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OvidMetamorphoses
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Symbols & Motifs
Punishment and Betrayal
Punishment is a motif in the Metamorphoses that supports Ovid’s moral messaging. In Books 1 and 2, Ovid tells the tale of Phaethon, who insists on driving the chariot of his father, the Sun. He soon loses control of the chariot, driving it too low and scorching the Earth, who complains about him to Jupiter. In response, Jupiter “struck Phaethon from the chariot and from life” (33). Later, Phaethon’s tomb has the epitaph “great was his fall, yet did he greatly dare” (34). Phaethon’s pride led him to think he, a mortal, could drive a god’s chariot, and for this the gods punished him. Ovid means for this story to have moral implications, particularly in his use of the pithy epitaph to summarize the lesson a reader can learn from Phaethon’s story.
Another example is the Theban queen Niobe, proud of her marriage, wealth, and lineage, who boasts that she, who has seven sons and seven daughters, is better than the goddess Latona, who has only two children (Apollo and Diana). As a goddess, Latona cannot abide this arrogance and self-importance, so she sends Apollo and Diana to punish Niobe, the gods kill all her children to make her suffer. Niobe mourns her children until she turns into a rock. At the end of this story, Ovid specifies that the people of Thebes learn from Niobe’s lesson. He writes, “then every man and woman, all of them, / dreaded the goddess’ wrath made manifest ,/ and worshipped more devoutly the divine” (130). Ovid imparts a lesson to the reader, as well: honor the gods, and do not boast that you are better than them. Just as Phaethon and Niobe’s stories reveal the all-reaching power of the gods, so too do they tell all mortals, including Ovid’s readers, what will happen to them if they do not behave.
Losing Speech
Loss of speech is a common motif within Ovid’s stories of transformation. It represents a loss of power, thereby supporting the larger themes of power and dominance. When Ovid writes the processes of transformation, he many times specifies how transformation affects speech and the person transformed. After Jupiter turns Io into a cow, Ovid writes, “would she complain, a moo came from her throat, / a startling sound—her own voice frightened her” (20). Unlike in some transformations, Io retains her inner human mind even as a cow, keeping both her desire to communicate and her capacity for emotions like fear. This fear affects Io greatly, as even after Jupiter returns her to human form, she remains afraid of speaking, “lest, cow-like, she might moo” (23).
Callisto undergoes a similar change when Juno turns her into a bear. Ovid writes, “her power of speech was quenched; a fearful growl, / angry and menacing, came from her throat. / She was a bear, but kept her woman’s heart” (38). Here the impediment to the human desire to communicate presented by an animal body is an important element to Juno’s punishment, showing how the goddess disempowers and terrorizes Callisto. Ovid enjoys lingering on these details in his transformations such as in the story of Dryope. Dryope, almost turned transformed entirely to a tree, uses her last words to beg her husband to care for her son. This detail extends the time that Ovid can spend in the moment of transition, showing his aesthetic as well as thematic focus on speech as an element of transformation.
Apotheosis
Apotheosis, also called deification, is the transformation of someone into a god. It is a special kind of transformation in the Metamorphoses as it has additional religious significance beyond most other transformations. As a motif, apotheosis supports Ovid’s theme of power and empire. It also provides a clear linkage between Augustus and Caesar as rulers of Rome and their distant, mythological predecessors Aeneas and Hercules. Hercules is Ovid’s first model of apotheosis and shows the general pattern of a typical Greco-Roman hero. When Hercules is about to die, he throws himself into a pyre. Then, after Jupiter addresses the gods, Hercules’ “mortal frame removed, / through all his finer parts gained force and vigour, / in stature magnified, transformed into / a presence clothed in majesty and awe” (207). The mortal aspects of Hercules melt away, leaving behind a stronger, more beautiful, divine version of the hero that Jupiter brings to the sky in his chariot. Aeneas’ apotheosis is very similar. Venus first addresses the gods, insisting to Jupiter that her son become a god. Then, Ovid writes, Venus “purged in his waters every mortal part / and washed it all away—the best remained” (343). Like Hercules, Aeneas loses his external mortal shell and only the pure and divine parts of him remain to be worshipped.
Julius Caesar’s family traced their line directly back to Aeneas’ son Ascanius, who was also known as Iulus (from which comes the name Julius). Caesar’s apotheosis, in Ovid’s description, follows the models of both Aeneas and Hercules. Venus also decides that Caesar should become a god, although in this case because it is fitting for the adoptive father of the emperor Augustus to be divine. Venus then “snatched from Caesar’s corpse the new-freed soul / before it could dissolve into the air, / and bore it up to join the stars of heaven” (378). Although the description is not as extensive as the others, Caesar still loses the mortal part of himself (his corpse) while Venus saves the purer part (soul) to be carried into the sky as a god. In this, Ovid provides a more recent example of apotheosis for Augustus to potentially follow in the future. This deification happened figuratively in real life as the Roman people honored Caesar as a god even before Augustus became emperor.
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By Ovid
