Metamorphoses

Publius Ovidius Naso, known more commonly today as Ovid, originally composed his Metamorphoses in Latin and completed the work around 8 CE. The Metamorphoses combines hundreds of Greco-Roman mythological tales into 15 books of poetry, brief summaries of which follow.

This guide follows A. D. Melville’s 1986 translation for Oxford World’s Classics, and citations reference page numbers rather than line numbers. This guide follows Melville’s divisions of the various myths, although not all editions will make such divisions. This guide also discusses some potentially triggering topics, including violence, sexual violence, death, suicide, cannibalism, and enslavement.

Plot Summary

Book 1: Ovid begins by invoking the gods. In the beginning the universe is chaos, but then one god creates humankind. There are four ages of people. After a great flood, two humans—Deucalion and Pyrrha—repopulate the earth. Daphne and Io suffer at the hands of gods. Phaethon visits his father, the Sun .

Book 2: Phaethon’s pride is his downfall. The god Jupiter attacks Callisto, and the god Apollo turns the raven black as punishment. Ocyrhoe, the centaur Chiron’s daughter, transforms into a horse. Mercury punishes the mortal man Battus for his betrayal. Mercury also falls for the woman Herse, then turns her jealous sister Aglauros into stone. Jupiter kidnaps the girl Europa.

Book 3: Europa’s brother Cadmus settles in the land Boeotia. His grandson Actaeon dies after offending the goddess Diana. Jupiter’s wife Juno causes Jupiter to kill his pregnant lover Semele, although Jupiter saves Semele’s son, the god Bacchus. Juno and Jupiter also consult Tiresias, a prophet who has lived as both a man and a woman. The nymph Echo admires Narcissus. Pentheus, Cadmus’ grandson, dies after scorning the god Bacchus.

Book 4: King Minyas’ daughters tell the stories of Pyramus and Thisbe, who are star-crossed lovers; the Sun and his love for Leucothoe; and Salmacis, a nymph who joins with a boy to create Hermaphroditus. Juno has the Furies destroy Semele’s sister Athamas and her husband Ino, the last of Cadmus’ house. Cadmus himself leaves Thebes and turns into a snake. The hero Perseus rescues the princess Andromeda, then tells how he defeated Medusa the Gorgon.

Book 5: There is a great battle at Perseus’ wedding feast. The goddess Minerva visits the Muses, and the Muse Urania tells her how the Muse Calliope defeated a mortal in a music contest. Calliope sings of the goddess Ceres’ daughter Proserpine, whom the god Pluto kidnapped. Ceres searched for her daughter, learns the origin of the spring Arethusa, and aids the mortal Triptolemus.

Book 6: This story reminds Minerva of Arachne, the mortal girl Minerva defeated in a weaving contest. Diana and Apollo punish Arachne’s friend Niobe for insulting their mother Latona. Some peasants in Lycia also offended Latona, just like Marsyas offended Apollo. Pelops, Niobe’s brother, is the only Theban to mourn her. The Thracian king Tereus weds the Athenian princess Procne, then kidnaps and torture her sister Philomela. The two sisters take revenge on Tereus. The god Boreas kidnaps Orithyia.

Book 7: The witch and Colchian princess Medea helps Jason acquire the Golden Fleece, then restores youth to Jason’s father Aeson. Medea later tricks the daughters of King Pelias into killing their father, she kills Jason’s new wife, and she marries King Aegeus. Theseus returns to Athens, against which Minos threatens war. One king, Aeacus, refuses to aid Minos, and the Athenian prince Cephalus tells Aeacus of his tragic love for his wife Procris.

Book 8: The princess Scylla falls in love with Minos, who rejects her. Theseus defeats the monstrous Minotaur. The inventor Daedalus escapes imprisonment with his son Icarus, who dies in the escape. Daedalus, who had earlier killed his nephew Perdix, travels to Sicily where the hero Meleager had defeated Diana’s Calydonian boar before his mother kills him. The river Achelous tells Theseus a story of nymphs who turn into islands. A companion of Theseus tells how the mortals Philemon and Baucis helped the gods Jupiter and Mercury. Achelous then narrates the tale of Erysichthon’s daughter and her ability to transform shape at will.

Book 9: Achelous tells how Hercules defeated him in a contest for the woman Deianira. Later, the centaur Nessus tricked Deianira into poisoning Hercules, who then became a god. Juno had unsuccessfully tried to prevent Hercules’ mother Alcmena from giving birth to him. Alcmena hears about Dryope, a woman who turned into a tree, then she encounters the boy Iolaus who had miraculously regained his youth. She also hears of Byblis, who loved and was rejected by her twin brother Caunus, and Iphis, a woman whom the goddess Isis turned into a man.

Book 10: Orpheus fails to rescue his wife Eurydice. Then he sings of Jupiter’s love for the Trojan prince Ganymede. Apollo accidentally kills his lover Hyacinth. The mortal Pygmalion builds a statue of a woman that Venus turns human. The girl Myrrha tricks her father into having sex with her before fleeing in shame. Venus tells her lover Adonis about Atalanta, a girl who could outrun men.

Book 11: A band of Theban women kill Orpheus. Bacchus gives king Midas the ability to turn everything he touches into gold. Midas later offends the god Apollo, who gives him donkey ears. Apollo and the god Neptune help build the city of Troy. The nymph Thetis marries the mortal Peleus and bears Achilles, greatest of the Greek warriors. Peleus murders his half-brother Phocus and flees to King Ceyx. Ceyx and his wife Alcyone die tragically far from each other. Aesacus kills himself his love, the nymph Hesperie, dies.

Book 12: The Greek fleet struggles to head to war at Troy. There, Achilles defeats the Trojan warrior Cycnus. Nestor, an old Greek general, narrates how Neptune turned the girl Caenis into the man Caeneus, as well as a great battle between the Lapith people and the Centaurs. Nestor also tells how Hercules killed all of Nestor’s brothers. Eventually, Apollo helps the Trojan prince Paris kill Achilles, then Greek soldiers fight over Achilles’ armor.

Book 13: The Greek soldiers Ajax and Ulysses each desire the armor, although their leader Agamemnon grants it to Ulysses. While the Greeks travel home after winning the war, the Achilles’ ghost insists they sacrifice the Trojan princess Polyxena, which emotionally destroys her mother, former Queen Hecuba. The goddess Aurora loses her son Memnon. The Trojan prince Aeneas escapes, sailing between the monsters Scylla and Charybdis. When Scylla was a girl, the cyclops Polyphemus pursued her and killed her lover Acis. The sea god Glaucus later used the witch Circe’s magic to transform Scylla’s lower half into dogs.

Book 14: Glaucus visits Circe. Aeneas and his fleet continue to sail, meeting Queen Dido in Libya and the prophetic Sibyl in Cumae. Ulysses’ former companions warn Aeneas about Circe, whom they heard once desired King Picus and killed his beloved nymph, Canens. Aeneas arrives in Latium, winning the throne and waging war against the local man Turnus. The god Vertumnus uses pursues the nymph Pomona. Later, the Roman and the Sabine people make peace. After the king Romulus dies, Jupiter helps Romulus’ father Mars turn him into the god Quirinus.

Book 15: The Roman king Numa travels to the city of Crotona, where the philosopher Pythagoras promotes vegetarianism. After Numa’s death, Theseus’ son Hippolytus fails to console Numa’s wife, the nymph Egeria. The Roman man Cipus grows horns, then gives up potential kingship for the sake of the city’s wellbeing. The people of Rome bring the god Aesculapius, son of Apollo, to an island in the river Tiber. Venus has Julius Caesar, a great leader and general, turned into a god, leaving behind a wondrous heir in the now-emperor Augustus. Thus, the poem concludes, allowing Ovid’s name and fame to live on forever.