Samhain Winter Moon
Work on Ovid continues. Here is a link to a Google Art Project gallery of works inspired by Ovid. It is far from complete, but it does represent a beginning on an additional project related to the Metamorphoses. I would like to find as many works as I can that relate directly to the Metamorphoses. This is an art history project I’ve assigned to myself.
Below is the somewhat polished text that lays out the tale of Lycaon from Book I of the Metamorphoses, v.163-239.
The work is mine, the good and the flawed. I’m still learning.
163 Saturn’s son looked out from the highest citadel of heaven,
164 Lamenting deeds not yet made known,
165 He recalls the foul banquets at Lycaon’s tables,
166 And in his divine heart burns a vast, fitting wrath.
167 He summons a council and the gods gathered quickly when called.
168 The way is lofty, clear in cloudless heaven,
169 The Milky Way, extraordinary in its brilliance.
170 On the Milky Way is the path to those above, the temple of Thundering Jupiter,
171 His royal home. Through folding doors
172 On the right and left, the forecourt of the noble God’s home swelled with visitors,
173 (the lesser gods live in lesser dwellings): here the mighty
174 and glorious Gods sat down their own Penates.
175 This place is, if boldness might be permitted in my expression,
176 Something I have no fear to declare the Palatine hill of great heaven.
177 When the gods above sat in that marble hall,
178 Mighty Jupiter leaned upon his ivory staff
179 And shook his terrible hair over and over again,
180 Moving the earth, the sea and the stars.
181 His face, angry, then displayed a look horrible beyond measure.
182 Alas, distressed, I was not then in control
183 Over the world. While everyone was making ready,
184 The many armed giants sought to capture heaven.
185 Although the enemy was savage, yet that war had its origin
186 only within one tribe, from within one race.
187 Now for me, Nereus surrounds the whole word with sound.
188 The mortal race must be destroyed: I swear by the river
189 Below, sinking beneath the earth into a Stygian grove!
190 Altogether better testing: but,
191 The incurable body is cut away by the sword and no part must be left intact.
192 Nymphs, fauns, satyrs dwelling in mountains and woods,
193 these are demi-gods, country divinities.
194 Because we do not yet deem them worthy of the honor of heaven,
195 We dedicated a certain place for them to dwell, we granted them the earth.
(Nymph and Fauns – Julius Kronberg)
196 Or perhaps sufficient, o high gods, they will be looked upon with trust, those demigods.
197 For me, who has the thunderbolt and who has you and who rules over you,
198 The infamous Lycaon conceived a savage ambush.
199 All the gods cried out and with burning zeal
200 Demanded extreme measures. {Thus, with impious hand he rages
201 To eliminate Caesar’s name from Roman posterity.
202 Stunned, the human race has been plunged
203 Into a great dread of ruin.
204 For you, Augustus, your pleasing devotion
205 Was not smaller than that of Jupiter’s,} who after that,
206 With voice and hand restrained the grumbling, the silence of all held.
207 The shouts subsided as the weight of Jupiter’s seriousness pressed down upon them,
208 Jupiter broke the silence by speaking again to this gathering.
209 “Certainly that one suffered punishment, you no longer need worry.
210 However, I will tell you about that crime which must be punished.
211 The infamy of this time has reached our hearing.
212 I intend to fly down from high Olympus to the earth,
213 And as a god hidden in human likeness, a wanderer.
214 It would take too long to recount crimes so great as have been reported anywhere,
215 the bad report itself bore little truth.
216 I had to cross the terrible Maneala’s, refuges of wild beasts,
217 with icy-cold Cyllene and the pine-groves of Lycaeus:
218 Hence, I enter the state of Arcadia and the inhospitable home
219 Of the tyrant, the late hour pulling forth the night.
220 I furnished signs that a god had come, and the people had begun to
221 Pray: at first Lycaon laughs at the devout prayers,
222 Soon he says “This god must be measured, a test will reveal him,
223 or he must be a mortal. The truth will not be in doubt.”
224 He had planned to destroy me
225 weighted with sleep and not expecting dark death.
226 Therefore he is not yet measured against my strength: one of the race of Molossa
227 Was put to death for an ambush, his throat opened by a sword.
228 A portion of him softens, half-dead joints in
229 Boiling water, another portion roasted by placing under the fire.
230 At the same time he put that down on the table, {with avenging fire
231 I overturned the house upon the ruler’s worthy penates.}
232 Terrified, he fled, and having reached the quiet countryside,
233 He howled and in vain he was trying to talk.
234 He was transformed into a beast by lust
235 Accustomed to slaughter, and he now rejoices in blood.
(Lycaon Melissa Burns, 1978 The wolf-metamorphosis his glaring look remains.)
236 His clothes have changed to shaggy hair, his arms into legs:
237 He is made into a wolf but retains the human shape of his foot.
238 His gray hair is the same, as is the fierceness of his face,
239 the same glitter is in his eyes, the same shape of wildness.