Metamorphoses
Ovid, Stephanie McCarter (translator)
Flipping the gods off
You are probably somewhat familiar with Ovid's Metamorphoses, even if you don't realize it. You've heard about Greek and Roman mythology, and Ovid is almost inevitably the source of many of the stories you've heard and read. What I had not appreciated before reading Metamorphoses (especially in Stephanie McCarter’s brutally blunt translation) is that a consistent theme runs through it.
Ovid is not a reverent reporter of the antics of the gods. In fact, he comes close to revolution, though his revolution is couched as exposure and occasional mockery. Aside from petty bickering, there are two common stories, that repeat over and over with new names and details. In the first, a god or goddess gets the hots for some human and has sex with them, willing or no. This story seldom ends well for the human object of a god's affection.
The other common story is the hubris narrative, in which some human fails to display the degree of respect gods feel entitled to. Gods and goddesses are super insecure. "Just let it go" is not advice a god or goddess will heed. The god usually wins the resulting fight or competition, and the hubristic human is punished. Ovid's favorite punishment, of course, is a metamorphosis -- the human gets changed into something like a flower or a bird.
My favorite story was the story of Arachne -- a weaver who claims to be better at the loom than Minerva. At first, this looks like the usual hubris story, but it is not. It transpires that Arachne actually is better than Minerva. What's more, when they compete Arachne mocks the gods, using her loom to depict the bad behavior of the gods (stories that Ovid already told us in detail). Arachne goes particularly hard on Minerva's father Jove.
There is one thing worse than falsely claiming to be better than a god or goddess, and that is being truly better, and proving it. Arachne's punishment is to be turned into a spider.
Ovid concludes Metamorphoses with an extraordinary ten-line epilog in which he defies the gods, claiming to have achieved immortality. And -- hot damn! -- he's right. 2000 years later I am moved by his defiance.
I was disappointed in one way by Metamorphoses. I have the habit of reading a poem every morning. (I find that reading an entire book of poetry at one sitting doesn't work well -- I lose the ability to appreciate it unless I decompress between poems.) For the last few months that has been Metamorphoses. And, although it is an excellent story book, it never felt to me like reading poetry.