Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Beginning with the rise of the universe out of Chaos, Ovid traces the course of the human race toward the culminating Roman and imperial order, using the tales of mythical characters as illustrations of human submission or insolence toward the gods. In every tale obedience is rewarded or disobedience is punished by some final transmutation into animal, vegetable, or astronomical form. In the last book, when the scene has shifted to Italy from Greece and the East, the philosopher Pythagoras is made to explain that metamorphosis is of the essence of Nature, which is all mutability on the surface but possesses a persistent immortality beneath..
source: http://www.fl.fju.edu.tw/ovid_metamorphoses/Author.htm
Our adaptation in modern English consists of five stories out of Ovid’s Metamorphoses plus one from another book of metamorphoses plus the life-story of the poet. The stories are told intermittently by Ovid himself and by Cupid (who, since love is one of the favourite themes in Ovid’s whole oeuvre, might well be regarded as something like Ovid’s “favourite” god) and reflect the big themes of the Metamorphoses: love and death, pride and degradation and - of course - change.
you gods, who have yourselves wrought every change, inspire my venture now and lead my lay in one continuous song, from the world's first origins to my own time.
In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas) adspirate meis primaque ab origine mundi ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen!
Cast
(in alphabetical order)
Karolina Brocka
Rebecca Drohla
Aleksandra Furlan
Stefanie Giebert
Isa Glünkin
Moritz Keller
Katja Larionova
Manuele Pilloni
Nele Schönau
Maike Stricker-Ernst
Michael Thayer
Diane Wenzelburger
Juno; Athena’s assistant; Corinna’s maid
Echo; Niobe’s daughter; Ovid’s 2nd wife
Niobe
Cupid; Niobe’s daughter
Arachne; Niobe’s daughter; Ovid’s 1st wife
Apollo; Corinna’s husband; policeman
Alcyone; Athene; Ovid’s 3rd wife
Narcissus; Niobe’s son; Augustus
Corinna; Niobe’s daughter
Daphne; Psyche, Larissa
Ceyx; Niobe’s son; Ovid’s father
Ovid; eulogist for Arachne
Playing time is about 1 hour and 15 minutes. There will be no intermission.
Director
Assistant directors
Textual adaptation
Technician
Lights
Sound
Stage design
Musical improvisations
Poster
Programme
Costumes
Make-up
Stefanie Giebert the cast
Stefanie Giebert
Kerstin Reichelt
Manuele Pilloni
Stefanie Giebert
Stefanie Giebert
Silke Bauer
Stefanie Giebert
Stefanie Giebert the cast
Kerstin Reichelt. the cast
Elea and Eneas, Tina Steiner, Oliver Schröder, Michael Hinsch, Kristine Hannak, Anne
Thoma, Sven Kielmann, Dietmar Bothor, and everybody else who lent a helping hand and whom we forgot to mention here !

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“I’ll be your mirror” – this is what love-struck Echo offers to Narcissus in our version of
Ovid’s story, and her statement is somewhat programmatic. All the stories told here seem to whisper to each other “I’ll be your mirror”: there are many parallels between those seven at first seemingly unconnected tales.
The most obvious parallel runs probably between the stories of Arachne and Ovid, or more generally, between the stories of Arachne, Niobe and Ovid: Niobe’s and Arachne’s pride and fall are mirrored by Ovid’s own hubris and degradation. But especially the story of Arachne (and all the more so in our modern version with authors instead of weavers) seems to be a companion piece to Ovid’s own life-story. The only difference is that the supreme being which Ovid angered was mortal – but nevertheless called divine: Augustus, the Roman emperor. And just as the Ovidian gods punish and torture at the slightest provocation, so Augustus banished the poet for apparently trivial reasons. And just as the spider’s web is a fragile creation that is easily destroyed by thoughtless humans, so an artist’s work is always prone to the destructive forces orignating from the narrow minded.
Two other stories that mirror each other are those of Daphne/Apollo and Echo/Narcissus.
In the first, the man desires the woman – in vain. In the second, the girl desires the boy – even more futilely. But while in the story of Daphne and Apollo the god’s love is supplanted by his admiration (and utilisation) of the laurel tree, Echo’s love stays unrequited in all respects, just as does that of Narcissus. Even after their earthly forms have perished, these two stay caught in their impossible loves.
The idea of a love that outlasts death connects their story to the tale of Alcyone and Ceyx, which, even though it also ends with death, is a much happier one, since the enduring
(and reciprocated) love of the two is so strong that even after their transformation into birds they continue as a loving couple. Love as a redeeming power is a theme which, on the other hand, connects the story of Alcyone and Ceyx to that of Cupid and Psyche.
The tales of Daphne, Arachne, Echo, Niobe and Alcyone – why those five out of approximately 250 tales included in the whole epos? One reason was that they all feature women as their central characters – important for a theatre group always short of male actors. Furthermore, they were chosen for their variety of transformations – a bird, a tree, a stone, a spider and a voice. This is a good representation of the repertoire of the metamorphoses – although there are of course many other possibilities: mammals reptilians, flowers, rivers and many more. (We tried to allude to the last category by including a mirror on the stage which i s alternately a river, a pool or the sea – and, who knows, maybe it is some Ovidian character whose transformation has taken place before our play started?)
One tale that may strike an audience as different from the rest is the story of Niobe. Indeed, in its relatively stark brutality, it stands apart from the rest, where death and suffering are no strangers either but do not occur in such quantities. However, I chose to include Niobe because I think her tale is representative of many stories in the Metamorphoses, where human vices, especially pride or negligence towards the gods, are punished in the direst ways. The death of Niobe’s children is cruel but it is only one instance of bloody slaughter
– in other tales people are skinned alive, tongues are cut out, children are cooked and served for dinner and this is by no means the complete list of atrocities. In fact, the
Metamorphoses appear soaked in blood – only one doesn’t notice this so much in reading them, as they are told in a light, amusing tone (for more on this paradox see page 10).
Niobe, therefore, is the representative of this other, darker side of the Metamorphoses.
Ovid offers no solution to the brutality in his stories – he is just a teller of tales, no matter if uplifting or gruesome. But in the face of so much misery, I started to look for stories with happier endings in order to strike a balance. However, those are hard to come by in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses. This was one reason why I included the story of Cupid and Psyche, even though this is not one of Ovid’s tales. (And despite the fact that there is no easily discernible transformation – apart from that of Cupid changing from impertinent know-it-all narrator to a sometimes rather foolish and vulnerable character in his own story). But the story of
Cupid and Psyche is taken from a book titled Metamorphoses, too (also known as The
Golden Ass) and written about 150 years after Ovid’s Metamorphoses by Lucius Apuleius.
Ovid’s own life story is of course no part of the Metamorphoses either. However, I found that it has dramatic qualities as well, and, as Cupid puts it, “would make a good story”. In fact, it has already been used as the basis for fiction before. For instance in Christoph
Ransmayer’s novel Die letzte Welt (1988). This describes how Cotta, a friend of Ovid, tries to trace Ovid’s movements during his last years at Tomis but, instead of finding the poet, encounters a number of characters from the Metamorphoses. Apart from its general drama, there is also a kind of transformation in Ovid’s life story – the much-loved society poet turned into a sad expatriate who until his death hoped to be pardoned by the emperor.
In sum, these were the reasons which guided my choice of stories. Of course, many many more worthy of telling can be found in the Metamorphoses, and they are being told, e.g
in other dramatic adaptations of Ovid’s work, such as US writer Mary Zimmerman’s version from 2002.
But that’s a completely different story.
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Publius Ovidius Naso
Publius Ovidius Naso was born in Sulmo, in middle-Italy in the year 43 BC to wealthy middle class parents. He had an older brother, his senior by exactly one year. His parents, wealthy but not rich, intended their younger son for a career as a barrister or civil servant. Young Ovid was therefore sent to Rome to study rhetoric. However, his efforts were not overmuch crowned by success. Seneca the elder once commented that Ovid’s speeches were more remarkable for the beauty of their language than for their persuasive power. From an early age on, therefore, his talent for poetry was evident, but his parents regarded poetry as a profitless profession. At this point it looked as if
Ovid would one day end up as an unhappy spare time poet with an office job.
When he was 19, however, his older brother died. Ovid was probably not happy about this event, but it was nevertheless his lucky chance since it enabled his parents to finance his career as a writer.
As was customary for an aspiring artist, he now went to Athens to finish his education and subsequently travelled Asia Minor and Sicily.
After three years abroad he returned to Rome, accepted some minor offices, did well in them and maybe even gave his father the hope that his son had finally come to his senses.
Then, however, Ovid declined the office of Quaestor, which would have been an important step on the way to a senator’s post. This rejection meant the end of his political career.
Amores (poem)
Heroides (letters in verse)
Medea (drama, lost)
Medicamina faciei femineae (poem about female cosmetics, fragment)
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
Remedia Amoris (The Cure against Love)
Ibis (letter critising a friend)
Halieutics (poem about fishing, maybe not authentic)
Phaenomena (poem about celestial phenomena)
Metamorphoses
Fasti (poem about Roman holidays)
In exile:
Tristia (sorrowful songs, a sort of autobiography)
Epistulae ex Ponto (Letters from the Black Sea)
Ovid now dedicated all his time to writing and enjoying his life as a man about town. He managed to find wealthy patrons and became something of a society darling. His favourite subject in his earlier work is love – his first major work is aptly titled
Amores (“loves”). Here, the poet describes the ups and downs a love affair his lyrical alter ego is entertaining with a married woman named Corrinna. It is not known whether the Amores are autobiographical, though Ovid was indeed a much married man (thrice married, twice divorced) and might have had a number of affairs as well.
On the whole, Ovid seems to have been a poet especially interested not only in a male view of love and life but also in the female perspective. His next work, the Heroides, are fictional letters written by female heroines of old stories to their male counterparts, such as Helena to Paris or Medea to Jason. Similarly, in the Ars
Amatoria, his so-called “guidebook for seduction”, he not only advised men how to find amorous women but also how the women might secure the ongoing affections of their lovers. Apart from love as the great theme, Ovid’s interests in writing seem to have been curiously wide-spread. His works deal e.g. with cosmetics, with fishing or with descriptions of the Roman feast days – Ovid was apparently an active mind with an opinion on everything.
One biographer writes that - wealthy, successful, popular - Ovid seemed like a “favourite of the gods” but eventually, in the year 8 AD, when Ovid was 50, doom struck in the form of an imperial order. Apparently, Ovid had insulted the emperor and was now to remove himself from Rome and take up residence in Tomis, (nowadays Constanta in Romania) at the coast of the Black Sea. This was a relegatio, a milder form of banishment which meant that the sentenced man was at least allowed to keep his possessions and civil rights.
Nevertheless, for a city person like Ovid being sent away from Rome must have been torture enough. None of his pleas for mercy was accepted and so he remained sadly exiled (even though he became an honoured citizen of Tomis) until his death in the year
17.
Hic ego qui iaceo tenerorum lusor amorum
Ingenio perii, Naso poeta, meo.
At tibi qui transis, ne sit grave quisquis amasti,
Dicere: Nasonis molliter ossa cubent.
I, lying here, Naso, the poet, player of tender love stories, have perished through my own talent. But for you who passes by, if you ever have loved, it should not be hard for you to say: may the bones of Naso rest softly.
“Carmen et error”
The real reason for Ovid’s banishment is not known to historians. He himself claims it was
“carmen et error”, a poem and a mistake, which sent him to the farthest end of the Roman empire. The poem - this refers to the Ars Amatoria, which would of course have been regarded as a dubious work of art by the morally severe Augustus. But it is not clear if a frivolous poem alone sufficed as reason for the punishment inflicted on the poet. This leaves the “error” - Ovid is aware that he has made a mistake and one popular theory is that here he is referring to his knowledge of an extramarital affair of Augustus’ granddaughter Julia. Ovid himself was probably not involved, but as someone who was a frequent guest in palace circles, he apparently saw and heard a lot. However, no official explanation for the banishment was ever offered, and no trial was held. The emperor’s decision almost deprived the afterworld of the Metamorphoses - in a gesture of despair
Ovid committed the manuscript to the flames. Fortumately, other copies were in circulation, so the work survived.
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Who is Who in Ovid’s Metamorphoses?
shipwreck, Alcyone threw herself into the sea to drown herself. However, the gods took pity and turned both Alcyone and Ceyx into kingfishers. When Alcyone made her nest on the beach, waves threatened to destroy it, but Aeolus restrained his winds and made the waves be calm during seven days in each year, so she could lay her eggs. These became known as the “halcyon days”, when storms never occur. “Halcyon days” has since become a term used to describe a peaceful time.
lovers, such as Daphne, who rejects him and Hyacinthus, whom he accidentally kills.
Athena’s. Athena was angered, and took the form of an old woman, to warn Arachne not to offend the gods. But Arachne wished for a weaving contest. Athena dropped her disguise and the contest began. Athena’s tapestry featured scenes where humans were punished by gods for their haughtiness. Arachne depicted several gods and their affairs with human women. Athena admitted that Arachne’s work was flawless, but was outraged at Arachne’s disrespectful choice of subjects and therefore destroyed the work. Arachne was desperate and tried to hang herself but Athena took pity on her and turned her into s spider instead.
troubled by the loss of his brother Daidalion (who had committed suicide after his daughter
Chione had been killed by the goddess Diana), and strange omens following his brother’s death made him fear that gods were hostile to him. He therefore wanted to make a voyage to Claros in Ionia, to consult the oracle of Apollo. His ship, however, was wrecked by a storm and Ceyx was killed.
little boy with wings and bow and arrow, sometimes portrayed as blind or blindfolded.
Daphne: ::::: Nymph, daughter of the river god Peneus. Desired to live as chaste as the goddess
Diana, ever since she had been hit by Cupid with a leaden arrow. Was pursued by Apollo.
Shortly before Apollo caught her, she begged her father to change her form, who then turned her into a laurel tree. Apollo declared the laurel his holy tree and from then on victor’s wreaths were made from laurel.
chats. When Juno learned of this she punished Echo by depriving her of the power of starting a sentence on her own, leaving her merely the ability to repeat the last words of others. Echo fell in love with Narcissus. When Narcissus rejected her, she pined away until only her voice was left.
Apollo, who in vain tried to heal Hyacinthus. Out of his blood rose a flower, the hyacinth.
because of her husband’s many affairs.
god of thunder, notorious for his extramarital affairs.
pregnant with twins by him, Juno banned Latona from giving birth on firm land, so she had to flee to the floating island of Delos to deliver Diana and Apollo. When wandering around thirsty with her young children, and denied access to a pond by the local peasants, she turned them into frogs. Later, she was responsible for the murder of Niobe’s children.
Jupiter then turned Lycaon into a wolf as punishment.
her children were incredibly thirsty. Were turned into frogs as a punishment.
any of them. It had been prophesied at his birth that he could only live if he didn’t know himself. To punish him for his coldness Nemesis made him fall in love with his own reflection and thus his fate was fulfilled.
superioriy to Latona because she had 14 children while Latona had only two (Diana and Apollo).
Latona sent her children to kill Latona’s offspring.
Niobe’s husband committed suicide when he heard of the deed. Paralysed by her grief, Niobe turned into a weeping rock. There is a rock in Turkey which looks like a female profile and is claimed to be Niobe.
who cut off her tongue so she couldn’t give away her secret.
She nevertheless managed to tell her sister Procne.In revenge, the sisters slaughtered Tereus’s son Itys and served him as dinner. When Tereus discovered the deed, he set off in pursuit of Procne and Philomela to kill them. All three were turned into birds – a nightingale, a swallow, and a hoopoe
(Wiedehopf).
Psyche Metamorphoses by Ovid but in the
Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius, (2nd century AD). Venus is jealous of
Psyche’s beauty and calls her son to punish her. Cupid accidentally pricks himself with the arrow destined for Psyche but then flees. Psyche is told that she must wait for her husband on a mountain-top. Zephyr leads Psyche to Cupid’s palace. Cupid comes to her only in the dark, forbidding her to light the room. Psyche’s sisters claim that she is probably wed to a monster and that she should try to kill it. Thus she spies on Cupid, who wakes and flees.
Psyche finally gets her husband back by carrying out four tasks set by Venus, even though she almost messes up the last one. Finally, only a full council of the gods brings about a complete family reunion.
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The Narrow Line - the Paradox of the Metamorphoses
In seeking to account for the remarkable and enduring popularity of the Metamorphoses, we have recourse to an obvious answer. No other book (except possibly the Old Testament) contains such a wealth of fascinating stories. It’s true that most of these stories obviously do not originate in Ovid. He has culled them from all sorts of sources, and many of them we have seen already in Hesiod, Homer, and elsewhere. But here they all exist together, rather like an encyclopaedia of mythology, giving direct access to a magical world of fiction which provides all those interested in art a resource without equal.
Finally, the poem’s many episodes share a common theme—the idea of transformation, usually accompanied by violence. This gives to virtually all the stories an inherently dramatic quality, since the violence frequently involves a helpless and protesting victim, the evidence for whose change often remains forever in the landscape, the heavens, or in the natural life around us. This theme enables Ovid to transform whatever story he seizes upon into a situation potentially full of human pathos. And the subject matter of these transformations in almost every case involves violence, sex, and suffering, topics which, then as now, are of great interest.
But what does this repeated insistence on transformation, usually through some brutality or other, add up to as a vision of human experience?
An exploration of this question leads to the curious but very interesting point that the work offers no particular vision of life and has no particular interest in such a high ambition. It is, by contrast, a celebration of the literary genius of the writer, a self-conscious demonstration of the pure pleasures of fiction without recourse to any high moral seriousness.
Consider for a moment the following apparent paradox. Much of this poem concerns very brutal events. If we were tempted to see them as the very stuff of life, what should emerge from the poem would surely be a bleak picture of human actions and possibilities. But the really curious feature of this poem, is that no such despairing vision of life emerges. For all the brutality and transformation, this poem comes across as delightful, a good read, a supremely comic masterpiece. And that quality may well be the most important indication of the long-lasting appeal of the poem – it treads a very narrow (and often dangerous) line between the pathetic and the comic.
Take as an example the story of Daphne and Apollo. The first part of the story is potentially brutal enough. What Ovid highlights in his description, however, is the beauty of the fleeing girl. The sexual brutality is in the metaphors, certainly, but the emphasis is mainly on the girl in a very cosy and teasingly erotic way (one can immediately understand the way the narrative inspired visual artists). And the incident is closed off by the transformation, described in such a manner that the scene seems almost comic—the mighty god of the sun pouring out his heart to a tree which he is covering with kisses. It’s hard to know how to take this picture, since it moves us beyond the brutality of the god’s intentions to a scene of utter incongruity. And, significantly, the story ends with a poetic tribute to Apollo, an image of how what really matters in this story is the immortality of the memory, something which the woody maiden seems to agree with—the uncertainty of the final gesture is typically Ovidian.
Maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t. Still, it’s a great story.
Now, while it may seem paradoxical, it may be that this quality of Ovid’s poem is one great reason for its lasting popularity. Since it puts no pressure on us to enter into a comprehensive and coherent world vision different from our own, we can easily adapt it to our own purposes without tension, without, that is, a sense that we are violating the essential basis of the poem. Hence, we can draw on Ovid for all sorts of poetic resources or else interpret the poem in such a way as to fit our own visions.
( Text adapted from a lecture on the Metamorphoses delivered in LBST 301 in November
1997 by Ian Johnston)
Information taken from: http://www.fl.fju.edu.tw/ovid_metamorphoses/Author.htm
http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/introser/Ovid.htm
several wikipedia articles
Introduction to The Love Books of Ovid, J. Lewis May, 1930
Illustrations based on:
Apollo and Daphne by Gianlorenzo Bernini, marble sculpture 1622-24
Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, oil painting, 1903
L'Amour et Psyché, by François Gérard, oil painting, 1798
Athena and Arachne, by Tintoretto, oil painting, 1534
Ceyx and Alkyone,by Richard Wilson, oil painting, 1768
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