Tales from Ovid

Tales from Ovid: 24 Passages from Metamorphosis is a collection of translated stories originally by the Latin writer Ovid, and compiled and translated by the Poet Laureate and classicist Ted Hughes. The book is widely considered one of the best translations of Ovid among readers and scholars, and was published in 1999. The book came from Hughes' initial translation of four of Ovid's stories, which were compiled in After Ovid, New Metamorphosis in 1996. That book won a Whitbread Award in 1997, and prompted Hughes to expand the collection to include twenty-four of Ovid's mythic poems.

Ovid's Metamorphosis is a book that is challenging to classify. It was written in 8 AD, and though it is long enough to be considered an epic, it doesn't have the same sense of cohesive narrative that many epic poems possess. Instead, the original manuscript is a collection of approximately 250 myths, written in verse, some of which span many pages while others are much shorter in length. The poems move in chronological order from the creation of the world to the coronation of Julius Caesar, with a focus on myth. Some of these myths are taken directly from other sources, but most are adaptations and re-imaginings of characters and stories, which Ovid adapted for his own purposes. Tales from Ovid takes this behemoth work of 250 myths and cuts it down by one-tenth, sharing Hughes' favorite sections in a new work of translation.

Tales from Ovid, like the original work from which it is drawn, has two major themes; change, or metamorphosis, and love. Many of the stories are violent, and depict love as both a beautiful and an infinitely harmful power. In each myth, there is a significant change in form, whether it be the metamorphosis of one character into another body or figure, a landscape, or some other sudden, miraculous physical shift. These shifts often provide resolution or closure, as in stories where women, pursued by attackers, transform into birds, trees, or other creatures in order to avoid being raped.



Hughes begins his collection with the first book of Metamorphosis, which chronicles the beginning of the world. This book is broken up into four sections: “Creation," "Four Ages," "Lycaon," and "Flood.” Hughes begins the work with a quote whose premise will carry through the entire collection: “Now I am ready to tell how bodies are changed into different bodies.”

Hughes was drawn to a number of the more violent myths. This includes the Rape of Proserpina, who was taken by the god of the underworld, Pluto, as his bride. Proserpina, also known as Persephone in Greek myth, was the beautiful daughter of the goddess Ceres or Demeter, who was dragged into the underworld by Pluto one day while she was walking in a meadow. Ceres wanted her daughter back, but when she went to rescue Proserpina, she found that Pluto had fed her pomegranate seeds. Because of that, Proserpina was now a partial inhabitant of the underworld, and she had to stay there with Pluto, her attacker, for four months of the year, one for each seed she ate. When Proserpina is underground, the world is barren and cold, as her mother Ceres grieves.

Other stories include Echo and Narcissus, the story of the hunter who loved his own reflection too much, and the nymph who fell in love with him. Narcissus ignored Echo because he only loved himself, and eventually all that was left of Echo was her voice. Hughes also includes a translation of the story of Arachne, the woman who turned into a spider, and Midas, the king who was so greedy he turned everything he loved, even his family, into gold. Each story tells of transformation, but also of the pains and dangers of love.



Ovid was a Roman poet who lived and worked during the reign of the emperor Augustus. He is widely considered one of the top three canonical Roman poets, along with Virgil and Horace. He wrote many works, but his most famous was the Metamorphosis, which was considered his magnum opus. He was very popular until he was suddenly and mysteriously exiled by the emperor, and forced to live his final years on the Black Sea.

Ted Hughes was an English poet and author of children's stories, who took much of his inspiration from myth and anthropology. He was the husband of poet Sylvia Plath, and did not write for three years after her suicide. Hughes was appointed the Poet Laureate of England in 1984, and has been published prolifically in England, America, and other countries.