Mythology and Folklore: Extra Reading Diary: Ovid's Metamorphoses II

Venus tells Cupid to make Hades fall in love with Persephone (Demeter's daughter)
He shot Hades in the heart as he was flying over Sicily after an earthquake.

Hades kidnaps Persephone from a field and rapes her.
The nymph Cyane blocked his path, but he used his staff and made a hole to the underworld in the road. The nymph turned to water because she was stricken by grief.
Demeter searched for days and when she asked an elderly woman for a drink a boy called her greedy. So naturally she turned him into a newt.
Cyane was a part of a pool of water, but Demeter came to the pond and Cyane showed her a ribbon that was Persephone's at the bottom of the pool.
She blamed Sicily and destroyed their crops.

Demeter was told of kidnapping by nymph.
She went to Zeus and asked for help. He said she could come back so long as no food touched her lips. This was the law decreed by the Fates.'

However, she ate a pomegranate and Ascalaplus the nymph was the only one to see and he snitched on her.
Demeter turned the nymph into a screech owl (a mortal bird of bad omen).
Then Zeus decided to split her half the year between the two.

Arachne could masterfully spin wool into clothes. People believed she had been taught by Athena and she denied it.
Athena came down in disguise and told her to ask for forgiveness. Arachne became upset and asked why Athena didn't just come down and ask herself.
Athena removed the disguise and they then went into a competition of who could create the best artwork.

Minerva weaved the gods and Arachne's possible fates.
Athena ripped up the story Arachne weaved because it mocked the gods and Arachne hung herself. Athena then turned her into a spider.

Niobe wasn't satisfied with her perfect life.
She badmouthed Latona (mother of Apollo & Artemis) and called herself a goddess above Latona.

This angered Niobe and her children were upset as well.
Apollo and Artemis killed her seven sons, seven daughters, and husband.
She was then placed on a mountain as a statue that to this day tears still flow.

Latona was running from Hera after giving birth to Apollo & Artemis and needed water.
She stopped at a pond and asked group of men to drink from their pond. They denied her and they were transformed to frogs.