94 pages • 3 hours read
Metamorphoses
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Book 13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 13 Summary: “Ajax and Ulysses and the Arms of Achilles”
The Greek soldiers Ajax and Ulysses both argue that they should get Achilles’ armor, but Agamemnon grants it to Ulysses. Ovid writes then that Ajax “drew his sword and ‘this’, he cried, ‘at least / is mine” (306), claiming ownership over at least his own sword before he falls on it. Out of Ajax’s blood springs a hyacinth flower.
Book 13 Summary: “The Fall of Troy”
Ulysses retrieves Hercules’ arrows from the island of Lesbos, and these help the Greeks win the war. After, the Greeks burn Troy and take all the Trojan women as prisoners.
Book 13 Summary: “Hecuba, Polyxena, and Polydorus”
Only one son of the Trojan king Priam survives, Polydorus, who was raised elsewhere. While the Greeks travel back, Achilles’ ghost demands that they sacrifice the Trojan princess Polyxena to him. This distresses her mother, former queen Hecuba, and she wails, “there’s still one hope why / I should endure to live some brief while yet” (310), indicating her sole surviving son Polydorus. Hecuba later sees Polydorus’ body wash ashore, however, and she gouges out the eyes of his killer, Polymestor.
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By Ovid
