Section III: The Pathos of Love

(Books 6-11)

This section (beginning halfway through book 6) is less structured than the first two, more like three braids of a rope intertwined, involving themes of frustrated love, fortunate love, and unnatural passion. These are interspersed with a variety of non-romantic stories (Daedalus, Midas, etc). The notes below will focus on these major threads.

 

CRIMES OF PASSION

Tereus, Procne, Philomela (book 6)

This story is probably based on a lost play by Sophocles.

Ominous beginning to the marriage: the Furies bring the bridal torches from a funeral; they were especially concerned with familial murders (as in the case of Orestes), and are mentioned again at Itys' death.

Throughout his story, Ovid reminds us of the gap between the knowledge of the characters and that of the narrator ("people never know it seems" -- "little she knows" -- "how was she to know"), setting the stage for disaster in a manner similar to Sophoclean irony.

In Section III, the problem now lies in the human heart, not with the gods: "The hearts of men have such blind darkness in them." Both Tereus and Procne "burn" but with different passions, both leading to horrible crimes. Tereus' imagination fuels the fire (similar to Apollo thinking of Daphne), even to incestuous desires.

Ovid compares Tereus to an eagle with its prey, again like the Apollo/Daphne story but this time with no comic intent.

In versions by Apollodorus and Hyginus, Tereus tells the family Procne is dead, so he can "marry" Philomela; here he seems innocent of any evil desires at first, until overcome by her beauty.

The only role the gods play in this story is as silent witnesses to the atrocities, causing Philomela to question their existence: "If those on high behold these things, if there are any gods..."

Note Ovid's psychological insight: Philomela the innocent victim feels guilty about the rape, thinking she's betrayed her sister.

Procne's motivation for killing her son: Itys reminds her of his father. She is motivated more by sympathy for her sister than feelings of betrayal (why should her son speak and her sister can't?). Greek tragedy often portrays characters torn between duty to relatives: Orestes, Medea, Althaea (book 8).

Ovid underlines the ethical paradox: "Crime is duty when your husband is Tereus" (6.635). In these tragic circumstances, words/values are changed to their opposites: compare the daughters of Pelias: "lest she be criminal, she commits a crime" (7.340), Althaea "dutiful of her violation of duty" (8.476).

After two false displays of sorrow, Tereus finally weeps real tears at his son's death. (see painting by Rubens, 1638)

 

They are transformed into birds, but no gods are mentioned as causing the metamorphosis; they didn't show mercy before, and do not appear now to enforce justice. Aristophanes parodied this change in his comedy the Birds, with Tereus as a refugee from the tragic stage [Dubrov, "The Tragic and Comic Tereus," AmJPh 114 (2): 189-234]

Ovid's tale influenced Titus Andronicus, but Shakespeare goes one step further by cutting off his heroine's hands as well, so she cannot even write her assailant's name. Lavinia must  point to a copy of Ovid and the tale of Philomela to reveal her plight (IV.i).

Read the poem "Philomela" by Matthew Arnold.



Medea (book 7) 

This Art Nouveau poster by Alphonse Mucha (1898) depicts the French actress Sarah Bernhardt in the role of Medea, after killing her sons, a deed which Ovid mentions only in passing (see Euripides' tragedy for the full account). Ovid had written a tragedy (unfortunately lost) based on Euripides, and probably didn't want to repeat himself, so in book 7 he focuses on less famous episodes of her infamous career. Ovid also included a letter by Medea to Jason in his Heroides 12 (a series of fictional love letters).

Argonauts background: Jason's uncle Pelias usurped the throne from his brother Aeson. Because an oracle said one of Aeson's sons would kill him, Pelias wiped out the rest of the family, only Jason escaped. Years later, Jason appeared wearing only one sandal (another fulfillment of an oracle), so Pelias sent him to obtain the golden fleece, thinking he would never return from this dangerous assignment. The Minyans mentioned here are descendants of King Minyas who travel with him; blind Phineus advised them of the route to take once they rescued him from the harpies ( Apollodorus 1.9)

The origin of the golden fleece: the children of Athamus (husband of Ino) by a previous wife escaped on a flying golden ram. Helle fell to her death into the sea (hence giving the name to the Hellespont) and her brother Phrixus sacrificed the ram, which became the constellation Aries.

The initial focus of Medea's plight is on her moral struggle between duty and desire (the greatest god is Eros), which we see in the first dramatic soliloquy in the work. Now characters are helpless victims, not of the gods, but of their own passions. We sympathize with their struggle, unlike the gods who never hesitate to satisfy their lusts without the slightest moral concern.

One of the most famous lines from Ovid (line 20): "Reason calls one way, desire another. I see, approving things that are good, and yet I follow worse ones." Compare this to Euripides' Medea 1078: "I understand the horror of what I am going to do, but anger, the spring of all life's horror, masters my resolve." The apostle Paul says much the same thing about the struggle with sin: "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do." (Romans 7:15)

Jason must complete three tasks: yoke and plow with fire-breathing bulls, sow the dragon's teeth, steal the fleece from the dragon. According to the Argonautica 3.1176, the dragon's teeth came from Cadmus and were given to Medea's father by Minerva.

Twice Medea prays but doesn't wait for the results of her prayers.

She fears less betraying her father than that Jason might marry another (foreshadowing of the more familiar ending to this story).

She convinces herself that she leaves nothing of value behind (in other versions, she takes her baby brother with her, cuts him up and tosses him overboard to delay her father's pursuit).

In Apollodorus, Pelias was disrespectful to Hera, so she gave him the idea to send Jason after the fleece, in order to punish him years later by Medea's hand. Ovid either assumes we know the motivation for killing Pelias or wants to show Medea's act as one of wanton cruelty. Notice how she pollutes his daughters as well, making them commit the crime. Hyginus says that she came to them disguised as a priestess of Diana. The murder of Pelias was the subject of one of Euripides' tragedies in his first competition (455 BC, 24 years before he wrote Medea).

The most famous episode of her life is summarized in four lines. Ovid barely mentions Medea's killing of her own children out of jealous revenge, a detail that Euripides may have invented, as other versions say she killed them accidentally trying out an immortality potion, or that Creon's kinsmen killed them after she had escaped and placed the blame on her.

Medea's flight in the dragon-drawn chariot serves only as an excuse to mention several other metamorphoses.



Scylla (book 8)

In another insightful soliloquy, Scylla describes her love for her father's enemy, King Minos of Crete. She betrays her father by cutting off a purple lock of his hair, without which his kingdom would fall. Her passion for Minos causes her to choose against her father and city. Her character can be summed up in her thought: "Every person, surely, is his own god." However, when she presents Minos with the lock of hair and professes her love, he rejects her for her treachery. (This Scylla is not the same as the dangerous rock in bk. 13-14.)

Pasiphae (book 8):

After Minos rejects Scylla, she mentions his unusual birth by Europa and Jove in the form of a bull. She also taunts him about his wife Pasiphae whose unnatural passion for a real bull resulted in the birth of the monstrous minotaur, half-man, half-bull, who lives in the labyrinth built by Daedalus at Knossos.

Minos' daughter Ariadne helps Theseus find his way through the labyrinth to kill the minotaur, and they escape Crete together, but on his way home, he abandons her on an island (another case of frustrated love). She justly complains of her terrible treatment  in Heroides 10 (a series of fictional love letters). Fate avenges her, though, for Theseus forgets to hoist a white sail on his return to Athens. His father Aegeus, seeing a black sail and assuming it signaled the death of his son, throws himself into the sea, henceforth known as the Aegean.

 

Byblis (book 9)

This story of a sister's lust for her brother, while somewhat scandalous, is a masterful example of rationalization, the power of the will to capture the imagination and reasoning faculties, twisting them to its own ends. The focus now is on human psychology, although she blames her passion on a god's curse in an attempt to escape responsibility.

Resembling Freudian psychology, her subconscious desires appear first in dreams.

Thinking of the gods' incestuous adulteries, at first Byblis dismisses the comparison ("gods are laws unto themselves") but later justifies her desires by their example. For this reason Plato warned against the wicked influence of such tales, banning poets from his ideal Republic.

Byblis even wants to die, then imagines Caunus will come and kiss her dead body. Her every thought leads back to the same desired conclusion.

She mentions the children of Aeolus (Odyssey 10.7f). For a parallel to this letter, see Ovid's Heroides 11 where Canace writes to her brother Macareus.

She projects her desires onto him; if he had pursued her, she would yield, so why not the reverse?

"Let old men quibble about right and wrong; we are young; our need is love and rashness," a common generation gap complaint in love stories. "We're too young to know right from wrong" yet she clearly does or she wouldn't be debating with herself. Her real reason, "all things are right if only we believe it," is similar to Scylla (book 8).

In her letter she ends up putting the guilt on him, "don't be my murderer," another example of psychological manipulation.

Even after being rejected, she continues to pursue, feeling no shame, only regret that her first attempt failed.

Convinced that her guilt cannot be greater, she thinks, "what have I to lose?" making no distinction between temptation and the deed itself (final rationalization).

 

Myrrha (book 10)

Crimes of passion culminate in the story of Myrrha, who commits incest with her father, a deed so vile that Ovid urges his readers not to believe it.

Myrhha's illicit lust was kindled not by Cupid but the hateful Furies. Praying to the gods for help, she recognizes her immoral desire as a crime at first, but no sooner is the prayer off her lips than she begins to rationalize her way to the forbidden conclusion she wants: Nature permits relations that arbitrary human laws prohibit; other lands allow such behavior.

All these stories of forbidden passion resemble Euripides' fascination with extreme emotional states and abnormal psychology, especially in women. Euripides' Phaedra may have influenced Ovid's scene of the nurse arranging for Myrrha's nightly encounters with her father. The heavens hide their lights at the shameful deed, much like Macbeth's request: "Stars, hide your fires. Let not light see my black and deep desires." (1.4)

The fruit of this unholy union, rescued from the myrrh tree she has become, is Adonis, leading into a story of unfortunate love with Venus.



Unfortunate mutual love

 

Cephalus & Procris (book 7)

Procris was the daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens.

Ironic story of a couple whose intense love causes each to doubt the other, leading to unloving actions, traps, spying, eventually death. The painting by Pierre-Narcisse Guerin in the Louvre depicts Aurora watching over a sleeping Cephalus (1810).

Perhaps to idealize their love, Ovid omits details in Apollodorus 3.15 where Procris obtained the spear by sleeping with Minos, and in other accounts she actually goes to bed with disguised Cephalus.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare refers to this story ironically, having his Pyramus and Thisbe swear by the true love of "Shafalus and Procrus" unaware of their fateful relationship.

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

Meleager & Atalanta (book 8)

The famous boar hunt is described in Iliad 9:529-99. Homer does not include the details of Meleager's love for Atalanta (which may have been invented by Euripides in his lost tragedy) or his death by burning the magic log.

His mother Althaea's soliloquy resembles Euripidean drama; the struggle of choosing between relatives was a common tragic theme; compare to Medea. Althaea is also the mother of Deianira (Hercules' wife, see below) and the sister of Leda, mother of Perseus.  Aeschylus uses her to illustrate crimes of passion in Libation Bearers 605.

The relief below is from a Roman sarcophagus, 200 AD.



Hercules & Deianira (book 9) 

Sculpture by Baccio Bandinelli (1534) 

Sophocles recounts the story of Deianira and Heracles (the Greek form of his name) in his tragedy Trachiniae (Women of Trachis), which differs from Ovid in several ways. Sophocles' heroine  never contemplates murdering her rival Iole, and is more noble and sympathetic than the Deianira seen here. Ovid also omits her remorseful suicide prior to Hercules' return home. In Sophocles, Heracles comes to recognize his true enemy to be the centaur Nessus, who bought his revenge through this poison; as Sophocles' puts it, "the dead return to kill the living." Sophocles has the dying Nessus tell Deianira that if she uses the potion from his blood, her husband "will never love another" (spoken with intentional irony). In Ovid's account Hercules places the blame on Juno (literally Saturnia in the text, as Juno was the daughter of Saturn). 

Ovid's treatment of Deianira is more sympathetic in his Heroides 9 (a series of love letters from mythical women to their absent lovers). In her letter she tells her husband that despite his mighty labors, Iole has placed a yoke on him. "Venus has harmed you more than Juno." Love has conquered him when a thousand beasts and enemies could not. At the close of her letter, she prepares to kill herself once she learns the mistake she has made by trusting the words of Nessus.

Deianira is the sister of Meleager; Bacchylides' version has Hercules meet the handsome Meleager in Hades and asks for a wife as beautiful. Hercules' fate somewhat parallels the story of Meleager, in that  the hero moves from an epic height to a tragic fall at the hands of a woman, but in Hercules' case, the harm is unintended.

Hercules is described as either the son of Amphitryon or the son of Jupiter/Jove, who came to his mother Alcmene in the guise of Amphitryon one night (Apollodorus 2.4.8). Thus Hercules' stepmother is Juno, who constantly tormented him out of jealousy. When he was a child, she sent serpents to kill him in his crib, which he strangled (Hercules mentions this feat during the battle with Achelous). In Euripides' tragedy, she orders the goddess of madness to drive him into an insane rage in which he slaughters his wife and children (a different family than in the present story).

Nessus was pierced first by Cupid's dart before Hercules' arrow; his father Ixion lusted after Juno and now is punished in Hades bound to a wheel (see earlier notes on book 4). 

Rumor is based on truth as well as falsehood; Hercules conquered the city of Oechalia in order to win Iole. (See the description of the House of Rumor in book 12). 

In his Inferno (c. 12), Dante depicts Nessus carrying the author across a river of blood. See the painting "The Rape of Deianira" by Guido Reni (1630s).

Read my article on Heracles in the plays of Sophocles and Euripides.

Hercules recites his mighty labors which he accomplished to atone for killing his children in a fit of madness (see Euripides' Heracles). Ovid doesn't follow any traditional order, and includes some deeds that are not in the usual list of twelve (see Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, for details).  

Before dying, Hercules gives his bow to Philoctetes, who is destined to kill Paris with it during the Trojan War. (See Sophocles' tragedy about him)

Hercules' apotheosis (transformation into a divine being) foreshadows that of Aeneas, Romulus, and Caesar in books 14-15.

After Hercules' death, his old nemesis Eurystheus continued to persecute his sons, who sought protection in Athens, the subject of Euripides' play Heraclidae.

 

 

Orpheus & Euridice (book 10) 

This story has influenced numerous musical works, including the earliest opera (according to Grout, History of Western Music), Euridice by Peri and Caccini (1600), and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, the first popular opera (1607), and other works by Gluck, Liszt, and Offenbach. Another interesting adaptation of the story is the surrealist film Orphee by Jean Cocteau.

For all its influence, Ovid uses the story primarily as a frame to lead into other stories of ill-fated lovers about which Orpheus sings. 

Orpheus was the son of the muse Calliope, from whom he gets his musical gifts. Orpheus also sailed with Jason and the Argonauts, overcoming the enticing voices of the Sirens (who lured men to their deaths) with his more beautiful music.

Later sources claim that the head of Orpheus continued to sing and pronounce oracles, until Apollo, fearing competition with his own oracle at Delphi, silenced him (see Graves for sources).

In the ancient world, Orpheus was thought to have founded the mystery religion of Orphism, based in part on the death and rebirth of Dionysos-Zagreus, torn apart by the Titans, a fate shared by Orpheus at the hands of maenads (book 11). Orphic mysteries focused on purifying the immortal soul for the next life. (Apollodorus 1.3.2)

The painting of Orpheus leading Euridice from the Underworld is by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1861).

 

FORTUNATE LOVE

Philemon & Baucis (book 8)

This story is unique to Ovid. It provides both the actual and thematic center of the poem, a mini-theodicy demonstrating the justice of god, along with the contrasting story of Erysichthon. Each tale provides an unusual portrait of the gods acting justly by rewarding virtue and punishing wickedness: a generous couple feeds the gods and are turned into trees, to live together forever; in the second case Erysichthon (son of Cecrops) cuts down a sacred tree and is punished with hunger (poetic justice).

Brooks Otis sees Ovid holding up true, mutual, heterosexual passionate love as a model, in classical literature a rare theme (tragedies were usually not about love unless it was unnatural).

Iphis (book 9)

Born a girl but not exposed, disguised as boy, then falls in love with another girl, but resists temptation until turned into a boy. Her moral restraint is in sharp contrast to Byblis. The reference to Inachus' daughter: the Greeks associated the Egyptian Isis with Io who settled in Egypt; the horns of the moon similar to cow horns. The worship of Isis was a popular mystery cult with Roman women.

Pygmalion (book 10)

Pygmalion's chaste love turns stone to flesh, in contrast with the prostitutes in the preceding story who turn to stone. This myth inspired Bernard Shaw's play of the same name, perhaps better known as the musical My Fair Lady. (painting by Jean Leon Gerome, 1890)

Peleus and Thetis (book 11)

This couple's romance is important for initiating the events that would lead to the Trojan War. At their wedding Eris the goddess of Strife was uninvited but showed up anyway, tossing into the party an apple on which was written "to the fairest." Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite fought over the prize, demanding that Zeus decide the issue. The god wisely left it to Paris, prince of Troy, to judge this beauty contest. Aphrodite won the decision by promising Paris the most beautiful woman in the world as a bribe, which was Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. And the rest, as they say, is history ... or in this case, mythology.

 

What if Homer had written sit-coms?

 

Here’s the story of a man named Paris
Who was choosing ‘tween three very lovely dames.
From the first one he was offered wealth and wisdom.
The second called him names.

Then the third one said if she were picked the fairest
She’d procure for him the world’s most famous whore.
Off to Sparta Aphrodite flew and brought her,
And what happened next? Well, that’s the Trojan War.

The Trojan War,
The Trojan War,
That’s the reason they will fight the Trojan War.

Come and listen to our story of a man from Troy.
Made a promise to a goddess, so he got himself a toy.
But then one day Menelaus came around,
And he and Agamemnon burned his city to the ground.

Troy, that is.
Homer’s "Ilion."
Schliemann’s gold mine.

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ovid Intro

Prologue

Books 1-2

Books 3-6

Books 6-11

Books 12-15

 

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