Metamorphoses: A New Translation

This book violates one of my primary pet peeves: It claims to be a commentary yet gives little to no help with grammar and syntax. I am sure there are many valuable insights to be had here, but in a text largely aimed at students, there should be much more help offered for translating the text. Only then will the student be able to appreciate any additional insight offered.

I had read the Bible, and thought there were some holes in it; things that just didn't seem to make much sense. Then I read Ovid's Metamorphoses. Now everything is clear! If only I had known about the gods before, I wouldn't have wasted all those years in church. I built a temple for Apollo in my garage. So far my archery skills have improved as well as my piano playing.

I have certain standards for books that I buy. The cover design, the quality of the binding, the size, type, and ease of reading the font. Even the paper used. I treasure both the words inside the book, as well as the book itself. Everyman's Library books satisfy my requirements. This book uses a beautiful translation and lives up to the EL standard.

I would also like to add that I find the cover art very attractive. I believe the thumbnail does not do justice to the beauty.

If you care about quality translation, shelf life, and an aesthetic presentation in your books, then you cannot go wrong with this.

EL books also look quite handsome in protective mylar covers.

After being exiled to the Black Sea by the Emperor Augustus for indecent poetry, Ovid sat down to write a history of the world which we know as the Metamorphoses.

Praising human love and artistry while portraying the gods as jealous and vicious, Ovid wove these themes into a poem highlighting the essential permutability of all things: elements change into elements, souls transmogrify into other bodies, kingdoms rise and fall...everything changes except the power of the written word.

Against Augustus’s praise of traditional martial virtues culminating in an era of peace he himself brought to the world, Ovid hoped that this blending of myth, insight into human emotions and Pythagorean philosophy would endure much longer than the Augustan age. And it has.

Although readable for its stories alone, Ovid epitomizes the ability of art to transcend political power, a theme particularly resonant in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Should be read— and enjoyed—by all regardless of your cultural origin. Ovid’s Metamorphoses is one of the great products of the human mind which it would be a pity to miss.

Excellent version. I picked this version when I saw that Elizabeth Vandiver, of Whitman College recommended it, saying that it has a useful intro by Bernard Knox. I found both the intro and the notes to be quite helpful and wouldn't want to read this without them. Metamorphoses is interesting in and of itself, as well as offering insights into the classical world and into modern Western references to the classical world (Shakespeare in particular).

But that's JustMe.

Maidens become trees. Young hunks turn into flowers. Men become women; women become invincible warriors. And every time you blink, another poor wretch becomes a bird or turns to stone. In Ovid's Metamorphosis, nothing stays the same for long. A rich compendium of Greco-Roman mythology and history all ingeniously linked together by the theme of transformation, the Metamorphosis is a surprisingly sophisticated, erotic, and gory classic of ancient literature.

Rapes, murders, wars, and all manner of perversion abound. Death is lingered over with almost forensic precision. The slaughter of arrogant Niobe's fourteen children, for example, is recounted in an exhaustive detail that would do any contemporary slasher flick justice, as one by one they're picked off in various grisly ways. This is classical gore--Ovid sounding like the Clive Barker of ancient Rome as in this excerpt from the massacre of the centaurs:

[Exadius] found a weapon, a stag's antlers
Hung on a pine tree...
And Gryneus' eyes were pierced by those twin prongs,
Eyeballs gouged out; one of them stuck to the horn,
The other rolled down his beard till a blood clot caught it.

This is the sort of wonderfully nauseating detail that is repeated countless times in a masterpiece that often reads like the National Enquirer. It's hard not to believe that Ovid, like Shakespeare, was aiming his work for the mass audience of his time, which just goes to show you that the product of one age's pop culture is another's venerated classic. One only has to read Ovid's over-the-top account of the love-sick Cyclops to realize that black comedy ala the B-movies of Herschel Gordon Lewis had already been mastered some two thousand years ago.

There are a bewildering proliferation of translations of Ovid's Metamorphosis to choose from. In selecting Humphries, I chose the text that struck me as the least encumbered by the translator's attempt to distinguish himself from his rivals. Many translators feel the pressing need to do something new, and to `recast' the Metamorphosis into what they consider a facsimile of contemporary poetry. The result is all-too-often a needless accretion of unnecessary words and poetic tropes that do nothing whatsoever to enhance the text, and much towards rendering it more difficult for novelty's sake alone, and to call attention to the translator--two things a translation should avoid at all costs.

Rolf Humphries renders the Metamorphosis into a clear, straightforward English verse whose easy-going casualness facilitates readability and comprehension, as well as reflecting the apparently colloquially style of Ovid's original. And Humphries accomplishes all this without sacrificing any of the poetry--his translation is often quite beautiful, not only in its clarity and apparent simplicity, but in its adept use of language that breathes life back into this ancient work. By stepping back and lending his breath to the ancient poet, Humphries allows Ovid himself to sing again.

One of the truly seminal works of world literature, not to mention an invaluable storehouse of myths and legends, Ovid's Metamorphosis is not only must reading for any lover of great literature, but also a heck of a lot of fun.

Ovid, the Roman poet who was exiled by Octavian (Augustus) to the limits of the Empire and died far from Rome, wrote this poem of changes and love as a way to poke a little fun at the epic poems so much admired by the emperor himself (Homer's "Iliad" and "Oddyssey," and Virgil's "Aeneid") and by that previous generation of serious Romans who had lived through the Civil Wars and appreciated Law and Order, even if it included the deification of Julius Caesar. Ovid was younger and not one for much Law and Order or brand-new deities. He was a lover of people and nature, and he sought to find immortality with his work. Here in his "Metamorphoses" is Daphne running away from a lusty Apollo and turning into laurel to escape her pursuer. Here is Ulysses, once again depicted as a sweet-talking liar who benefits from other people's efforts. Here is Adonis, the most beautiful man, product of the illicit union of a father (who didn't know it was illicit) and his daughter (she did know, and you have to read it to get it). Here is Perseus, son of Jupiter and Danae (the god turned into golden rain to get to her), who killed Medusa from whose severed head was born Pagasus, the winged horse. Here is the story of Tereus, Procne, and Philomela, which, if written today, would cause an uproar from plenty of people concerned with family values.
Ovid was an original and a bit of a rebel. He paid the price with exile, but left us great love poems and this, his masterpiece of Creation-myth-history all wrapped into one wonderful package. In the Epilogue of this work, Ovid wrote that after his death his "Metamorphoses" would live on, and through the centuries it would make him immortal. Two thousand years after his death, we are still reading him, and enjoying his talent. He was as good a prophet as he was a poet.

The Emperor Augustus did not appreciate Ovid in any large degree. He found Virgil and Horace much more agreeable, as those poets tended to buttress the status quo, whereas Ovid tended to undermine it. Personally I am a great fan of Virgil's. He was one of the greatest poets who ever lived. His Aeneid is just as vital today as the day he wrote it. Horace, on the other hand, has never incited much of a response. He's pretty dry in comparison. Ovid, on the other hand, probably would have been a blast to hang out with. His poetry is ribald, yet informed with a thorough knowledge of the myth and literature that has come before him. He would have been a man who had a vast sense of humor mixed with erudition, in other words. This is generally the sort I would choose for a friend if such were available in our present age. I don't know if this is helpful, but this is how I sometimes tend to classify writers. Some I admire, but wouldn't want to sit across from him/her at a dinner table (Eugene O'Neill, my revered Dostoevsky, Sylvia Plath, the redoubtable Celine - he'd be the last guy I'd want to break bread with- Sartre (what a bummer!), Ibsen, Kierkegard, etc. But I'd love to party with Seutonius, Ovid, Diderot, Voltaire, Moliere, Hugo and either of the Bronte sisters. What a high time that would be! Apart from the rambling, this is an excellent translation of one of the most important works, in terms of influence, in the western cannon. Ovid had a primary impact on every poet who ever picked up a quill or a pen or typed a phrase on a keyboard who came after him. Talk about seminal literature. He made the love poem modern. Everything, apart perhaps from Sappho, had been wooden and stilted before "The Metamorphosis." He was the D H Lawrence of Rome. That is the reason the Imperial censors tried to surpress his work, just as the modern courts tried to surpress Lady Chatterly. Thank posterity neither succeeded.

This was the edition recommended by Oxford University Press, and as I am reading simultaneously the Cambridge Classics Latin original as well (the "Green-and-Yellow"), I have to say that Melville is paraphrasing excessively. The Latin gets shortened or entirely
replaced by English idiomatic expressions repeatedly to the effect that entire lines of Ovid seem to disappear. Not to speak of the wittiness and the almost unnoticeable subtle insinuations of sexual nature that are often the real purpose of Ovid. The reader of this book will get none of those, and thus will not get Ovid. A pity. Therefore especially students of Latin should do well to explore other translations and make an educated decision before committing to a purchase of Metamorphoses. I am also taking my own advice, if late.

Of course I would recommend Ovid's original, but if you don't have time to learn the language but still want to read the work, this is the closest you will get to the original. The author keeps a meter reflexive of Ovid's own and his word choice reflects as closely as possible the language of Ovid while still maintaining his own meter and style. Works as well alone and also as a supplement to your college Ovid course, that's how true to the Latin he stays. Take it from an ex-Latin student, if you want to read Ovid in translatio you want to read this. The worst thing about the whole book is the cover (I mean c'mon, what the heck is it and where in the text is it?).

This translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses by A.D. Melville has some good points as well as some bad points. The stories are well told. They are put into English that is easy to understand; yet Melville maintains much of the original prose. The biggest downfall would be the arrangement of the stories is slightly random and hard to follow when one attempts to read straight through the work. However, each story in itself is well written and portrays the idea of its appropriate myth. The notes at the back of the text help the reader to understand ideas that might not be obvious to a reader in this 20th century, where many of us have little background in mythology. There is also a glossary that the reader may use to find specific stories about certain characters. In my mythology class, I found this method especially useful in projects in which require finding many stories about a certain god, for instance. Perhaps the most important aspect of Ovid's renditions of the myths is that they contain many details about surroundings or the visual contexts of the myths, which help a reader to relate more easily. This may not be found in other texts dealing with the same myths. Many texts focus more on the story itself and the events occurring. If one is a visual learner, perhaps this book would be most helpful in understanding and interpreting many of the important myths. All in all, this is a pretty good book, yet there may be one that better serves to tie the myths together in an easy to follow way.

This translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses by Charles Martin is one of the poorest examples I've found. This was recomended by Robert Fagles (one of my favorite translators/poets), and the Washington Post says it will likely become the new standard. It also won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award. What are these people reading? Is there another version of this translation out there? The Charles Martin translation that I read reduced one of the worlds most beautifull pieces of poetry to a silly puppet show. It's difficult by reading this to imagine that Martin has a commanding grasp of the Latin language, or maybe he's just a very poor writer. Either way, this book is not recommended to anyone for any reason. Try the Horace Gregory translation or wait with baited breath to see if Fagles will tackle this epic poem. Keep your fingers crossed and stay away from Martin.

My first copy of Rolfe Humphries's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses is thirty years old and falling apart, but the fresh and light beauty of Humphries's English version of the Metamorphoses will never fade or die. I can't imagine a future translation ever surpassing this one, which is truly a joy to read. Any one who enjoys Greek and Roman mythology will delight in Ovid's masterwork, so ably and charmingly rendered into English by Humphries. Buy it, read it and love it. I just bought my new copy today.

Ovid was undoubtedly the most prolific Latin poet; his enormous corpus of poetry gives credence to that fact. Naso's works ranged from lusty love poetry and somber exile literature (all elegies) to the sweeping heroic epic, of which his immortal Metamorphosis is styled upon. The work itself is an anthology of traditional Greek mythology, clothed in Latin dress. Its aim seems to have been twofold: for one, to establish a historical link between the gods of old and the new Roman empire, and two, to popularize the myths of Greece for the Roman nobility and populus. And so, as the Metamorphosis contains many tales, and is in a sense many books within a book, it invites us to read it in small doses. Moreover, it hardly has the capacity to steal your imagination like Virgil's Aenied, but it does have the virtue of being poetic and encyclopedic, while at the same time being entertaining and didactic. A.D. Mellville's translation is suggested; his English is so smooth it is almost therapeutic.

This translation is elegant, lyrical, and captivating. Martin is absolutely a poet in his own right, and presents this classic work to a modern English world while maintaining all of the inherent beauty that made Ovid so lasting and powerful. I've read many translations of these stories, and this is the text I judge all others against.

As another one of Focus Classical Library's books, this book is a mythology sourcebook for the serious. In this book, the lines are numbered and many engravings are included to illustrate various myths. I personally do not recommend the Oxford and Penguin editions of this book, as they are not as close to the original Latin, and the rhetorical quality is also not as good.

Like other Focus Classical Library books, this edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses is translated very literally, which creates the need for occasional brief footnotes to explain the text. The myths are also very easy to find in this book because of a table of contents before all of the 15 books and also conspicuous headings above every myth.

However, I find reading the translation to be demanding because of wordy sentences and complicated sentence structures. For this reason, I would very highly recommend Allen Mandelbaum's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which has a highly accurate but more readable modern verse translation of the text. However, I find the Focus Classical Library edition's footnotes, outline, headings, and index to be indispensable, so I ended by both this book and Mandelbaum's.

Overall, this is a richly annotated text that lacks an easily readable text. For readers who want a book that gives a less demanding presentation of the Metamorphoses, I would recommend Mandelbaum. However, for serious mythology learners who want an accurate, original rendition of the poem, I would recommend getting both this book and Mandelbaum's translation. However, be warned that even though Mandelbaum has a very high-quality translation, the book does not have any footnotes or table of contents whatsoever. To sum it up - highly valuzble notes, outlines, very organized, but the translation is not as easy to understand as Mandelbaum's.

Ovid's Metamorphoses is a rich and involved text dealing with classical mythology. Any student of poetry, past or present, can attest to the wonderful skill and excellent usage of diction that can be found in this book. If you like classical mythology this book shouldn't be absent from your library. The book attempts to deal with the coveted god's of ancient Roman mythology, their stories, and some other classical characters. As a student of Latin myself, I have studied this work many times. Yet, each time I pick up the book to read it, regardless of how many times I've read a passage before, I find that my senses are never dulled to it. The work is purely amazing, it should be given special honor just for its poetic style and sophistication. However, it is so beautifully done that anyone reading it for pleasure will find it enjoyable and enriching. Here are the opening lines as they appear in Rolfe Humphries' translation: My intention is to tell of bodies changed To different forms; the gods, who made the changes, Will help me-or I hope so-with a poem That runs from the world's beginning to our own days.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a Latin student, likes poetry, or just likes to read for pleasure.

I tried several translations, but I ended up enjoying this one the most. I am not sure why - maybe the rhythmic nature of his lines. The Mandelbaum translation was also good, but for me, the Melville was best.

As the translator (Mary M. Innes) herself will tell you in the introduction, many of the standard conventions of Latin poetry have been stripped out of this prose translation. While this certainly makes the stories more readable, it also removes everything which makes this work "Ovidian." If you're reading the book simply for its description of classical mythology, you probably won't mind. Anyone attempting to get a handle on Ovid himself should look elsewhere (I personally recommend the Mandelbaum translation, but as with all translated literature, nothing is quite perfect. Learning some latin wouldn't hurt you anyway, now would it? :-) ).

Ovid's Metamorphoses is a classic account of that fundamental quality which permeates and overrides all phenomenal existence: change. Utilizing Classical mythological characters and stories (and changing some to suit his own style), Ovid weaves an intricate tale of change, transformation and ironic metamorphosis. A bit disjointed at times, the interstory transitions aren't always smooth (perhaps Ovid's way of saying that change isn't always smooth and gradual?). I recommend this epic for anyone interested in Classical mythology/studies or for anyone interested in reading an epic poem rich in verse and content.

This edition is published by Oxford University Press and is translated from the Latin into English prosody by A. D. Melville, who was "a scholar of King's College, Cambridge [!!], where he gained a double First in Classics...."
To my mind, this is the best of the English translations available at this site. The format is poetic...as it should be, I believe...which means that the reader will have to adjust (change) his usual perceptive modes...go slower... follow the thought from line to line...as if tracking some wondrous mythic figure through a forest of sparkling silvery leaves...and flickering flashes of sunlight... There is an excellent "Introduction" as well as a truly insightful "Translator's Note"...one can tell the quality of the mind which worked on this translation from a quote from the "Introduction": "This it may be suggested is the point of a passage of the *Metamorphoses* that has puzzled some critics and bored others ...the great speech of Pythagoras. What is formally a long digression is accommodated to the argument of the poem with great skill bridging the long interval between Numa and Augustus and achieving a climax on a theme that informs and dominates the whole book: apotheosis, divinization, the supreme change to which human beings can aspire. The speech turns on the premiss[sic] that in all the constantly changing universe one thing remains unchanged, *anima*, the soul [Melville's translation of the lines follows...] our souls/ Are still the same for ever, but adopt/ In their migrations ever-varying forms.../ We too ourselves, who of this world are part,/ Not only flesh and blood, but pilgrim souls.../ (Book XV)
This following quote from the "Translator's Note" shows Melville's acute sensitivity to the poetic and expressive possibilities of both English and Latin: "English has one great advantage over Latin--its vocabulary is so much larger. A translator may often have three or four words where Ovid has only one; and these three or four will all be subtly [see the fine quality of insight and understanding...and care?]different. Conversely he can often express in one apt word [T. S. Eliot would have appreciated that fine understanding...]a meaning for which Ovid needs several. * * * Latin has two great advantages over English--its incomparable sonority [acute sensitivity to language and word sounds, also...]and the freedom of its word-order. While both languages share many of the artifices of literary composition, the music of Latin in the hands of a master is suprreme. In English the order of words in a sentence is fixed within narrow limits, but the variety of position which Latin allows makes possible effects which English often cannot achieve. Nevertheless the translator must be alert to those effects and do his best to reproduce them." [such fine understanding and sensitivity also show up in the poetic translation...]
I have also looked at the Penguin Classics prose translation by Mary M. Innes, and while it is indeed a workmanlike translation, I much prefer Melville's translated poetics. A few lines might show the difference...here is Apollo lamenting over the body of his dead beloved Hyakinthos... first Innes...then Melville: "You are slipping away from me, Hyacinthus, robbed of the flower of your youth," said Phoebus. "Here before my eyes I see the wound that killed you and reproaches me. You are the cause of my grief, as of my guilt, for your death must be ascribed to my hand. I am responsible for killing you. Yet how was I at fault, unless taking part in a game can be called a fault, unless I can be blamed for loving you?" [trans. Mary Innes; Penguin Classics]
"My Hyacinth," Apollo cried, "laid low/ And cheated of youth's prime! I see your wound,/ My condemnation -- you...my grief and guilt!/ I, I have caused your death; on my own hand,/ My own, your doom is written. Yet what wrong/ Is mine, unless to join the game with you/ Were wrong, or I were wrong to love you well?"/ [trans. A.D. Melville; Oxford World Classics]

Beautiful cover. Mandelbaum's translation supersedes any other. His knowledge of the English language is above standard and his understanding of the soul of the myths make the reading of Ovid a wonderful experience.

I teach mythology and literature in translation. In my mythology section I had my students read a version of Ovid available online. They found the experience painful and dull, even though they were somewhat familiar with the story line. So, when I assigned a translation for my workshop on Ovid, I chose this one on the strength of various reviews. Its a real pleasure to have a group of students become ecstatic about a piece of ancient literature! The Lukeion Project will now being using this translation as required reading.