The Unjust Punishment of Actaeon

Some describe Ovid’s The Metamorphoses as the introduction and development of moral order through the stories of the gods and mortals. Usually in these stories, a mortal commits a grave error, perhaps by being greedy or adulterous, and the gods punish the mortal for his wrongdoing. The story of the hunter, Actaeon, does not fit this mold. The story goes that after a long day’s hunt on a hot mountain, Actaeon stumbled across a pool fed by a waterfall in a hidden cave. Diana, the Goddess of hunting, claimed this cave and its waters as her own sacred sanctuary. Diana transformed Actaeon into a stag when he accidentally found her naked, being bathed by her nymphs. In a reversal of roles, Actaeon’s hunting hounds eat their master, the biggest trophy in a successful day of hunting. Ovid and I agree that Actaeon did not deserve his punishment.

Actaeon’s punishment is attributable to destiny, not error on his part. The first stanza ends with “It is no crime to lose your way in a dark wood” (Hughes 97). Actaeon cannot be blamed for taking the unfortunate path that led to Diana’s cave. Actaeon was simply taking the most direct route to return home so he could rest for the next day’s hunt. Anyone would have stopped and marveled at the cave, which was so naturally beautiful that it “might have been carved out with deliberate art from the soft volcanic rock” (Hughes 98). Water is precious to a hunter who has spent a full day’s hunt treading on rocks so hot that they burned the feet. The sound of rushing water inside the cavern made it impossible for Actaeon to resist a tour of the cavern. Although he was apprehensive, Actaeon’s fate, disguised as curiosity, drove him into the cave (Hughes 99). I can’t recall reading a poem in The Metamorphose...

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...gustus abused his power as Diana did in the story of Actaeon, but unfortunately, the Romans in the first century A.D. did not enjoy the same freedom of speech that we do today.

Ovid is similar to Actaeon in the sense that their destinies led them down unfortunate paths. Actaeon’s destiny was disguised as curiosity. Ovid’s destiny was disguised in the form of his carefree attitude towards sex and adultery. The story of Actaeon did not match the majority of the stories in The Metamorphoses, in which a mortal was justly punished for greedy or adulterous behavior. Perhaps the gods, working through Augustus, punished Ovid for encouraging adultery by banishing him to Tomis. If this were the case, Ovid would be forced to admit that his own punishment was justified.

Works Cited

Ovid, and Ted Hughes. Tales from Ovid. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997. Print.