After the prologue concerning the creation and flood, we begin a series of tales loosely linked by their shared interest in divine seductions.

Apollo and Daphne: (inspiration for Bernini's famous statue seen here). The earlier serious tone of the prologue, depicting the "majestic dignity" of gods' punishing the wicked and preserving the righteous after the flood, makes Apollo's love plight seem comic in contrast, his desperation merely humorous. He is "fooled by his own oracles." He claims not to pursue her as a foe, but Ovid makes the comparison clear; Apollo is the hound after the rabbit. Another irony, the god of healing can't heal himself of love's wound.

In the next story, Jove himself appears as the henpecked husband caught with another woman, making the gods look even more ludicrous, a theme found more in Homer than the Greek tragedians.

Ovid demeans Jove and Apollo as symbols of order and stability, gods who give way to Eros and the dangerous flux of desire. This becomes a major theme in Section III & IV: the power of passion and unconscious forces outside one's control to destabilize the social and moral order. Human structures of meaning are relative, shifting, as Ovid explores later in taboo subjects like incest, and finally leading up to the impermanence of Rome itself.

In Aeschylus' tragedy, Prometheus foretells of Io's descendants. In five generations the fifty daughters of Danaus will be forced to marry their cousins, the fifty sons of Aegyptus (the subject of another trilogy by Aeschylus, and mentioned briefly by Ovid in book 4). The sisters make a pact to kill their husbands on their wedding night, but Hypermestra loves her husband and spares him. Ovid wrote a love letter of Hypermestra's defending her actions in Heroides 14. From their union a few generations later will come two heroes, Perseus, then much later, Heracles who will rescue Prometheus by killing the eagle tormenting him.

Mercury killing the monstrous Argus: in one allusion, Milton describes the heavenly cherubim as "spangled with eyes more numerous than those of Argus and more wakeful than to drowse" (Paradise Lost 11.131). Note how this story gives the origin of the peacock's tail.

Frequently, in internal narratives, listeners who don't pay attention to the tales are punished: Argus falls asleep and loses his head (a subtle hint to Ovid's readers to pay attention?), the raven turns black for ignoring the crow's cautionary tale about tattling on the gods (book 2), Pentheus fatally dismisses Acoetes' report about Bacchus' powers (book 3), Perseus' attackers don't believe his story of Medusa's head until too late (book 5).

The final instance of a divine affair between gods and mortal women is recorded at the end of this book, but only as an introduction to the product of that affair, Phaethon, son of the Sun, whose dramatic narrative picks up in book 2.

BOOK TWO:

Phaethon    (sketch by Michelangelo)

Helios is the sun-god in the Odyssey, and Phaethon (meaning "bright") is one of Dawn's chariot horses; see also Euripides' Medea whose last-minute rescue is on Helios' chariot. In other traditions, Apollo is equated with the sun-god: in Euripides' Phaethon (only fragments remain), also Parmenides and Orphic religion, but apparently this attribution of Apollo as the Sun was not prominent until the Hellenistic-Roman period. Ovid uses his alternate name Phoebus, allowing him in this story some dignity and seriousness, in contrast to the womanizing Apollo in surrounding stories.

The names of the Sun's horses could be translated as Blaze, Dawn, Fire, and Flame.

If Flood was brought about by human wickedness (Lycaon), Fire results from divine folly, when Phoebus makes a promise before knowing his son's request.

Ovid is the first to credit Vulcan with major artistic works for the Sun, creating his palace doors and fiery chariot, perhaps in gratitude for the Sun discovering the affair of his wife Venus with Mars (Book 4).

Just before Phaethon takes his fatal ride, Ovid mentions Lucifer, "last to leave the heavens." Lucifer means "light-bearer" and refers to the morning star, the planet Venus. In Christian lore, Lucifer became another name for Satan, by a misreading of Isaiah 14:12, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" In context, this passage compares the king of Babylon to the morning star, without any suggested reference to the fall of an angelic Satan from heaven (as depicted in Paradise Lost).

Ovid includes several playful anachronisms throughout his poem, as when Phaethon frightens the bear constellation before its creation in the next story. Likewise, in book four, Atlas is described as a mountain before Perseus turns him into one. Ovid plays several such games with his readers.

Ovid mentions that the Xanthus river will burn a second time, alluding to the Iliad book 21 when Achilles defeats the river by fire.

Jove appears unaware or unconcerned about Earth's plight until she brings it to his attention, but even then he acts only after realizing his own interests are threatened.

One earlier version of this myth portrays the great flood putting out Phaethon's fires. Connecting the flood with Lycaon may have been Ovid's contribution to personify evil humanity.

The early Christians sometimes associated Christ with the sun god. In the 3rd century Clement of Alexandria wrote: “For the Sun of Righteousness, who drives His chariot over all, pervades equally all humanity, like His Father, who makes His sun to rise on all men” (Exhortation to the Heathen 11). One of the earliest depictions of Christ (2nd century), found in the tombs under St. Peter's basilica, shows Christ riding the chariot of the sun. Christians worshipped on the first day of the week, Sun-day.

Plato mentions the fall of Phaethon in Timaeus 22c.

Several times Shakespeare alludes to this story:

Painting by Sebastiano Ricci (1704):

Further exploits of gods and women

Jove and Callisto: After the exciting drama of Phaethon (the longest story in the entire work), we return to an earlier theme: Jove's seduction of Callisto (she is never named, but her story was well known). Somehow this daughter of Lycaon survived the flood; in an earlier version of the myth, her rape was the reason for Lycaon's rebellion against the gods. Jove comes to her appearing as Diana, "lust disguised as the symbol of chastity" (Simpson). An innocent victim, whose pristine surroundings mirror her virginal state, is abused in turn by three gods, Jove, Diana, and Juno. Callisto's narrow escape from her son foreshadows Actaeon's fate (book 3), who's not so lucky. Afterward Juno's jealousy is still not satisfied, as she imagines Callisto has benefited from her metamorphosis into a constellation (it's doubtful that Callisto would agree). In this story we begin to see the gods' vengeance turning progressively more cruel, as the tone of the poem becomes more serious in Section II.

Apollo and Coronis: In the next story notice how the gods lack true human emotion. After killing his beloved Coronis, Apollo cannot weep; likewise, Artemis could not weep for Hippolytus (in the play by Euripides).

Chiron and Ocyrhoe: Chiron's foster son is the unnamed Aesculapius, the famous healer, "savior of the world." Early Christians saw him as a false Christ. Aesculapius later brings Hippolytus back to life (book 15, where he's called Paeon). Chiron was an immortal centaur (son of Jove) struck by Heracles' poison arrow, but couldn't die; later he took the punishment of Prometheus onto himself, willing to descend to Hades in his place (Apollodorus 2.5.4).

Mercury is the son of Jupiter and Maia, daughter of the Titan Atlas. According the the Homeric Hymn, Mercury grew to adulthood on the day he was born, and stole Apollo's cattle that evening. Ovid uses an interesting literary device in the stories of Mercury and Battus and Aglaurus. A god turns a human's own words against him: Battus vows "that stone will talk before I do," but when he tells Mercury's secret, he is turned to stone himself. This is an example of the gods' reinterpreting a mortal's words with fateful results, called kledonomancy or divinatory wordplay. A kledon in Greek means a casual comment overheard by someone making an important decision, taking this comment for an omen, as if the gods were using the speaker's words to other effect (notes from Garth Tissol, The Face of Nature, 1997). Three classical examples:

• In the Odyssey 18.112f, one of the wicked suitors of Penelope tells the disguised Odysseus, "Stranger, may the gods grant you your heart's desire." Unknown to him, he was wishing for his own death when Odysseus took his revenge on the suitors.
• Cicero (On Divination 2.84) tells of the general Marcus Crassus who should have heard an omen in the cry of a Caunian fig-seller who called out in the market "Cauneas, Cauneas!" According to Cicero, this really meant (in Latin) "cave ne eas" = "beware of going," a warning not to sail on the fatal Parthian expedition.
• Augustine (Confessions 8.12), struggling with his soul concerning faith in Christ, heard a child saying "Take up and read" which lead him to pick up the scriptures and read the apostle Paul, which caused him to be converted [notes from Garth Tissol, The Face of Nature, 1997]

When Mercury falls in love with Herse, Ovid describes the Panathenaia, the great city festival of Athens depicted on the Parthenon frieze and the Porch of the Maidens on the Acropolis, a very ancient rite, alluded to in Iliad 6.86-91.

Mercury, usually Jove's messenger, now stands in his place as potential seducer. "Up to now the god has been only killer, thief, and sadistic transformer; now he follows his father's noble example as lecher" (Anderson). Enjoy the colorful description of the House of Envy, and compare it to the House of Sleep (book 11) and the House of Rumor (book 12).

Europa and the bull: once again Ovid leaves a main character unnamed, assuming his readers will know. Odd that this very famous story (she names a continent) leads nowhere; we expect it to pick up in the next book as in Phaethon's tale, another surprise. At left is a painting of Europa found at Pompeii.