Metamorphōsēs and this selection

Ovid's roughly twelve-thousand-line, fifteen-book Metamorphōsēs (‘Changes of shape’) is classed as an epic (like all epics it was composed in hexameters). It offers a supposedly temporal sequence of myths that starts with the formation of the world and ends with Ovid's contemporary, the emperor Augustus. Its title derives from the fact that almost all the stories involve transformations of one sort or another, about two hundred and fifty in all, mostly of humans. Ovid treats each one with inimitable brilliance, turning Metamorphōsēs into (if nothing else) a treasure-house of wonderful stories. But since these stories of transformation are all self-contained narratives, often without any obvious connection with each other, Ovid has to employ a range of ingenious devices in order to weave them together into a continuous narrative. As a result, Metamorphōsēs is quite unlike any other epic, and rather difficult to summarise. One (among many) ways of doing so is to divide it into three sections. In books 1–6 it recounts stories mainly of gods (e.g. Apollo and Daphne, Jupiter and Io, Jupiter's rape of Europa, Dionysus and Pentheus, Mars and Venus); books 7–10 concentrate on the heroes of myth (e.g. Jason and the Argonauts, Medea, the Minotaur, the Calydonian boar, Hercules, Orpheus and Eurydice); and in books 11–15 Ovid turns to ‘history’ (the siege of Troy, the stories of Aeneas, Romulus and early Roman kings like Numa), before unfolding some lengthy ‘philosophical’ speculations on vegetarianism and the nature of change by the sixth-century bc Greek philosopher Pythagoras.

Background

Conversation over Achelous' dinner table turns to other examples of metamorphosis, and Achelous admits he can change into a (limited) number of different shapes at will. This leads him to tell the story of his losing battle with Hercules, and when the party breaks up Ovid continues the Hercules theme with tales of his death and birth. Alcmene, Hercules' mother, is told the story of Dryope who picked a plant to amuse her baby and was turned into a lotus tree. The next stories concern Hercules' nephew Iolaus, who has been restored to youth, and of Callirhoe, who will win a concession from Jupiter to increase the age of her sons. They raise among the gods the question of getting old.

The gods are less than enthusiastic about this idea, but Jupiter tells them that fate cannot be avoided and points to various of his own sons, Minos included, who are bowed down in years. Ovid now tells how the power of the aged Minos was being threatened by the youthful son of Apollo and Deione, Miletus (after whom the powerful city on the coast of Asia Minor was named); and this leads Ovid to tell the story of the twins born to Miletus by Cyanee, daughter of the river-god Maeander. Their names are Byblis and Caunus, and Byblis has conceived a more than ordinary love for her handsome brother. Consumed with desire, she wrestles desperately with her conscience but finally decides she can hide her feelings for him no longer; she must communicate them, somehow, to him.