost land and money
while others, like Propertius, also lost relatio
came from a rich 'county' family whose shar
the troubled years. Ovid was one of the 'Mak
brigade. That cliche has an Ovidian ring.9 A
to a liberated, post-war generation it would b
him as a complete libertine. He undoubtedly
women, but these were regarded as venial in
especially when courtesans were involved. Ov
dering Casanova. He was a married man, thre
fact! His third marriage was long-lasting and
wife remained loyal to him during the period
grace. He is entitled to credence, therefore, w
though his poems were sometimes lasciviou
is, after all, possible to be reasonably well be
lascivious poetry. Others did. Even Augustus,
of a great moral revival, privately wrote lam
thing in Ovid." Ovid also had the advantage
which was pure alpha in quality, with techni
and storyteller to match. Above all, Ovid ac
a sex-something that cannot be taken for gra
many other Latin poets.

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60 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES

Ovid died in A.D. 18, much later t

poets. Virgil and Tibullus died in
in 16 B.c., or soon after; Horace die
five years, therefore, during which
produced the Metamorphoses, Ovi
living poet, a kind of poet laureate
The most prominent theme in Ovi
theme of love. The word love is use
sense, to include all human passion
Romans were acutely conscious of a
love elegy ranked below didactic p
tragedy, and tragedy below epic. O
this ladder, but his main interest o
or the emotions. The Metamorphose
ladder and all the poetry which Ov
can be regarded as preparatory to i
of short love poems, the Amores, f
through all its stages, often flippan
elegy was all the rage in Rome whe
but he exploited and indeed 'sent up
these poems that nobody wrote thi
him. The love affair of the Amores
future literary development.
Ovid advanced next into the field
the Art of Love. In this work Ovid
rative of a kind that had not been
which comprise the Amores. It is in
shows himself to be a great storyte
pornographic work,"' though there
at the end of Books 2 and 3. Some o
Ovid tells at length in the Art of L
for example, the story of the first
Extended narrative is also a feature
Art of Love, namely the Remedy
was once read seriously by nuns as
middle-aged Ovid who wrote the po
to entertain the reader with a Com
cure the lover.
A thumb-nail sketch of Ovid's erotic poetry must also include his
collection of verse letters from legendary heroines to their lovers.
The description of Leander's romantic swim across the Hellespont
to visit his beloved Hero (18) is particularly fine, and Lord Byron
imitated the feat. The letters which are most interesting as foreshadowing

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 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES 61

the Metamorphoses are the later,

comes from the lover, the second
had here an opportunity to explor
relationship between the sexes. Th
bution to literature.
To sum up, Ovid's erotic poetry looks forward to the Metamor-
phoses in the following ways:
(1) It contains the whole spectrum of passion-love, scorn, tender-
ness, submission, regret, hate, lust.
(2) It reveals a special understanding of women and their moods.
(3) It shows an ability to analyse and present complex personalities
and relationships, and to describe in depth and at length how such
relationships develop.
And so we come to the Metamorphoses. It was written some
time between A.D. 2 and A.D. 8 when Ovid was at the peak of his
powers, in his late forties. No other great Augustan poet was still
alive. In the ancient world there was only one sure way in which a
man could achieve immortality, and that was by producing a major
work of literature in which the author's name and personality
enjoyed a vicarious immortality. Ovid's love poetry was minor
poetry. An epic was needed if Ovid was to reach the top of the
literary ladder.
In writing an epic Ovid had, of course, to be guided by tradition.
But what kind of epic was he to write-an enormous problem in
view of the comparatively recent publication of Virgil's Aeneid in
19 or 18 B.C.? A patriotic Roman epic on the lines of the Aeneid
could hardly be expected. Any attempt to challenge the Aeneid on
its own ground would only have highlighted Ovid's shortcomings,
and not drawn out his special talents. In fact, Ovid could find no
entirely satisfactory model or models, Greek or Latin, so he
decided to write a novel kind of epic poem. This novelty is implied
in the first four words of the poem, 'In nova fert animus' ('My
inspiration is taking me in a new direction'). The first words of any
serious ancient poem are usually highly significant and can be
pressed hard for meanings both explicit and implicit. Virgil's epic
was referred to as the Arma virumque, not as the Aeneid, Lucretius'
poem as the Aeneadum genetrix, not as the De Rerum Natura. A
relic of this ancient convention survives nowadays only in some
liturgical titles, such as the Te Deum.
Ovid's novel epic, not surprisingly, is about love, portraying the
same range of emotions as in his earlier poetry, but now on a much
broader canvas. The gods and heroes of the Metamorphoses must
not be thought of as figures from the distant past, but rather as the

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62 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES

men and women of Ovid's day

In Ovid's heaven, for example, t
suburb, while the minor gods (w
plebs) live in less salubrious dist
heavenly 'Palatine hill', just as A
Rome.13
Again consider Mercury."4 He falls in love with an attractive girl,
but before approaching her takes good care that he is looking his
best: 'although confident of his good looks, still he improves them
by care; he smooths his hair and adjusts his mantle, so that it may
hang properly and so that all its golden border may be seen.'
Mercury is a god, but he is also very clearly an elegant young man
about town, anxious to impress a new girl friend.
The goddess Circe has the terrifying power of turning human
beings into animals by using drugs, but she seems quite human
when Ovid presents her amusingly as a great Roman lady, presiding
over the women workers in a drug factory and supervising the
quality of the drugs on the production line.
She sat in a beautiful alcove on her throne of state, clad in a gleaming robe;
over it she wears a garment of gold tissue. Her attendants were Nereids and
Nymphs who card no fleece and spin no woollen threads with nimble fingers.
Their task is to sort out plants, to select from a jumbled mass and place in
separate baskets flowers and herbs of various colours. She herself oversees the
work they do; she herself knows what is the value of each leaf, what ingredients
mix well together, takes note and checks the weight of the herbs. 1s5

Circe runs a kind of celestial health food store.

By using his material in this way, Ovid turns myth upside down
and almost completely divests it of its primitive content. It is true
that the characters of the Metamorphoses are got up somewhat
larger than life, but their experiences, emotions, and activities are
closer to Ovid's Rome than to Mount Olympus.
Ovid permits himself absolute freedom of style according to
episode and sometimes, of course, he shows off. He uses all the
devices that rhetoric put at his disposal. So did Virgil, who is every
bit as rhetorical as Ovid. Ovid does not use rhetoric for its own
sake; it is always subordinate to the business of good story-telling.
In the Metamorphoses we find comedy, love elegy, pastoral, oratory,
soliloquy, epic battle-pieces, tragedy, and didactic as Ovid lets his
talents rip and his learning flow. But his chief concern in telling
stories remains constant-to exploit their emotional content to the
limit.
It is very important to grasp that the Metamorphoses is not
about metamorphosis, but about love. Changes of shape occupy a

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 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES 63

comparatively small and trivial pl

poem. Indeed one or two of the
formation at all.'6 Transformati
enough feature of ancient myth t
technical solution to the problem
collection of stories. The chrono
which starts with the Creation an
the death of Julius Caesar, also co
The story of Narcissus is one of
full of wit and pathos." It is abo
was a stroke of genius on Ovid's p
story of Narcissus with another a
Echo. He saw that the two storie
is completely absorbed in himself
woman so lacking in individuality
as a reflection of other people, wh
'He is too much prepossessed with
others, and she has no self of her
Many young men and girls fall i
year-old Narcissus, but he cruelly
including devoted Echo. His pun
falls in love with his own reflecti
There was a clear spring, like silver, wit
she-goats feeding on the mountains, n
neither bird nor wild beast had disturb
grew all around its edge, fed by water
the sun to warm the spot. Here the yo
hunting and the heat, lay down, attra
by the spring. While he seeks to slake h
while he drinks he is smitten by the sig
loves an unsubstantial hope and thinks

The setting described above is idy

quasi-tragic story to follow. Shade
elements in the ancient concept o
details are clearly symbolic of Nar
example, is 'unsullied'. No human
inanimate object has ever distur
and virginal as Narcissus himself.
(faciem) of the spot. The word c
looks; he is attracted by a quality
Unfortunately he cannot disting
tion, from a real 'body' (corpus);

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64 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES

theme words running through th

of the story.20
Unknowingly Narcissus continu
With fixed expression, motionless
As if in Parian marble carved, he
Prostrate, he sees twin stars, that a
Hair that with Bacchus' and Apollo
Smooth cheeks, an ivory neck, mo
And whiteness tinged with roses in
What's admirable in himself admir
Approves himself, fondly himself d
Seeking is sought, and burns with
How oft in vain he kissed the elus
Into the water plunged his arms, p
To clasp that neck, only to find it

The paradoxes and repetitions of

that Narcissus is riveted to the sp
self. Ovid deliberately delays desc
in the story when he sees himself
told us only that Narcissus was h
Now the details are filled in. He is like a statue made of white
marble from the Greek island of Paros. This very expensive marble
was usually reserved for statues of the gods. It was brilliant white
in colour. White skin is regarded as a mark of beauty by those who
live in sunny climates. Narcissus' god-like appearance, implicit in
the reference to Parian marble, becomes explicit in the reference
to his hair as worthy of Bacchus and of Apollo. The detailed des-
cription of Narcissus is fitted into a single unit of four verses (420-
3) in which the sense runs on from line to line, giving a wonderfully
harmonious and unified impression of the young man's appearance
in sonorous and balanced phrases.
The hopeless nature of Narcissus' self-love is also brought out by
the use of paradox. These paradoxes are much more effective in
Latin, which is inflected, than in an English translation which, of
course, is not. The paradoxes convey an impression of the self-
destructive nature of Narcissus' predicament. This passage is a
good example of the way in which Ovid uses rhetoric, not merely
for its own sake, but also to depict a psychologically complex state
of mind:

He knows not what he sees, yet burns to see;

What lures yet mocks him is the self-same thing.
Fond boy, why chase a phantom vanishing?
You seek what is not: turn away, and lo,

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 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES 65

Your love, a mere reflected shap

Nought in itself, with you it came
With you 'twill leave-can you bu

Ovid's involvement in Narcissus'

which he breaks into the narra
away.' Ovid is 'like an excited ch
help the hero on the stage and c
into which he is about to fall.'22 The rich rhetorical texture of the
passage also reflects Ovid's excitement; it is a brilliant demonstra-
tion of the poet's copia dicendi.23
A soliloquy follows in which Narcissus realizes for the first time
that he is in love with himself. But even this home truth cannot
save him from his self-absorption. He pines away, fading physically
and mentally, self-pitying to the very end. He turns into an insipid
flower-white and yellow. The story began with the nymph Echo
and it ends with her. An artful pattern-Echo-Narcissus-Echo-
frames the two complementary legends which Ovid has combined
into a single story. Echo, of course, is like Narcissus in as much as
she also desired the unattainable. But she engages our sympathies
more than he does. As Narcissus fades away she forgives his cruel
repulse, and when he dies she mourns his death, whereas Narcissus
can mourn for nothing except himself.
A Cambridge professor who lectured on Pindar's odes used to
begin each lecture by saying, 'This is Pindar's greatest ode'. The
same approach could be adopted in introducing a large number of
episodes from the Metamorphoses, among them the story of
Pygmalion.24 George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion is based on Ovid's
legend and the musical My Fair Lady comes, through Shaw, from
the same source. A Covent Garden flower girl is taken in hand by
the hero in My Fair Lady and is turned into a fashionable, society
belle. The hero falls in love with the girl, his own creation. This
story is very much Ovid's own invention. The pre-Ovidian version
of the Pygmalion legend was much less attractive and sophisticated.
Indeed it was rather crude. Pygmalion fell in love with a statue of
Venus and actually had intercourse with the statue-an uncomfort-
able experience one may suppose. Ovid took this somewhat un-
promising material and turned it into one of the finest accounts of
wish-fulfilment in literature. His treatment of the Pygmalion legend
demonstrates that Ovid did not adopt the bawdy and the titillating
at every opportunity: he very carefully eliminates the perverted
sexuality of the earlier version.

The foul daughters of Propoetus dared to deny that Venus was a goddess. The
wrathful goddess punished them: they are reported to have been the first to

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66 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES

lend to any and all their own bodies

their faces and their blood hardened,
small change.

The story begins here with one m

another. The two transformation
in the Narcissus episode the stru
Cyprian women, the Propoetides
dess of love. Their punishment
practise their unbelief by becom
transformation into stone happ
was small. The women were alrea
cation is a completely 'natural'
development of their debased p
ness are punished when the ani
inanimate (stone). The story abo
process. Pygmalion reveres and
piety and sense of modesty are r
becomes animate, the ivory statu
blood.

When he saw how the sisters spent their days in shame, Pygmalion was disgusted
by the greatness of vice which nature had put in the female mind. So he remained
for a long time unmarried, with no companion to share his bed. Meanwhile with
wondrous art he carved snowy ivory, and happily endowed it with such beauty
as can adorn no woman born; and he was fired with love for his handiwork. The
face was that of a real maiden, one would think she was alive and wanted to
move, were it not for her bashfulness. So much did art hide behind its own art.
Pygmalion gazed in wonder and drew into his bosom the flame issuing from
the semblance of a woman.

Pygmalion attempts to transcend or escape from the unpleasant

realities of life. Ovid tells us that he remained unmarried 'for a long
time'. This information arouses our interest and expectation because
it implies that Pygmalion will eventually find a wife, but we have
no idea of when or how. In the ancient world the highest praise for
any work of art was for its lifelikeness. Hence Ovid's neat epigram,
'his art hid behind his own art.' As in the case of Narcissus a snow-
white skin is admired.25

Often he lays testing hands on his work, to see whether it is woman or ivory,
and yet does not admit that it is merely ivory. He kisses and feels kissed in
turn, he talks and embraces, and believes that the limbs yield to the touch of
his fingers and fears to bruise her when he presses them. He addresses it with
fond words of love and brings it gifts pleasing to girls, shells and smooth
pebbles and coloured balls with tears of amber that drop down from the trees.

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 OVID'S METAMORPHIOSES 67

He drapes its limbs also with robes, put

long necklace around its neck; pearls ha
breast. All these are beautiful; but no less

The first list of gifts which Pygm

smooth pebbles, coloured balls, am
burlesque, but the fact that none o
Pygmalion is not a rich or vulgar l
tries to steals Cynthia from Prope
section ('no less beautiful is the s
share Pygmalion's illusion that the
feminine adjectives (nuda ... form
has previously been neuter.
We now reach the point at which,
intercourse took place.27 Ovid's P
tenderly on soft pillows. 'He lays h
of Tyrian hue, calls her the consor
clining head upon soft downy pil
The story is raised in these verses
ever, is not satisfied with a lifeless
for a wife 'like the ivory statue'.28
and cautious prayer and a miracle
When Pygmalion returned home he wen
along the couch he gave her kisses. She
her and with his hands he touched her b
touch and, its hardness vanishing, gave
Hymettian wax grows soft under the su
shaped and becomes usable through use
still in doubt, fears he is mistaken, and
with his hand. Yes, it was real flesh! Th
ing finger. The hero of Paphos poured
pressed with his lips real lips at last. The
up her timid eyes, she saw the sky and

Pygmalion's success entitles him i

'hero of Paphos'. This second metam
piece of ivory turns into a girl. Th
pulsing in her veins contrasts with
the faces of the shameless and un
which Pygmalion kisses are non fa
the lips are real and also that they
therefore to a girl who is not only
good. She is the perfect woman. Ov
amantem (her lover) at the end of

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68 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES

word. When the girl opens her e

thing she sees is her lover. As s
brought-up girl!
Wilkinson is certainly correct
izing of the Pygmalion story by
by Ovid that art alone can tran
Ovid was a storyteller, not an a
with a story of wish-fulfilmen
and turned by his skill into hig
which, alas, cannot exist, but w
and imagine.
The Narcissus and Pygmalion stories show clearly where Ovid's
greatest gift as a storyteller lies. It lies in his ability to select the
significant moment30 in any story or episode and impress it vividly
on his reader's imagination-Narcissus looking at himself in the
pool-Pygmalion caressing the statue as it becomes warm and live.
Ovid's powers of visual imagination explain his extraordinary
influence on painters and sculptors. It is not surprising that Bernini's
Apollo and Daphne based on Ovid comes much more quickly to
the mind's eye than his Aeneas and Anchises based on Virgil. Ovid
is the greater visual artist. Subsidiary details are never neglected by
Ovid. The description of Narcissus' pool and the list of Pygmalion's
presents are crammed full of skilful and charming details. But above
all there are the vivid moments which stand out unmistakably as
the high points in every story. This kind of descriptive clarity was
much prized and cultivated in ancient schools and universities.
The Narcissus and Pygmalion episodes also show that Ovid had
what strikes us as a strangely modern interest in the question of
personal identity. He was aware that within an individual one set
of emotions can conflict with another and sometimes endanger the
integrity of the personality. Ovid does not, of course, use modern
psychological jargon, but his characters often face crises because of
a clash within them between illusion and reality. Narcissus cannot
come to terms with the world around him and therefore destroys
himself. Pygmalion at first rejects the world around him and seeks,
through the art of sculpture, to escape from it, but comes at length
to terms with life, or rather life adapts its terms to suit him. Ovid
had a unique insight into the personalities of people who might be
described as oddities. His imaginative portrayal of how they feel
shows a genuine sympathy for them. Nowhere in ancient literature
is the psychology of a woman on the edge of sanity so well painted
as in the story of Byblis who falls in love with her brother, tries
desperately to resist her passion for him, but is finally overwhelmed

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 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES 69

by it.31 Nor is it only abnormal m

interest Ovid: nowhere in ancient
ially the wife's, better described t
and Alcyone.32
Roman poets produced only tw
Aeneid and the Metamorphoses. Th
ation of each other, yet are striki
Augustan life differ, though both
Aeneid is subordinate to a grand
poem is an assertion of confiden
writes: 'The Aeneid is indeed a n
the glory of Rome, but it extend
poem of human experience.'33 T
underlying moral or patriotic pur
be a 'universal poem of human e
preface to Ovid's Epistles: 'If the
ness of a Poet, I know no Authou
ours, especially in the Descriptio
the Metamorphoses and its greatn
ation of the emotions. The poem
on the part of the reader who is a
on occasion and accept arbitrary
effort is necessary because Ovid g
larger than life in the Metamorph
that it is the real world and not a
him. His poetry therefore cannot
indeed it is not really escapist at a
truer reflection of reality in the
Metamorphoses than in the carefu

NOTES

1. Gilbert Murray, Essays and Addresses (London, 1921), p. 116.

2. Tristia 4.10.24-6.
3. L. P. Wilkinson, Ovid Recalled (Cambridge, 1955), p. 429.
4. The fullest treatment of this subject is J. C. Thibault's The Mystery of Ovid'
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964).
5. Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos (Berlin, 1924). i.241: 'N
unsterbliches episches Gedicht entstand noch unter Augustus, das sich an Kunstwe
der Aeneis messen kann und an Wirkung auf die Nachwelt nicht sehr viel unter ih
die Metamorphosen Ovids.'
6. Love's Labour's Lost Act IV, Scene ii.
7. Met. 10.252: 'ars adeo latet arte sua.'
8. Luke 2:41 51.
9. See Amores 1.9 and Ars Amatoria 1.131-2.
10. Tristia 2.354: 'vita verecunda est, Musa iocosa mea!'
11. Martial preserves a salacious epigram by Augustus (11.20).

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70 OVID'S METAMORPHOSES

12. 'The prurient will read on with increasin

p. 121.
13.Met. 1.168-76.
14. Met. 2.731 -4.
15.Met. 14.261 -70.

16. The story of Phaethon (Met. 2.1-332) has no metamorphosis.

17.Met. 3.339-510.

18. Hermann Frinkel, Ovid: A Poet between Two Worlds (Berkeley and
1969), p. 85.
19. Met. 3.407-17. J. W. Waterhouse depicts this scene in a painting da
20. Met. 3.417: 'spem sine corpore amat, corpus putat esse, quod umbra
is a better reading in verse 417 than unda. It provides an expected contrast
which unda does not. It may be objected than umbra means 'shadow', not
but this shift in meaning is very slight and justified by verse 434 ('ista rep
cernis, imaginis umbra est'). A reflection is a kind of shadow. Umbra also h
associations with the unsubstantial ghosts of the dead.
21. Wilkinson's translation, op. cit., p. 436.
22. Frinkel, op. cit., p. 83.
23. Some sound effects are worth pointing out, though their precise imp
define and assess: (a) the pleasing jingle at the end of 423 (candore rubor
alliterative ps and the variety of active and passive verbs in 424-5.
24. Met. 10.238-94.
25. Niveum and mira are effectively juxtaposed.
26. Propertius 1.8A and 8B.
27. Philostephanus' Kypriaka (third century B.C.) seems the most likely s
the indecent version of the Pygmalion story. See Brooks Otis, Ovid as an Ep
(Cambridge, 1966), Appendix XIV: Pygmalion.
28. The description of Venus' festival (270-9) is an interval at the mid-po
story. The first act (243-69) describes Pygmalion and his statue, the secon
describes Pygmalion and his girl. Tension relaxes during the interval and ther
of burlesque in Venus' favourable omen for Pygmalion (278-9); tongues of f
omens in the Aeneid only at very important moments (e.g. Aen. 2.679-91 a
10.270-5).
29. Wilkinson, op. cit., p. 212.
30. Wilkinson's expression, op. cit., p. 172.
31. Met. 9.450-665.
32. Met. 11.410-748.
33. Aeneid 5 (Oxford, 1960), p. xxiii.
34. J. Kinsley (ed.), The Poems of John Dryden (Oxford, 1958), i. 178-82

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