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

most obvious of these reasons is the punishment dealt by Juno, who turns Callisto into a bear after it is revealed that she is pregnant with a child of Jupiter. However, it is here that the question of just or unjust punishment can be raised, as Callisto was in fact raped by Jupiter, who transformed into Diana to trick her, which will be addressed in more detail later on. Was Juno just just in punishing Callisto? It seems the answer leans more towards no, especially since it is stated that “If Juno had seen how she [Callisto] fought her final cruelty might have been modified”, in fact we, as the reader, feel pity for Callisto.
This question of just punishment or not can be raised for the story of Actaeon, who is turned into a deer for stumbling across a naked Diana and is eventually hunted down and killed by his own hounds. This is another instance where we as the reader feel pity for the punished, and it seems that in both cases these people were unjustly punished for something that was not really a deliberate crime, in fact quite the opposite. This brings about the idea of the relationship between transformation and punishment being obscure, as the punishments addressed here seem subjective in whether they are justified or not, as Juno transforms Callisto in a fit of rage and jealousy, and Diana’s punishment of Actaeon is due to her surprise, embarrassment and shock of being seen naked by a member of the opposite sex, whom she despises. So far we seem to be able to establish an unjust relationship between transformation and punishment of characters.
Another example of transformation comes at the end of Callisto's story, as her now teenage son, Arcas, prepares to kill a bear, which he does not realize is his mother, but before he can kill her, Jupiter stops it, transforming them into constellations. This is an example of transformation as a way to protect somebody, and possibly out of pity for the ordeal Jupiter is witnessing. This serves as a way to highlight that there are many facets to both the themes of transformation and punishment, and that while they do share a relationship, it is not necessarily exclusive and clear, as other motives will exist and serve to blur the relationship.

The idea of transformation for reasons other than as punishment is majorly displayed in the story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus; she is madly in love with Hermaphroditus and the gods hear her cries to make them one and grant her this request as “the two bodies melted into the single body”, this is one of the few instances where the gods display kindness or mercy in an act of transformation, another notable example being Aphrodite turning Adonis into a windflower as he dies to forever preserve his beauty. Other justifications for times when transformation takes place vary greatly, ranging from revenge and vindictiveness to protection and pity, to name but a few.
There are also times when transformation occurs without any intervention from the gods, such as Echo’s body turning to stone after her heartbreak and Phaeton’s sisters becoming amber trees as they obsessively grieve for their brother. As can be seen from just these few examples, there are multiple layers to the relationship shared between punishment and transformation, some that help distinguish a clear link through many of the stories, displaying the power and anger of the gods and providing a didactic quality to the stories, but there are also ways in which the relationship between the two is not so clear, as there exist instances of one occurring without the other, some with intervention from the gods, and some without.

There are also times when punishment befalls characters that do not necessarily involve a change of form.

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

written.

Moving on from this, there is a story from Tales from Ovid that seemingly blurs the lines between punishment and transformation even further, as it may be considered to also be an act of pity. That story is the one of the battle between Arachne and Minerva to determine who possesses the better tapestry weaving skills. When Minerva refuses to accept defeat, she attacks Arachne, who cannot “live with the injustice” and attempts to hang herself. It is expressed that “Pity touched Minerva” and it is here that the blurring between punishment and pity occurs, as Arachne is transformed into a spider in order to keep her alive. It could possibly be argued that this is both punishment and pity, as Minerva still rebukes Arachne for her hubris in comparing her skills to the goddess, but she decides to let her live, lending a more merciful side to the transformation.

It seems that there are many instances of transformation and punishment, both linked, i.e. occurring side by side and not, both just and unjust alike, serving to make it difficult to decipher an exact and clear definable relationship between the two, but the one certainty is that it is definitely a complex relationship. There also seems to be a degree of certainty in the knowledge that many of these punishments, transformative or not, are due to the hubris displayed by the characters within the different stories; this may be a larger indication of the didactic nature of both Tales and the original Metamorphoses, teaching the reader the power and anger of the gods and that they must be respected and maybe feared at times. But in order to describe the relationship between transformation and punishment, we must accept that there really is no clear relationship due to the branching, complex nature of how and when these themes occur throughout the text and in a variety of ways making it difficult to clearly allocate a clear description to the relationship between the two.