Transformation In Ovid's Metamorphoses

Adapted from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Tales from Ovid contains 24 translated stories of transformation. Right away it is clear to see that transformation and change will be a key theme throughout, as the first passage opens with the declaration “Now I am ready to tell how bodies are change into different bodies.” There is also the story of Arachne, or more importantly, the description of the tapestries they both she and Minerva create in their competition. Minerva’s tapestry especially highlights this as it is detailed as containing within it many examples of transformation occurring, showing the scope and importance of metamorphosis throughout the text, but which also serves as foreshadowing for the subsequent events that follow. The connection between transformation and punishment will be explored, but beyond that, a deeper look at ways in which these themes differ and the different paths that they branch down to create a more complex relationship.

It is made explicitly clear the power the gods possess, along with their penchant for transforming people and this is adamantly clear in the tale of Callisto; there are multiple instances of transformation within this tale, all for different reasons. The

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