Divine Judgement
Man and gods alike have suffered punishment and eternal damnation since the creation to the Earth. In the creation myth Metamorphoses the author Ovid uses punishment as a tool to discipline his characters as they continue to disobey the laws made the gods. He also uses it to make an example out of certain traits and intimidate people from others.
The poet tries to teach his readers about compassion and attempts to express the same principle in the Bible; Love Thy Neighbor. In the anthology Jupiter becomes enraged at the human race so he decided cause a cataclysmic tsunami to exterminate all life. This was in response to how the human were treating each other. the god Apollo gets chastised for ridiculing Cupid, so he
Ovid wrote the Metamorphoses nearly two thousand years ago and Dante wrote Purgatorio 1600 years after that - two pieces of literature that dealt with topics which transcend humanity's perceived reality. Each piece of literature attempts to arrive at a truth concerning the essence of human existence, Dante seeks answers within the confines of Catholic dogma while Ovid approaches existence from a paganistic perspective. This demonstrates two very different approaches to the same exact query. Mankind has questioned the existence of a metaphysical realm for generations and consequently shapes the nature of the supernatural world.
that Watts is trying to get across to us, is that even though he is an
For example, in law 23 (Doc D), it says that if a man has robbed valuables in someone’s house, and is not caught, after the victim swears to the gods, the government will pay the victim whatever he has lost. But if the robber is caught, he shall be hanged of pierced to death (Law 21, Doc D). This punishment was this harsh, because at that time, Hammurabi’s kingdom was always under the constant threat of being attacked. For a man in his own kingdom to go against his kingdom was outrageous, so the robber needs to be taken out. This also repels other people to become
In a world of many different religions and beliefs that are separated by physical boundaries, imposed values, and moral codes there holds a universalized question by all who believe in the existence of God: Why would a being capable of creating good things also partake in the creation of evil? Many people often find themselves asking that same question when a tragedy has occurred which is a common happening in this day and age. The poems “Yet Do I Marvel” by Countee Cullen and William Blake’s “the Tyger” both contain this bewilderment as to why God would create and disperse negativity throughout the world to display this theme that is universalized through time, culture, and
Understandably, individuals may question why God punishes, Melvin Estrada a preacher at a Pentecostal church—maintains that God does not punish His children (Estrada). The belief is that Christ has already paid f...
For example, Erisychthon’s punishment with a curse of insatiable hunger to punish his mockery of the gods and desecration of a tree in Ceres’ “sacred grove”. This is a particularly cruel punishment from the gods, as he ends up devouring his own body after he has eaten everything else, and shows that transformation is not always needed to exact a punishment that teaches both characters and readers alike to fear the gods, as this seems to be a large reason why many of these transformations take place, which lends itself to the idea of a didactic structure within this text that may have risen from the original influence of the gods when Metamorphoses was first
In Ovid's epic poem Metamorphoses, he uses many transformations of humanoids to explain the existence of many natural entities such as animals, plants, rivers, and so forth. Ovid uses the Roman gods to be the active agents in many of the metamorphoses, although some of them are caused simply by the will of the being. In the Melville translation of Metamorphoses, the stories "The Sun in Love" (book IV, ln226-284) and "Hyacinth" (book X, ln170-239) have occurrences of both agencies of transformation of people into plants. Apollo is the catalyst that causes the metamorphoses in each of the stories. The metamorphoses involved support the concepts of the "Great Chain of Being" and the metaphor "People are Plants" expressed in the book More than Cool Reason by George Lakoff and Mark Turner due to the aspects involved in the Ovidian metaphors and what the people transform into.
As such, by interpreting Ovid’s Narcissus through the interpretation strategy of Ritual Theory, that as “The Cambridge Theorists” suggest, this myth becomes a potential insight into aspects of ancient Greek religious culture. By relating the myth of Narcissus to scrying practices, it potentially indicates that ancient Greek religious culture, like the experience of Narcissus, is similarly fixed around ideas of ritual, themes of purity and sacred spaces, and the attempts at interacting with divine beings. The seemingly repeated reliance on the elements of the scrying ritual within the narrative structure of Narcissus perhaps also indicates or supports ritualists’ notions that myth and ritual must function as integral responses to one another.
The interaction between gods and mortals, is shown from the first paragraph. Virgil lets us know that Aeneas is not even at fault but Juno despises him.
Ovid was a much respected Roman poet, who lived in the Augustan period, from 43 B.C to 17 or 18 A.D. He greatly influenced literature in the Antiquity period, the Middle Age, and even Modern periods of literature. He was enthralled by the themes of love and eroticism and therefore, he used it frequently in his poetry. Therefore, in much of the Metamorphoses, he explores themes of love lost, love betrayed and love rejected as popular themes. Unsurprisingly, the story of Echo and Narcissus presents a tale of love that is spurned. The poem is part of a collection of poem published in his epic, titled Metamorphoses. Many have already written on morality as a theme, I will however look at his use of literary devices like, his use of language, imagery and plot devices to create the various tones in order to propel the theme of spurned love. In this essay, I will explore the various outcomes of spurned love, and in aid of sustaining my point, I will bring in contemporary modern interpretations of this myth; as well as other ancient Greco – Roman versions.
“Gods can be evil sometimes.” In the play “Oedipus the King”, Sophocles defamed the gods’ reputation, and lowered their status by making them look harmful and evil. It is known that all gods should be perfect and infallible, and should represent justice and equity, but with Oedipus, the gods decided to destroy him and his family for no reason. It might be hard to believe that gods can have humanistic traits, but in fact they do. The gods, especially Apollo, are considered evil by the reader because they destroyed an innocent man’s life and his family. They destroyed Oedipus by controlling his fate, granting people the power of prophecy, telling Oedipus about his fate through the oracle of Apollo, and finally afflicting the people of Thebes with a dreadful plague. Fundamentally, by utilizing fate, prophecies, the oracle of Apollo, and the plague, the gods played a significant role in the destruction of Oedipus and his family.
The difference between the way Homer and Ovid present the gods and their relation to human being is that in Homer, the gods are more tough on the humans than in The Metamorphoses. In The Iilad, some gods were focused on returning Odysseus home while some were trying to stop him in his tracks. This story also focuses more on environment and symbolism because of the way the story is written. In Metamorphoses, the gods seem to care more about human beings. They show stronger emotions towards them. You can see this through all of the theme changes that occur in the story. They penalized people who were wicked and reward those that were piety. Metamorphoses set the tone in Book I, when the gods punished Lycaon for trying to kill Jupiter in his
Transformations from one shape or form into another are the central theme in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The popularity and timelessness of this work stems from the manner of story telling. Ovid takes stories relevant to his culture and time period, and weaves them together into one work with a connecting theme of transformation throughout. The thread of humor that runs through Metamorphoses is consistent with the satire and commentary of the work. The theme is presented in the opening lines of Metamorphoses, where the poet invokes the gods, who are responsible for the changes, to look favorably on his efforts to compose. The changes are of many kinds: from human to animal, animal to human, thing to human, human to thing. Some changes are reversed: human to animal to human. Sometimes the transformations are partial, and physical features and personal qualities of the earlier being are preserved in mutated form.
In conclusion, each of the poets expresses his or her opinion on love and suffering. Whether it is mentally or physically, the poet fully illustrated the warmth of love, and the pain of suffering when love is absent or lost.
What was it he was trying to explain? We understand that the poet lived and wrote this poem at the turn of the century when atheism, darwinism, and a more secular materialistic world was beginning to take hold. Knowing the scriptures, he viewed these signs as evidence of the impending “Second Coming” He seemed to want to warn us!