Rape And Seduction In Ovid's The Metamorphoses

Ovid wrote his poem, The Metamorphoses, in order to contrast Virgil’s epic, The Aeneid. Virgil was enlisted by Augustus to write an epic about Rome and make the Roman rule seem great, however, Ovid aimed to satirize this epic and relate his poems and their characters to powerful people from that time period, specifically Emperor Augustus. In The Metamorphoses, Ovid rewrote commonly known Roman myths and offered a more realistic perspective on the stories. Ovid’s repeated portrayal of rape in these stories is unsurprising in context of the political and social turmoil taking place in that time period, specifically, Ovid was protesting the new Augustan rules which regulated the previously lax sexual laws, and instead promoted fidelity and monogamy.

This was very unusual for at that time, consent in stories was assumed and gods were never held responsible for their actions. The narrator comments in one of Ovid’s stories “Majestic power and erotic love do not get on together very well.” Within the story, this quote means that Gods do not mix well with mortal love. Outside the story, I believe Ovid intended it to mean that the government should not interfere with people’s private love lives. There are many examples of rape in the stories within The Metamorphoses, including: Apollo and Daphne, Jove and Io, Jove and Europa, Ceres and Proserpina, Story of Arethusa, Story of Thetis and Peleus, and Story of Glaucus and Scylla. Throughout the stories, the male gods repeatedly attempt to seduce unwilling female mortals or goddesses, however, Ovid portrays this “seduction” for what it really was, a horrific atrocity of someone attempting and sometimes succeeding to force themselves on an unwilling person. Along with illustrating the horrors of rape, Ovid’s stories, The Metamorphoses, were stories of change, both physical change and a change in laws. In a few of the stories, such as “Apollo and Daphne” and “Jove and Europa” the victim was transformed into a tree or an animal in order to escape the Gods pursuit. In the “Story of Jove and Io” the god transformed the victim into a bull in so that he didn’t get caught by his wife. In the “Story of Jove and Io” the god Jove was pursuing the refusing nymph Io, once he caught her and was in the middle of raping her, Jove was almost caught by his wife, so he turned Io into a cow so that his wife wouldn’t be able to tell that he was cheating on her. (Ovid) Along with being raped, this non-consensual transformation is another example of a form of appropriation that represents Augustan rule controlling the people