Latin Grammar Analysis: Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' Excerpt, Exams of Latin literature

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Ovid's Metamorphoses: Book One

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by Sin R. Guanci

About the Text

The Latin text used in this book comes from the Oxford Classical Text Series, but the author has made changes where necessary regarding punctuation, capitalization, and MSS differences. Also, this text uses the letter 'v' where the OCT text prefers 'u,' such as, for example, in line 11, this text reads nova , instead of noua. Punctuation was changed in the following lines: 5, 7, 10-13, 40-42, 78, 80, 99, 115, 169, 192, 212, 259, 328, 330, 344-345, 352, 392, 400, 404, 411, 418-420, 436, 440, 508, 540, 548, 575, 622, 630, 638, 653- 654, 701, 703, & 712. The following changes were made regarding capitalization: line 521: Opiferque , 540: Amoris , 586: manes , & 622: Paelice. Regarding manuscript differences, the following lines differ from the OCT text: Line 92: legebantur was used instead of ligabantur Lines 544 and 545 of the OCT text were omitted and line 544a in the OCT text is labeled 544 in this text. Line 712: tenuisse was used instead of posuisse. Other changes include the use of pluviaque instead of pluvioque in line 66, Peneus for Peneos in line 569, Sperchius for Sperchios in line 579, and Apidanusque...Amphrysusque instead of Apidanosque...Amphryisosque in line 580.

Acknowledgements This text has been written in part as a teaching project in fulfillment of an MA in Latin from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. Aside from my thesis committee, the intended audience for this text is advanced level secondary school students and intermediate level undergraduate students of Latin. The translation at the back is intended for use at the discretion of the instructor of aforementioned students. I wrote the explanatory notes after much consultation of previously published commentaries, in particular those published by the following authors: William S. Anderson, Franz Bömer, Nathan Covington Brooks, D.E. Hill, and A.G. Lee. I have tried to add to and improve upon their ideas, as well as to present those ideas in such a way as to be interesting to and easily understood by my target audience. This text would not have been possible without the assistance, revisions, support and seemingly limitless patience of my fabulous committee members: Dr. Erika Hermanowicz, Dr. Christine Albright, and Dr. Nicholas Rynearson. In addition, the completion of my degree would not have been possible without everyone in the Classics Department at UGA. A HUGE thank you goes to Dr. James Anderson, Ludi Chow, Dr. Keith Dix, Kelly Dugan, Anna Duvall, Dr. Mario Erasmo, Marilyn Evans, Nat 'Culex' Fort, Rebecca Holcombe, Kyle Khellaf, Dr. Richard A. LaFleur, Kyle McGimsey, Nate Moore, Dr. John Nicholson, Dr. Naomi Norman, Lizzie Parker, Andy Paczkowski, JoAnn Pulliam, Charlie Russell- Schlesinger, Clayton Schroer, Dr. Sarah Spence, Kay Stanton, Dr. Benjamin Wolkow, Tony Yates – colleagues, professors, supervisors, coworkers, peers, and, most importantly, friends. I would be incredibly remiss if I did not give due thanks to the people outside of the Classics Department – friends, family, loved ones – those who have loved and supported me and been there for me in every way possible throughout the last two years (and much much longer): Mom, A.J., Ed Goll (you can have our brain back now), Corey McEleney, Renee Bourgeois (rest her soul), Susan Yund (and everyone at the GCB), Kath Whelan, Stevie King, Greg 'Rain' Rebis, Angela Romito, Jake Jackson & Rhys May (my first GA friends), Karen Schlanger, Chucky Hanson (our friendship can now drink), Mark Frens, Mike 'Soda Pop' Cevoli, Lodore Brown, Pete 'Fuzzy' Bianconi, Pete 'the other white pete' Rodgers, and Brian 'Moe' Monahan. Thank you all, from the bottom of my soul. Sin R. Guanci University of Georgia Athens, GA

Introduction About the Poet Publius Ovidius Naso, commonly known as Ovid, was born on March 20, 43 BCE. His hometown was Sulmona, which is now called Abruzzo. Coming from a wealthy equestrian family, he attended the best schools in Rome. Setting out on the path leading to a career in law and politics, he traveled to Greece for the completion of his schooling. Upon returning to Rome, he held a few minor political offices and then abandoned his political aspirations altogether. It was not long before he was heavily involved in the most elite literary circles of Rome and was building relationships with the most famous poets. He married his third wife when he was forty years old. By the year 8 CE, his career as a poet was at the height of its success. At that time, and rather abruptly, Ovid was relegated by the emperor Augustus from Rome to Tomi, a city on the Black Sea now known as Costanza. Relegation meant that, unlike straightforward exile, he could keep his citizenship and his possessions, but he could never return to the city of Rome. Ovid died in Tomi in either 17 or 18 CE. The Works of Ovid Ovid's work spanned several different genres. He published his first work, the Amores , a few years after 20 BCE. In its first publication, the Amores was five books; the edition that has survived was published around 1 CE and is three books, comprising forty-nine elegies, totaling nearly 2500 lines of verse. The poems in the Amores all address the subject of love and are

books, each covering one month from January to June. In each book, Ovid describes the ancient customs, myths, and rituals of Latium as they happen in each month of the Roman calendar. Ovid's exile did not stop him from writing poetry. The Tristia was written between 9 and 12 CE and is made up of five books, totaling over 3000 lines of elegiac couplets. The first book was written on the way to Tomi. The second book is nearly 600 lines long, a single pleading elegy written in the poet's own defense, addressed to Emperor Augustus. The over-arching theme of all five books is sadness and lamenting over the forced exile of the poet from the city that he considers home. In addition, the Epistulae ex Ponto (“Letters from the Sea”), four books of forty- six epistolary elegies, were published around 13 CE. The Metamorphoses The Metamorphoses is Ovid's longest extant work, a continuous epic poem in fifteen books, consisting of nearly 12,000 lines. Based on the poetry of Hesiod ( Works and Days , and Theogony ) and Callimachus ( Aetia ), the Metamorphoses features a collection separate stories linked by the common theme of transformation. Book One begins with the beginnings of the world and Book Fifteen ends in the time period contemporary to Ovid's life. There are nearly 250 mythological stories throughout the poem. Despite the overall chronological pattern as set out by the first and last books, the stories are linked in a variety of ways including geographical location, similarity, relations between characters, or thematic affiliations. The content as well as the narrative of the Metamorphoses is varied and mutable.^1 The poet is frequently not the only narrator of the poem; often, the characters themselves will narrate their own stories. Ultimately, in a lengthy poem about transformation, the poem itself is in a constant state of transformation. 1 See Conte, pp. 351-2 for a full summary of each book.

About the Meter The Metamorphoses is Ovid's only epic poem. As far back as Homer, most Greek and Latin epic poetry is composed in dactylic hexameter, and the Metamorphoses is no exception. Dactylos, δάκτυλος, is the Greek word for digit, as in finger or toe. A dactyl consists of one long syllable and two short syllables. If you look at your index finger, you will see the longer bone, the phalanx, followed by two shorter bones, the phalanges. A dactyl is represented symbolically- as: – ᴗᴗ. Much like two half notes in music are equivalent to a whole note, two short syllables in poetry are equal to one long syllable. The rhythm of a dactyl is like “daa-dada” in terms of the sound of recitation. The dactyl is known as a foot, and hexameter means that each line of poetry consists of six feet, or six dactyls. A standard line of dactylic hexameter represented symbolically looks like this:

• ᴗᴗ – ᴗᴗ – ᴗᴗ – ᴗᴗ – ᴗᴗ – x You can see that the last syllable, known as the anceps, does not fit the pattern of the other five feet. The anceps can be either long or short; the last foot of a line of dactylic hexameter never ends with a long syllable followed by two short syllables. Therefore, the anceps is often marked with an 'x'. Obviously, not every word can fit perfectly into this pattern of a long syllable being followed by two short syllables, so the poet may substitute a long syllable for two short syllables. This substitution is represented as: – –, which is known as a spondee, instead of a dactyl (– ᴗᴗ). As expected, a spondee, in terms of recitation, sounds like “daa-daa.” With the exception of the fifth foot – which is almost always a dactyl – and the anceps, the remaining feet in a line of

An example of elision can be seen in line 5 of the Metamorphoses :

• ᴗ ᴗ | – – | – – | – ᴗ ᴗ | – ᴗᴗ | – x Ante ma re et ter ras et quod tegit omnia caelum L The final - e in mare elides with et to form one long syllable. The other way in which elision can happen is when a final syllable ends in the letter m and the subsequent syllable begins with a vowel. For example, in bellum est the - lum elides with the est , to form one long syllable, which is then pronounced 'bel est.'

Abbreviations The following abbreviations are used in the notes: (1) First conjugation verbs and first declension nouns (2) Second conjugation verbs and second declension nouns (3) Third conjugation verbs and third declension nouns (3 Dep.) Third conjugation deponent verbs (4) Fourth conjugation verbs and fourth declension nouns abl. Ablative case acc. Accusative case act. Active voice adj. Adjective adv. Adverb BCE Before Common Era (also known as BC) CE Common Era (also known as AD) dat. Dative case dir. Direct f. Feminine gender fut. Future tense gen. Genitive case imp. Imperfect tense ind. Indicative indir. Indirect inf. Infinitive mood loc. Locative case m. Masculine gender MSS Manuscripts n. or neut. Neuter gender nom. Nominative case obj. Object part. Participle pass. Passive voice perf. Perfect tense princ. Principal

SECTION I Ovid begins with a brief and pointed four-line prologue and invocation to the gods. He mentions that the theme of his poem will be transformation, and, without delay, begins to discuss the very first creation: the origin of the world from Chaos.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE WORLD

In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas

corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illa)

aspirate meis primaque ab origine mundi

ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen.

Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia caelum, 5

unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe,

quem dixere Chaos; rudis indigestaque moles,

nec quidquam nisi pondus iners congestaque eodem

non bene iunctarum discordia semina rerum.

nullus adhuc mundo praebebat lumina Titan. 10

nec nova crescendo reparabat cornua Phoebe;

nec circumfuso pendebat in aere Tellus,

ponderibus librata suis; nec bracchia longo

margine terrarum porrexerat Amphitrite.

utque erat et tellus illic et pontus et aer, 15

sic erat instabilis tellus, innabilis unda,

lucis egens aer; nulli sua forma manebat,

obstabatque aliis aliud, quia corpore in uno

frigida pugnabant calidis, umentia siccis,

mollia cum duris, sine pondere habentia pondus. 20

Hanc deus et melior litem natura diremit.

nam caelo terras et terris abscidit undas

et liquidum spisso secrevit ab aere caelum;

quae postquam evolvit caecoque exemit acervo,

dissociata locis concordi pace ligavit: 25

ignea convexi vis et sine pondere caeli

emicuit summaque locum sibi fecit in arce;

proximus est aer illi levitate locoque;

densior his tellus elementaque grandia traxit

et pressa est gravitate sua; circumfluus umor 30

ultima possedit solidumque coercuit orbem.

sic ubi dispositam quisquis fuit ille deorum

congeriem secuit sectamque in membra redegit,

principio terram, ne non aequalis ab omni

parte foret, magni speciem glomeravit in orbis. 35

tum freta diffundi rapidisque tumescere ventis

aera permisit. (vix nunc obsistitur illis,

cum sua quisque regant diverso flamina tractu,

quin lanient mundum; tanta est discordia fratrum.) 60

Eurus ad Auroram Nabataeaque regna recessit

Persidaque et radiis iuga subdita matutinis;

vesper et occiduo quae litora sole tepescunt,

proxima sunt Zephyro; Scythiam septemque Triones

horrifer invasit Boreas; contraria tellus 65

nubibus assiduis pluviaque madescit ab Austro.

haec super imposuit liquidum et gravitate carentem

aethera nec quidquam terrenae faecis habentem.

vix ita limitibus dissaepserat omnia certis,

cum quae pressa diu fuerant caligine caeca 70

sidera coeperunt toto effervescere caelo.

neu regio foret ulla suis animalibus orba,

astra tenent caeleste solum formaeque deorum,

cesserunt nitidis habitandae piscibus undae,

terra feras cepit, volucres agitabilis aer. 75

Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae

deerat adhuc et quod dominari in cetera posset.

natus homo est; sive hunc divino semine fecit

ille, opifex rerum, mundi melioris origo,

sive recens tellus seductaque nuper ab alto 80

aethere cognati retinebat semina caeli,

quam satus Iapeto mixtam pluvialibus undis

finxit in effigiem moderantum cuncta deorum.

pronaque cum spectent animalia cetera terram,

os homini sublime dedit caelumque videre 85

iussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.

sic modo quae fuerat rudis et sine imagine tellus

induit ignotas hominum conversa figuras.

9 – non bene = male, modifies iunctarum which modifies rerum. 10 – nullus ... Titan = nominatives surround the line; mundo is dat.; lumina is plural, but means “daylight”, rather than “lights”; Titan , Titanos , m.: The Titans were a race of gods that came before the gods in Olympus. Here, Ovid is referring specifically to Helios, the sun god, the eldest son of the Titan Hyperion. 11-12 – nec ... nec = neither...nor; Phoebe , Phoebes , f.: Phoebe was one of the daughters of the original Titans, Heaven and Earth. She is associated with the moon and is the sister of Phoebus. As such, Phoebe and Phoebus are often used interchangeably for Diana and Apollo, or for sun and moon; crescendo is in the form of the abl. fut. pass. participle (known as the gerund), abl. of means; nova...cornua: the moon was thought to have horns, due to its crescent shape when waxing and waning (Brooks); notice the symmetry of the word order in lines 10 and 11, further strengthening the point that the world was a big dark mass, with neither sun nor moon shining on it. 12-13 – The atmosphere was thought to be a thin fluid in which heavenly bodies were kept afloat by means of their own balanced weight, or gravity, according to Anderson and Brooks; circumfuso modifies aere , and is abl. with in ; Tellus , Telluris , f.: usually just means earth or ground, but here, among Titan, Phoebe, and Amphitrite, Tellus must be the personified, goddess form of the Earth. 13 – ponderibus...suis is abl. of means; librata is a perf. pass. part. modifying Tellus ; nec goes with porrexerat in line 14; bracchia : the waters which 'embrace' the earth are poetically known as arms. 14 – margo , marginis – can be masculine OR feminine, here, it is masculine with longo ; longo...margine can be translated as a dat. of purpose, dat. of direction, OR abl. of place where. The exact case and use cannot be determined, but each could be an appropriate translation; Amphitrite , Amphitrites , f.: She is the wife of Neptune, goddess of the sea. Here, Amphitrite is the sea personified. 15-16 – utque...sic = and while...at the same time; illic = in that place, over there, there; pontus , ponti , m = sea. 16

16 – instabilis : serves to get across the idea that when there was Chaos, the earth was not quite firm, it was unable to be stood on, shaky; innabilis occurs nowhere else in Latin, and is likely an invention of Ovid's (Anderson, Hill, and Lee); unda here means “water”; erat governs tellus , unda , and aer in line

17 – lucis is gen. with egens, the pres. act. part. from egeo , egere , egui = to be in need of, to need, to lack; nulli is an “-ius” adj., dat. of reference with forma as the subject manebat ; sua is a substantive adj. fem. nom. in apposition to forma. 18 – obstabatque : from obsto , obstare , obstiti = to oppose, to be a hindrance to (with dat.); quia = because; corpore: here, Chaos is personified by having a body containing all these elements, which are all at odds with one another. 19-20 – pugnabant : governs frigida , umentia , mollia , habentia ; calidis & siccis : poets often used the dat., instead of a noun + prep. Construction, such as cum + acc. 20 – sine pondere habentia pondus : Latin did not have any adjectives for 'weightless' or 'having weight'; pondus is the dir. obj. of the pres. part. habentia ; to better understand the line, supply cum eis before sine. 21 – diremit here means “to settle,” as in an argument or a court case; litem is often a legal term for lawsuit, but by extension can mean any kind of argument or dispute; deus et melior...natura : the Stoic philosophers believed that God was the architect of the world, rather than the creator. In addition, they believed in two inseparable and eternal principles: god, deus , also called mind, and nature, natura , also called matter. The two were synonymous and the one could not exist without the other. They remain as the subject of every verb from diremit through to ligavit in line 25; melior : better than the Chaos that had existed beforehand. 17