Metamorphoses

Cadmus, Europa’s brother, settles in the land Boeotia. There, after fighting a murderous snake in the forest, a disembodied voice prophesies that Cadmus will one day be a snake too. The goddess Pallas then emerges to tell Cadmus to sow the snake’s teeth, from which spring armed men who fight Cadmus. Those who do not die become his new comrades.

Cadmus is lucky, but his grandson Actaeon is not when he accidentally walks in on the goddess Diana bathing naked in the woods. Diana turns him into a stag, leaving him to be eaten by his own dogs. Ovid relates that “some believed / Diana’s violence unjust; some praised it” (58).

Juno is angry when she hears that Semele, Cadmus’ daughter, is pregnant by Jupiter. She tricks Semele into insisting that Jupiter show her his true form, but when Jupiter is forced to comply, he accidentally kills Semele. However, he takes her unborn baby, the future god Bacchus, from her body and sews it into his thigh to finish gestating.