Metamorphoses

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Summary: Metamorphoses: Culture of Ancients
Review: Ovid's Metamorphoses is a rich and involved text dealing with classical mythology. Any student of poetry, past or present, can attest to the wonderful skill and excellent usage of diction that can be found in this book. If you like classical mythology this book shouldn't be absent from your library. The book attempts to deal with the coveted god's of ancient Roman mythology, their stories, and some other classical characters. As a student of Latin myself, I have studied this work many times. Yet, each time I pick up the book to read it, regardless of how many times I've read a passage before, I find that my senses are never dulled to it. The work is purely amazing, it should be given special honor just for its poetic style and sophistication. However, it is so beautifully done that anyone reading it for pleasure will find it enjoyable and enriching. Here are the opening lines as they appear in Rolfe Humphries' translation: My intention is to tell of bodies changed To different forms; the gods, who made the changes, Will help me-or I hope so-with a poem That runs from the world's beginning to our own days.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a Latin student, likes poetry, or just likes to read for pleasure.

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Summary: Of changes and eternity.
Review: Ovid, the Roman poet who was exiled by Octavian (Augustus) to the limits of the Empire and died far from Rome, wrote this poem of changes and love as a way to poke a little fun at the epic poems so much admired by the emperor himself (Homer's "Iliad" and "Oddyssey," and Virgil's "Aeneid") and by that previous generation of serious Romans who had lived through the Civil Wars and appreciated Law and Order, even if it included the deification of Julius Caesar. Ovid was younger and not one for much Law and Order or brand-new deities. He was a lover of people and nature, and he sought to find immortality with his work. Here in his "Metamorphoses" is Daphne running away from a lusty Apollo and turning into laurel to escape her pursuer. Here is Ulysses, once again depicted as a sweet-talking liar who benefits from other people's efforts. Here is Adonis, the most beautiful man, product of the illicit union of a father (who didn't know it was illicit) and his daughter (she did know, and you have to read it to get it). Here is Perseus, son of Jupiter and Danae (the god turned into golden rain to get to her), who killed Medusa from whose severed head was born Pagasus, the winged horse. Here is the story of Tereus, Procne, and Philomela, which, if written today, would cause an uproar from plenty of people concerned with family values.

Ovid was an original and a bit of a rebel. He paid the price with exile, but left us great love poems and this, his masterpiece of Creation-myth-history all wrapped into one wonderful package. In the Epilogue of this work, Ovid wrote that after his death his "Metamorphoses" would live on, and through the centuries it would make him immortal. Two thousand years after his death, we are still reading him, and enjoying his talent. He was as good a prophet as he was a poet.

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Summary: noteworthy translation of Ovid's masterpiece
Review: Rolfe Humphries propounds a beautiful rendering of Ovid's Metamorphoses, written by the Roman poet in dactylic hexameter, much adorned, and related with almost equally sumptuous depiction as the original, acting to preserve the past and further in the dissemination and promulgation of such poetry and names as Ovids across space and throughout time. Surely something that can survive forever, semper, perpetuo, is worth, at least, perusing. Indefatigable Ovid and His fain knight, Humpries, merit examination, don't You think

Rating:
Summary: Great Stuff
Review: Sex, violence, and great story-telling. What more could one ask of a novel? We often forget that the world of Roman society was not all that different in terms of human nature than Western society today...

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Summary: Rolfe Humphries is translator
Review: The celebrated Rolfe Humphries translated this classic

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Summary: from the "bad boy" of Augustan Rome
Review: The Emperor Augustus did not appreciate Ovid in any large degree. He found Virgil and Horace much more agreeable, as those poets tended to buttress the status quo, whereas Ovid tended to undermine it. Personally I am a great fan of Virgil's. He was one of the greatest poets who ever lived. His Aeneid is just as vital today as the day he wrote it. Horace, on the other hand, has never incited much of a response. He's pretty dry in comparison. Ovid, on the other hand, probably would have been a blast to hang out with. His poetry is ribald, yet informed with a thorough knowledge of the myth and literature that has come before him. He would have been a man who had a vast sense of humor mixed with erudition, in other words. This is generally the sort I would choose for a friend if such were available in our present age. I don't know if this is helpful, but this is how I sometimes tend to classify writers. Some I admire, but wouldn't want to sit across from him/her at a dinner table (Eugene O'Neill, my revered Dostoevsky, Sylvia Plath, the redoubtable Celine - he'd be the last guy I'd want to break bread with- Sartre (what a bummer!), Ibsen, Kierkegard, etc. But I'd love to party with Seutonius, Ovid, Diderot, Voltaire, Moliere, Hugo and either of the Bronte sisters. What a high time that would be! Apart from the rambling, this is an excellent translation of one of the most important works, in terms of influence, in the western cannon. Ovid had a primary impact on every poet who ever picked up a quill or a pen or typed a phrase on a keyboard who came after him. Talk about seminal literature. He made the love poem modern. Everything, apart perhaps from Sappho, had been wooden and stilted before "The Metamorphosis." He was the D H Lawrence of Rome. That is the reason the Imperial censors tried to surpress his work, just as the modern courts tried to surpress Lady Chatterly. Thank posterity neither succeeded.

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Summary: Beware: Reviews Discuss Wildly Disparate Works
Review: The five stars are for Ovid. This note discusses the Indiana University Press edition of Rolfe Humphries' translation of the _Metamorphoses_.

Humphries provides a clear, workmanlike translation.

So far as I can tell, of all the editorial reviews and customer reviews currently (9/11/04) displayed on the page for Rolfe Humphries' translation of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, only the customer review posted by "elemental master" clearly refers to the Humphries translation.

The _editorial_ reviews describe a Cambridge University Press _Latin_ edition containing only Book Thirteen. Humphries' translation includes all fifteen books, of course. Several customer reviews evaluate books containing translations by Dryden, Innes, and Melville. Often, it is not possible to determine which translation a reviewer is considering. The work offered for sale on the page for Rolfe Humphries' translation of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ contains only Humphries' translation.

In short, shoppers should be aware that the reviews displayed on the page for Rolfe Humphries' translation of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ actually discuss wildly disparate works; most of them have little or nothing to do with the book being offered for sale.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect hassle-free reading
Review: There is a review on the back cover of the book, from British Book News. It says " a book every literate person ought to own", I couldn't agree more.

Several reviews here critisize Melville's translation for not preserving the Ovid's poetry. Well, i whole-hartedly couldn't care less about Ovid's poety. I'm much more interested in the stories, and I found this translation to be READABLE! Something lacking in many others. This is a translation that you can sit down with and read. You don't need a dictionary and you don't have to work to decifer the meaning of each line.

Metamorphoses is important to anyone who desires to learn about mythology. It collects all the stories that you know, and some you don't all together. It's a wonderful referance for students, not to mention entertaining. The explanitory notes are excellent and the index is useful.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect hassle-free reading
Review: There is a review on the back cover of the book, from British Book News. It says " a book every literate person ought to own", I couldn't agree more.

Several reviews here critisize Melville's translation for not preserving the Ovid's poetry. Well, i whole-hartedly couldn't care less about Ovid's poety. I'm much more interested in the stories, and I found this translation to be READABLE! Something lacking in many others. This is a translation that you can sit down with and read. You don't need a dictionary and you don't have to work to decifer the meaning of each line.

Metamorphoses is important to anyone who desires to learn about mythology. It collects all the stories that you know, and some you don't all together. It's a wonderful referance for students, not to mention entertaining. The explanitory notes are excellent and the index is useful.

Rating:
Summary: Cool!
Review: This book is great! I got it in London after reading the Aeneid and Odyssey for Classics A-level [in U.K.]. But, fot those who can't take in so much...try a "condensed" version which is excellent in its own right - "Tales from Ovid" by Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. I have that as well.