Table Of ContentOvid: Metamorphoses III
Bloomsbury Latin Texts
Other titles in the series:
Ovid: Metamorphoses I, edited by A. G. Lee
9780862921446
Ovid: Metamorphoses VIII, edited by H. E. Gould and J. L. Whiteley
9781853997228
Ovid: Metamorphoses XI, edited by G. M. H. Murphy
9780906515402
Two Centuries of Roman Poetry, edited by
E. C. Kennedy and A. R. Davis
9781853995279
Ovid: Metamorphoses III
An Extract: 511–733
With introduction, commentary and vocabulary by
John Godwin
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published 2014
Introduction, notes and vocabulary © John Godwin, 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.
John Godwin has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on
or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be
accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-4725-0776-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ovid, 43 B.C.-17 A.D. or 18 A.D., author.
Metamorphoses III : a selection: 511-733 / Ovid ; with introduction, commentary
and vocabulary by John Godwin.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4725-0850-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4725-0807-2
(epub) -- ISBN 978-1-4725-0776-1 (epdf) 1. Ovid, 43 B.C.-17 A.D. or 18 A.D.
Metamorphoses. I. Godwin, John, 1955- II. Title.
PA6519.M4 G632014
873’.01--dc23
2013033628
Typeset by Fakenham Prepress, Fakenham, Norfolk, NR21 8NN
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
Text 29
Commentary 37
Vocabulary 83
Preface
This book is intended to assist students preparing for public examina-
tions in Latin who are required to study this text, but it can of course
be used by any students of Latin who have mastered the basics and
who are now ready to start reading some Latin verse and developing
their skills and their understanding. The notes assume that the
reader has studied the Latin language roughly as far as GCSE, but the
vocabulary list glosses every word in the text and the Introduction
assumes that the reader is coming to Ovid for the very first time.
The commentary seeks to elucidate the background and the literary
features of this highly artistic text, while also helping the reader to
understand how the Latin words fit together into their sentences.
My thanks are due above all to Charlotte Loveridge and Dhara
Patel and their team at Bloomsbury who have been a model of
efficiency and enthusiasm and a delight to write for. My thanks
also go to Martin Thorpe and to Stephen Anderson who both read
the whole of this book in draft form and made many highly useful
comments which saved me from error as well as pointing me towards
a better reading of the text. Professor Richard Tarrant of Harvard
University was of great assistance with a knotty linguistic matter. All
mistakes which remain are, of course, my own.
John Godwin, Shrewsbury
February 2013
Introduction
Why read this text?
The story
This is a short extract from a long poem, telling a grisly tale of an
impious king getting his just deserts from an angry god. The tale
is simple: King Pentheus of Thebes is outraged that his people are
worshipping this strange god Bacchus and is determined to put a
stop to their revelry – for Bacchus is the god of wine and various
forms of ecstasy and his worship was uninhibited and must have
been alarming to onlookers and rulers. The king sends his men to
sort out these Bacchic worshippers but the men come back defeated.
Along with them comes a stranger, Acoetes, with his own tale to tell.
He had been on a voyage when they put into the shore for the night:
his men find a young boy wandering around and decide to kidnap
him for a ransom, despite Acoetes’ demands that they do no such
thing. The ship sets sail and suddenly the ‘boy’ turns out to be the
god Bacchus himself who stops the ship with ivy growing up the oars
and masts and then turns the sailors into dolphins. Acoetes warns
King Pentheus to beware annoying this god – look what happened
to my men when they tried a trick on him – but Pentheus takes no
notice. He in fact gives orders for Acoetes to be tortured and killed
for his impudence. The prisoner is miraculously set free, his chains
slipping off his arms and the prison gates opening of their own
accord. Pentheus is by now at the end of his tether and goes off to
the mountainside to sort these Bacchants out himself once and for
all. When he gets there he is spotted by his mother and her sisters
who, in their divinely-induced hallucinatory trance, think he is a boar
