Introduction
Book VIII
Fable I: Minos and Scylla
Fable II: Theseus and the Minotaur
Fable III: Dædalus and Icarus
Fable IV: Meleager and the Calydonian Boar
Fable V: Acheloüs tells the five Naiads’ stories
Fable VI: Baucis and Philemon; the transformations of Proteus
Fable VII: Erisicthon’s hunger
Book IX
Fable I: Hercules defeats Acheloüs to win Deïanira
Fable II: Nessus and the death of Hercules
Fable III: Galanthis and the birth of Hercules
Fable IV: Lotis, Dryope and Iolaüs
Fable V: Caunus and Byblis
Fable VI: Iphis and Ianthe
Book X
Fable I: Orpheus and Eurydice
Fable II: Orpheus sings to the rocks and trees; the transformation of Attis
Fable III: Cyparissus
Fable IV: Jupiter and Ganymede
Fable V: Apollo accidentally kills Hyacinthus
Fable VI: the Cerastæ and the Propœtides
Fable VII: Pygmalion’s statue
Fable VIII: Cinyras, Myrrha and the birth of Adonis
Fable IX: Venus and Adonis; Hippomenes and Atalanta
Fable X: the death of Adonis
Book XI
Fable I: the Thracian women kill Orpheus
Fable II: Midas’s golden touch
Fable III: the contest of Pan and Apollo; Midas’s ears
Fable IV: the walls of Troy
Fables V and VI: Peleus and Thetis; assorted transformations
Fable VII: the shipwreck of Ceyx
Fable VIII: Hesperia and Æsacus
Book XII
Fables I and II: the Greeks sail for Troy; the sacrifice of Iphigenia
Fables III and IV: Cænis becomes Cæneus; the battle of the Lapithæ and Centaurs
Fables V and VI: Periclymenus; the death of Achilles
Book XIII
Fable I: Ajax and Ulysses fight for Achilles’s armor; the fall of Troy
Fables III and IV: the sacrifice of Polyxena; the funeral of Memnon
Fables V and VI: Æneas leaves Troy; the daughters of Anius and Orion
Fable VII: Polyphemus kills Acis
Fable VIII: Glaucus
Book XIV
Fable I: Circe, Glaucus and Scylla
Fable II: Dido and Æneas; the Cercopes
Fable III: Apollo and the Sibyl
Fable IV: Ulysses receives Æolus’s bag of winds
Fable V: Circe turns Ulysses’s men into swine
Fable VI: Circe, Pictus and Canens
Fables VII and VIII: the followers of Diomedes; the Apulian shepherd
Fables IX and X: the fleet of Æneas; the death of Turnus
Fable XI: Vertumnus and Pomona
Fables XII and XIII: Anaxarete; Romulus builds Rome
Book XV
Fable I: Myscelos builds Crotona
Fables II and III: Pythagoras teaches Numa
Fables IV, V and VI: the transformations of Egeria, Hippolytus and others
Fable VII: Æsculapius comes to Rome
Fable VIII: the assassination of Julius Cæsar
The Introduction is included here for completeness. The Synopses of Books I-VII have been omitted.
The Metamorphoses of Ovid are a compendium of the Mythological narratives of ancient Greece and Rome, so ingeniously framed, as to embrace a large amount of information upon almost every subject connected with the learning, traditions, manners, and customs of antiquity, and have afforded a fertile field of investigation to the learned of the civilized world. To present to the public a faithful translation of a work, universally esteemed, not only for its varied information, but as being the masterpiece of one of the greatest Poets of ancient Rome, is the object of the present volume.
To render the work, which, from its nature and design, must, of necessity, be replete with matter of obscure meaning, more inviting to the scholar, and more intelligible to those who are unversed in Classical literature, the translation is accompanied with Notes and Explanations, which, it is believed, will be found to throw considerable light upon the origin and meaning of some of the traditions of heathen Mythology.
In the translation, the text of the Delphin edition has been generally adopted; and no deviation has been made from it, except in a few instances, where the reason for such a step is stated in the notes; at the same time, the texts of Burmann and Gierig have throughout been carefully consulted. The several editions vary materially in respect to punctuation; the Translator has consequently used his own discretion in adopting that which seemed to him the most fully to convey in each passage the intended meaning of the writer.
The Metamorphoses of Ovid have been frequently translated into the English language. On referring to Mr. Bohn’s excellent Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Classics and their Translations, we find that the whole of the work has been twice translated into English Prose, while five translations in Verse are there enumerated. A prose version of the Metamorphoses was published by Joseph Davidson, about the middle of the last century, which professes to be “as near the original as the different idioms of the Latin and English will allow;” and to be “printed for the use of schools, as well as of private gentlemen.” A few moments’ perusal of this work will satisfy the reader that it has not the slightest pretension to be considered a literal translation, while, by its departure from the strict letter of the author, it has gained nothing in elegance of diction. It is accompanied by “critical, historical, geographical, and classical notes in English, from the best Commentators, both ancient and modern, beside a great number of notes, entirely new;” but notwithstanding this announcement, these annotations will be found to be but few in number, and, with some exceptions in the early part of the volume, to throw very little light on the obscurities of the text. A fifth edition of this translation was published so recently as 1822, but without any improvement, beyond the furbishing up of the old-fashioned language of the original preface. A far more literal translation of the Metamorphoses is that by John Clarke, which was first published about the year 1735, and had attained to a seventh edition in 1779. Although this version may be pronounced very nearly to fulfil the promise set forth in its title page, of being “as literal as possible,” still, from the singular inelegance of its style, and the fact of its being couched in the conversational language of the early part of the last century, and being unaccompanied by any attempt at explanation, it may safely be pronounced to be ill adapted to the requirements of the present age. Indeed, it would not, perhaps, be too much to assert, that, although the translator may, in his own words, “have done an acceptable service to such gentlemen as are desirous of regaining or improving the skill they acquired at school,” he has, in many instances, burlesqued rather than translated his author. Some of the curiosities of his version will be found set forth in the notes; but, for the purpose of the more readily justifying this assertion, a few of them are adduced: the word “nitidus” is always rendered “neat,” whether applied to a fish, a cow, a chariot, a laurel, the steps of a temple, or the art of wrestling. He renders “horridus,” “in a rude pickle;” “virgo” is generally translated “the young lady;” “vir” is “a gentleman;” “senex” and “senior” are indifferently “the old blade,” “the old fellow,” or “the old gentleman;” while “summa arx” is “the very tip-top.” “Misera” is “poor soul;” “exsilio” means “to bounce forth;” “pellex” is “a miss;” “lumina” are “the peepers;” “turbatum fugere” is “to scower off in a mighty bustle;” “confundor” is “to be jumbled;” and “squalidus” is “in a sorry pickle.” “Importuna” is “a plaguy baggage;” “adulterium” is rendered “her pranks;” “ambages” becomes either “a long rabble of words,” “a long-winded detail,” or “a tale of a tub;” “miserabile carmen” is “a dismal ditty;” “increpare hos” is “to rattle these blades;” “penetralia” means “the parlour;” while “accingere,” more literally than elegantly, is translated “buckle to.” “Situs” is “nasty stuff;” “oscula jungere” is “to tip him a kiss;” “pingue ingenium” is a circumlocution for “a blockhead;” “anilia instrumenta” are “his old woman’s accoutrements;” and “repetito munere Bacchi” is conveyed to the sense of the reader as, “they return again to their bottle, and take the other glass.” These are but a specimen of the blemishes which disfigure the most literal of the English translations of the Metamorphoses.
The Clarke “translation” was published as part of a student edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, with the Latin on the top half of the page, the English below. It was not intended as an independent text.
In the year 1656, a little volume was published, by J[ohn] B[ulloker,] entitled “Ovid’s Metamorphosis, translated grammatically, and, according to the propriety of our English tongue, so far as grammar and the verse will bear, written chiefly for the use of schools, to be used according to the directions in the preface to the painfull schoolmaster, and more fully in the book called, ‘Ludus Literarius, or the Grammar school, chap. 8.’” Notwithstanding a title so pretentious, it contains a translation of no more than the first 567 lines of the first Book, executed in a fanciful and pedantic manner; and its rarity is now the only merit of the volume. A literal interlinear translation of the first Book “on the plan recommended by Mr. Locke,” was published in 1839, which had been already preceded by “a selection from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, adapted to the Hamiltonian system, by a literal and interlineal translation,” published by James Hamilton, the author of the Hamiltonian system. This work contains selections only from the first six books, and consequently embraces but a very small portion of the entire work.
For the better elucidation of the different fabulous narratives and allusions, explanations have been added, which are principally derived from the writings of Herodotus, Apollodorus, Pausanias, Dio Cassius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Strabo, Hyginus, Nonnus, and others of the historians, philosophers, and mythologists of antiquity. A great number of these illustrations are collected in the elaborate edition of Ovid, published by the Abbé Banier, one of the most learned scholars of the last century; who has, therein, and in his “Explanations of the Fables of Antiquity,” with indefatigable labour and research, culled from the works of ancient authors, all such information as he considered likely to throw any light upon the Mythology and history of Greece and Rome.
This course has been adopted, because it was considered that a statement of the opinions of contemporary authors would be the most likely to enable the reader to form his own ideas upon the various subjects presented to his notice. Indeed, except in two or three instances, space has been found too limited to allow of more than an occasional reference to the opinions of modern scholars. Such being the object of the explanations, the reader will not be surprised at the absence of critical and lengthened discussions on many of those moot points of Mythology and early history which have occupied, with no very positive result, the attention of Niebuhr, Lobeck, Müller, Buttmann, and many other scholars of profound learning.