Ovid: Metamorphoses

One of my favorite things--and a sure fire mark of mind-blowing literature--is when the form of a book mirrors the function. by this measure, Metamorphoses should be the best book ever written. Within the scope of one book, Ovid flows seamlessly from one scene, one metamorphosis to another, stories taking place within stories within stories, and stories--sometimes roughly--altered to queue up the next in the series. The result is an endlessly flowing expression of Ovid's central idea, that all life is change and that nothing stays itself for long. This theme reaches a touching and convincing climax in the voice of Pythagoras :

Everything changes; nothing dies; the soul

Roams to and fro, now here, now there, and takes

what frame it will (XV.166-169)

Sadly, to my ears the book was no more inspiring than a summary of Bullfinch's Mythology. Even though Ovid is reputed to be the most witty, most agile of all the Latin writers ( though not necessarily the best), none of that came through in this translation. This is not the first bad experience I've had with the Oxford World Classics editions (see previous post on Beaumarchais). Even could I overlook the typos--and I cannot--I feel the thick and forced meter of the translation imply that the thickness of the language comes from the translation as well. It is suggested that I read the Ted Hughes version. I would have earlier balked, as I suspect that Hughes' ego would lead him to take liberties. Now that I have read a prosaic version, I welcome what will no doubt be a soggy one.

Interesting note on appellation: I was thoroughly surprised to meet Lucifer in book XI. I felt a thesis rising in my blood as thought about the connections that could be made to Hebrew Mythology, though as I thought about it, I wondered if the translator had inserted something unseemly. Research reveals that the name Lucifer does not appear in the Hebrew text of the Bible, and especially not as a reference to Satan. His first appearance in that capacity is in the Latin Vulgate, four centuries after Ovid. To sum up, Lucifer was the evening star in 400 years before he was Satan.

BTD: 34. Falling behind rather embarrassingly.