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A review by emilymknight
Metamorphoses by Ovid
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Wow! 1 month and 15 'books' later.
It's so difficult to rate a book which is just a tonne of short stories but I'll do my best. Firstly, I feel like this is definitely one of those books which you don't get a lot out of when you read it for the first time - I'll explain... I'd say about 25% of Metamorphoses is myths or characters which you either know of or have heard of, while the other 75% is a load of mumble jumble that you try to keep up with. So, for me, there were times when I was super engaged and invested, while on the other hand, for a lot of the rest, it was a lot of names and places and I wasn't too sure what was happening, nor did I care.
I'd say it's one of those books that you revisit throughout your life, for example I read Circe by Madeline Miller a few months ago and so a lot of the characters and myths in that, I recognised in Metamorphoses, so I could make little notes on things which I knew. So, I think as you go through life and come to learn different pieces of different Greek and Roman myths, whether that be from books, film, art, studies, conversations even, you can go back to Metamorphoses and read Ovid's account of that particular myth or character, and over time, more and more of it will piece together and become understandable in a way that makes sense to you.
The stories that I knew of and so enjoyed hearing were 'Narcissus and Echo' (B3), 'Pyramus and Thisbe' (B4), 'Scylla and Minos' (B8), 'Daedalus and Icarus' (B8) and 'Orpheus and Eurydice' (B10). And then some that I didn't know much of before reading but really enjoyed were 'Phaëthon (2)' (B2), 'Perseus (2)' (B5), 'The Death of Orpheus' (B11) and 'Galatea and Polyphemus' (B13).
I love love love aetiological myths, specifically ones to do with nature, so with that being a main 'theme' if you will, every myth that included this aspect was just music for my soul - even if a lot of it was after heavy and intense themes of rape, murder and incest :')
And now for my favourite quotes, with there being 15 books, this was hard to choose from, but here are some that I particularly liked...
It's so difficult to rate a book which is just a tonne of short stories but I'll do my best. Firstly, I feel like this is definitely one of those books which you don't get a lot out of when you read it for the first time - I'll explain... I'd say about 25% of Metamorphoses is myths or characters which you either know of or have heard of, while the other 75% is a load of mumble jumble that you try to keep up with. So, for me, there were times when I was super engaged and invested, while on the other hand, for a lot of the rest, it was a lot of names and places and I wasn't too sure what was happening, nor did I care.
I'd say it's one of those books that you revisit throughout your life, for example I read Circe by Madeline Miller a few months ago and so a lot of the characters and myths in that, I recognised in Metamorphoses, so I could make little notes on things which I knew. So, I think as you go through life and come to learn different pieces of different Greek and Roman myths, whether that be from books, film, art, studies, conversations even, you can go back to Metamorphoses and read Ovid's account of that particular myth or character, and over time, more and more of it will piece together and become understandable in a way that makes sense to you.
The stories that I knew of and so enjoyed hearing were 'Narcissus and Echo' (B3), 'Pyramus and Thisbe' (B4), 'Scylla and Minos' (B8), 'Daedalus and Icarus' (B8) and 'Orpheus and Eurydice' (B10). And then some that I didn't know much of before reading but really enjoyed were 'Phaëthon (2)' (B2), 'Perseus (2)' (B5), 'The Death of Orpheus' (B11) and 'Galatea and Polyphemus' (B13).
I love love love aetiological myths, specifically ones to do with nature, so with that being a main 'theme' if you will, every myth that included this aspect was just music for my soul - even if a lot of it was after heavy and intense themes of rape, murder and incest :')
And now for my favourite quotes, with there being 15 books, this was hard to choose from, but here are some that I particularly liked...
"Oh, how I wish that I and my body could now be parted,
I wish my love were not here! - a curious prayer for a lover.
Now my sorrow is sapping my strength. My life is almost
over. Its candle is guttering out in the prime of my
manhood.
Death will be easy to bear, since dying will cure my
heartache.
Better indeed if the one I love could have lived longer,
but now, two soulmates in one, we shall face our ending
together."
"Yet God helps
those
who help themselves, remember, and fortune favours the brave."
"Don't think me ugly because my body's a bristling thicket
of prickly hair. A tree is ugly without any foliage;
so is a horse, if a mane doesn't cover his tawny neck;
birds are bedecked in plumage, and sheep are clothed in
their own wool.
...
I've only one eye on my brow, in the middle, but that is as
big
as a fair-sized shield. Does it matter? The Sun looks down
from the sky
on the whole wide world, and he watches it all with a single
eye."
"Our bodies also are constantly changing and never
at rest;
what we were once and we are today, we shall not be
tomorrow."