__________________________________________________________
Ovid
Metamorphoses
Translated
by
Ian Johnston
Vancouver Island University
Nanaimo, British Columbia
Canada
__________________________________________________________
This document has some copyright restrictions. For details
please consult the following link: Copyright.
For a free copy of the full translation in Word
format, please contact Ian Johnston.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
For more specific details of the contents
of a particular book, consult the summary provided at the opening of that book.
BOOK 1
Invocation; Creation; Four Ages, War of the Giants; the Flood; Deucalion and
Pyrrha; Apollo and Pytho;
Apollo and Daphne; Io, Argus, and Mercury; Pan and Syrinx;
Phaëton.
BOOK 2
Phaëton; Callisto
and Jupiter; Callisto and Arcas;
Coronis and Apollo; Ocyroë; Battus and Mercury; Aglauros,
Mercury, and Juno; Europa and Jupiter.
BOOK 3
Cadmus and the Dragon; Actaeon and Diana; Semele, Jupiter, and Juno; Juno, Jupiter, and Teiresias; Echo and Narcissus, Pentheus
and Bacchus.
BOOK 4
The Daughters of Minyas;
Pyramus and Thisbe; Mars
and Venus; the Sun, Leucothea and Clytie; Salmacis and Hermaphroditus; Athamas and
Ino; Cadmus and Harmonia, Perseus and Atlas; Perseus and
Andromeda.
BOOK 5
Perseus and Phineus;
the Muses and Minerva; the Daughters of Pierus and
the Muses; Typhoeus and the Gods; the Rape of
Proserpine; Ceres and Cyrene; Arethusa and Alpheus; Triptolemus
and Lyncus.
BOOK 6
Arachne and Minerva; Niobe;
Leto and the Lycians; Marsyas; Tereus and Philomela; Orithyia and Boreas.
BOOK 7
Jason and Medea, Medea and Aeson, Medea and Pelias, Medea and Aegeus, Aeacus and the Myrmidons,
Cephalus and Procris.
BOOK 8
Minos and Scylla, Daedalus
and Icarus, Calydonian Boar
Hunt, Althaea and Meleager, Permela and Achelous, Baucis and Philemon, Erysichthon and Maestra.
BOOK 9
Hercules and Achelous, Nessus and Hercules, Galanthis, Dryope, Iolaus, Byblis and Caunus, Iphis and Iänthe.
BOOK 10
Orpheus and Eurydice, Attis and Cybele, Cyparissus, Hyacinthus and
Apollo, The Propoetides, Pygmalion, Myrrha and Cinyras, Atalanta and Hippomenes,
Adonis.
BOOK 11
Death of
Orpheus, Midas and Bacchus, Midas, Pan and Apollo, Peleus
and Thetis, Chione and Daedalion, Peleus and Psamathe, Ceyx and Halcyone, Aesacus and Hesperië.
BOOK 12
Agamemnon at Aulis, Cycnus and Achilles, Caeneus, the Centaurs and Lapiths, Periclymenus and Hercules, Death of Achilles.
BOOK 13
Ajax and Ulysses, Hecuba and Polymnestor, Memnon, Aeneas and Acis, Galatea and
Polyphemus, Glaucus.
BOOK 14
Scylla and Circe, The Cercopes,
The Cumaean Sibyl, Ulysses, Polyphemus and Circe, Picus and
Circe, Diomedes in Italy, Aeneas in Latium; Vertumnus and Pomona; Iphis and Anaxarete; Romulus.
BOOK 15
Mysceleus, Croton, Pythagoras. Egeria, Hippolytus, Tages, Cipus, Aesculapius,
Julius Caesar, Augustus.]
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
In this translation, the numbers in square
brackets refer to Ovid’s Latin text, the
numbers without brackets refer to the English text. In the latter, partial
lines are counted together in the reckoning, so that two or three consecutive short
lines are equivalent to one full line.
The explanatory endnotes, the headings at
the right-hand margins, and the summaries at the start of each book have been
added by the translator.
A word on pronunciation of names: the
letters –eus and –aus at the end of a name are normally two syllables
in this translation: (e.g., Orpheus is pronounced Ór-phe-us, Pentheus is pronounced Pén-the-us,
Menelaus is pronounced Me-ne-lá-us, and so
on); a dieresis over a vowel indicates that it is pronounced by itself (e.g., Danaë is pronounced Dá-na-e, not Dá-nai, Nereïds is pronounced Né-re-ids, Caÿster is pronounced Ca-y-ster,
and so on); final vowels are pronounced by themselves (as in Calliope, Penelope, Achaea,
and so on), although there are several exceptions, usually when the name has
long been adopted into English (e.g., Crete, Palatine,
Rome, Ganymede, Nile).
Ovid’s text sometimes creates minor
confusion with names either because he does not use a specific name (or uses it
very sparingly) or because he identifies someone with a phrase which is not
always immediately clear to the modern reader (e.g., “girl from Arcady,”
“descendant of Abas,” “Cyllenean
god,” and so on). I have in many cases inserted the more familiar name (e.g., Perseus, Mercury, Callisto), sometimes in addition to the original
phrase, sometimes in place of it.
Another source of minor confusion is Ovid’s habit of
changing verb tenses frequently from present to past and back again, often in
mid-sentence. While this stylistic habit is not uncommon in conversational
English, it is rare in formal English. Different translators handle this
feature in different ways. Some put all verbs into the past tense, while others
follow Ovid’s changes faithfully. Most recent translations (so far as I can
tell) retain the movement back and forth between present and past tenses, but
do so less frequently than Ovid does, so that there is more consistency within
short passages of the English. This last-mentioned practice is the one I have
followed in this translation.
Finally, Ovid’s speeches are sometimes
difficult to keep track of, because he will have a speaker telling us what
someone else said, and that account may include more direct speech also
containing direct speech. At one point he has speeches within a speech within a
speech within a speech. To avoid complex, awkward, and confusing punctuation, I
have tried to stick to a simple use of quotation marks (double quotation marks
for direct speech, and single quotation marks for all speeches within speeches)
and have indented the left margin appropriately to indicate how direct or
indirect a particular speech is.
I would like to acknowledge the great help I have received
from other translations and commentaries, above all those by Mary M. Innes,
A. S. Kline, Henry T. Riley, and A. D. Melville.
[Link to Book
1]
[Back to johnstonia Home Page]
Page loads on johnstonia
web files
20,716,031 
View Stats