The Metamorphoses [Paperback]

Ovid (Author), Horace Gregory (Translator, Afterword), Sara Myers (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 3, 2009

A masterpiece of Western culture, this is the first attempt to link all the Greek myths in a cohesive whole to the Roman myths of Ovid?s day. Horace Gregory, in this modern translation, turns his own poetic gifts toward a deft reconstruction of Ovid?s ancient themes.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ovid—Publius Ovidius Naso—(43 bce–ce 17 or 18) was born into a wealthy Roman family and became the most distinguished poet of his time. He died in exile on the Black Sea, far from Rome and his literary life.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Signet Classics (November 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451531450
• ISBN-13: 978-0451531452
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #400,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Now I shall tell you of things that change...", March 1, 2010

By 

William Timothy Lukeman - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Metamorphoses (Paperback)

While there are several excellent translations of Ovid's masterpiece, this one by Horace Gregory stands out for its vivid & vigorous power. Far more than a mere retelling of the classic myths, it brings them to full-blooded life, brilliant & sharp as a bronze sword brandished in the blazing sun. From the emergence of Creation from Chaos, to the apotheosis of his patron Augustus Caesar, Ovid spins an enthralling tapestry of intertwining tales, rich with color & detail.

But let the poet & his translator speak for themselves:

She turned her gaze across a stone-ribbed waste,
And there was Famine squatted to the ground,
Her claws and teeth tearing stray shreds of grass,
Hair lank, eyes fallen in, and face the colour
Of dead moonlight, lips grey, and her arched neck
Was raw with open sores; skin stretched so thin
One saw her vitals through it, and thighbones
Came curving outward over empty loins,
And where her belly should have been was nothing.
Her breasts (perhaps her ribs) clung to her spine;
Her wasted body made joints monstrous --
Her knees and ankles big as cancerous tumours.

Or, in a completely different tone:

And it is where dream-haunted poppies grow,
Hanging their heads above wet ferns and grasses,
Where mossy herbs distill sleep-gathering wines,
Breathing their fragrance to the night-filled land,
And weighted eyelids close each day to darkness.
Those chambers have no doors, no hinges turning;
No watchman calls the hour to waken Sleep.
There in the innermost chamber of dark halls,
Draped in black velvet, stands the Sleeper's bed.
The god of Sleep, stretched on the coverlet,
Lies there, his figure languourous and long.
Around him drift the shapes of empty dreams,
As many images as ears of grain in autumn,
As leaves on trees, as sands along the beach.

Well, either this makes you want to read more, or it doesn't. My own words certainly can't improve on Ovid's! But for anyone who wants more than just a Cliff Notes version of classic myth, this is a true work of art -- most highly recommended!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wish I had read this a half century ago; how well my life might have metamorphosized with it, January 8, 2012

By 

C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Metamorphoses (Paperback)

While the optimal would be a bilingual, face to face edition, this translation vividly and simply and thus powerfully presents Ovid's Metamorphoses in a way accessible to us modern readers, and thereby presents to us considerations of our reality which might not otherwise open to us. I am particularly impacted by the straightforward presentation of the surprisingly brief tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, so much so as to have immediately written an adaptation for here on the international border.

In fact, you might also find intriguing the famous Brazilian adaptation in Black Orpheus (The Criterion Collection)

I wish very much I had not come at long last to these tales as a tired and distracted old man, but that I had read them in the fullness of my youth, awake, rather than the stuff youth were then given to read, and are no longer reading, at all, aside from their iPod's.

This classic is one to read, along with Homer and Virgil and Dante and Joyce and the rest, as one which reveals the truth of our being.

Please read it, here, in this excellent, clear, uncluttered and correct translation.