Reading Diary A: Ovid's Metamorphoses I

This week I chose to read Ovid's Metamorphoses I.

Throughout the readings I found a recurring theme in almost every story. Zeus was a god who easily succumbed to his sexual urges and as a result he was never faithful to Hera. It surprised me how when mortal women denied Zeus he would then go and rape that women, and she always became pregnant afterwards. It was also shocking that Hera would always punish the woman who was raped by her husband as if they had willingly seduced Zeus.

Deucalion and Pyrrha

•            Mans wickedness causes Zeus to want to flood the earth and he asks Poseidon to help him. This reminded me an awful lot of biblical events when the lord flooded the earth.

Lo

•          Interesting part of the tale is that Hera takes the eyes of her killed servant that had 100 eyes and places them into the tail of a peacock. That is why there are eyes on peacock feathers!

Semele

• -       Zeus has relations with Semele and she becomes pregnant with the god Dionysus
• -       Hera wants to punish her and tricks her to ask Zeus to prove he is Zeus by showing her his full power.
• -       When Zeus is with her he promises upon the river styx that he will do anything she asks and she asks to see him at full power. He regrets his decision, but does what she asks and since she was human she was incinerated. However, the child being a god fetus survived and Zeus sewed him to his leg until he was fully developed.

Phaethon and the Sun (Best story!)

• -       Phoebus, the sun god, was Phaethon’s father, but no one in his town believed it and he didn’t know if he should believe his mother.
• -       He then travelled the world to Phoebus’ palace to ask him and the sun god says that he is. He then offers to grant any request Phaethon asks of him
• -       Unfortunately, Phaethon asks to control his chariot for a day and Phoebus immediately realizes his error.
• -       Phoebus tries to warn his son of the dangers of travelling to such heights and avoiding the constellations that would attack him.
• -       The boy would not heed his warning and Phoebus has no option but to make him fireproof and give guidance of the path to take
• -       He takes the chariot but the horses do not feel their usual weight of the chariot and go off on their own course believing it is empty. He becomes afraid of the height and the venomous pincer of Scorpio and drops the reins.
• -       The horses begin to go down closer to the earth and scorch the earth and the cities and the earth begins to call out to the gods asking why they chose to end her life.  Atlas can barely hold the hot sky and if he lets go of the heavens everything would be destroyed.
• -       Zeus kills Phaethon in order to save everyone, but Phoebus was in morning and there was a day without the sun.

Photo by Sebastiano Ricci portraying the Fall of Phaethon