CLASSICS 2D03 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Hoopoe, Ninus
13 Jun 2018
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Ovid: The Metamorphoses – WEEK #13
Ovid – Apollo and Daphne
• After Apollo had just slain the Python, he boasted to Cupid that the god of love with his bow
and arrows could not compete with his glorious slaying of a dragon.
▪ Cupid got even for this slight by shooting Daphne, the daughter of the river-god Peneus, a
dull, leaden arrow that repels love and piercing Apollo’s heart with a bright, short one that
arouses passion.
• Daphne was extraordinarily beautiful but refused her many suitors.
▪ She vowed to remain a virgin devoted to Diana, the forests, and the hunt.
• Both her father and Jupiter respected her wishes.
• As soon as Apollo saw Daphne he was inflamed by passion and he desired to marry her, but
because of Cupid, his hopes were doomed.
• Daphne fled in fear as Apollo made his appeals and pursued her.
▪ Exhausted, she reached the waters of Peneus, and her prayer that the power of the river
would destroy her too-enticing beauty was granted.
• She was transformed into a lovely laurel tree, and the heartbroken Apollo, as he
embraced its truck and branches (although it shrank away from his touch), he promised
that since she could not be his wife, she would be his tree.
Ovid – Europa
• Jupiter sent his son Mercury down to earth to the kingdom of Sidon.
▪ Mercury had to move the royal herd closer to the short where the king’s daughter, Europa,
played, daughter of Agenor. (Young girls of Tyre)
▪ While Mercury was moving the herd, Jupiter made himself a great, white bull.
• He gently lured the beautiful girl to him and won her over until she was trusting enough
to climb onto his back.
• Then he carried her out into the waves of the ocean and took her to Crete against her
will.
Ovid – Tiresias
• Juno and Jupiter were playfully arguing about whether love was better for men or women.
▪ Jupiter believed that it had to be better for women, and Juno disagreed, so they called
Tiresias (Theban).
• The old man was an expert on the subject because he’d been born a man, but when
he’d one day hit mating snakes with a stick, he was transformed into a woman.
• Years later he came across the snakes again, and hit them so that he would be
transformed back into a man.
▪ Tiresias sided with Jupiter in the argument, and Juno wrathfully blinded him.
• To make up for Juno’s cruelty, and since he couldn’t break her spell, Jupiter gave him
the gift of prophecy.
Ovid – Pyramus and Thisbe
Inspiration for Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer’s Night Dream
• Pyramus and Thisbe were neighbors in ancient Babylon, and their homes were separated by a
large, brick wall.
▪ Although they loved each other, they could not marry because of a disagreement between
their fathers, and so they talked with each other through a narrow chink in the wall.
Document Summary
Juno and jupiter were playfully arguing about whether love was better for men or women. Jupiter believed that it had to be better for women, and juno disagreed, so they called. In his horror and fury, he chased the women with his sword, vowing to kill them for their treachery: philomela was changed into a nightingale, procne became a swallow, and tereus was transformed into a hoopoe. Ovid semele: cadmus" fa(cid:373)il(cid:455) (cid:449)as (cid:374)ot fi(cid:374)ished (cid:449)ith thei(cid:396) g(cid:396)ief (cid:455)et (cid:271)e(cid:272)ause his daughte(cid:396), semele (cid:449)as jupite(cid:396)"s lover and had conceived his child. Semele in all his divine power: but her mortal frame was destroyed by his powerful divinity and she died. Jupiter took the partly formed child from her womb and sewed it into his thigh until it came to term: that is how bacchus was worn. Jupite(cid:396) ga(cid:448)e the (cid:271)a(cid:271)(cid:455) to se(cid:373)ele"s siste(cid:396) to (cid:271)e (cid:396)aised, a(cid:374)d she ga(cid:448)e hi(cid:373) to the (cid:374)(cid:455)(cid:373)phs of.
