Description                                            

To help the reader contend with Ovid’s frequent leaps both ahead and back in time, the principle episodes are listed at the beginning of each book and the subsections and digressions marked with indentations. Some footnotes also refer to mythological material Ovid has derived from Greek epic or drama or, occasionally, from later sources. Specific authors referred to in these notes are briefly identified in the Index/Glossary.

For departments of Classics offering courses in ancient poetry in translation, mythology. Also courses in humanities, comparative literature and Great Books courses, as well as general readers.

 Author                                                   

Z. Philip Ambrose is Professor and Chair of the Department of Classics at the University of Vermont, where since 1962 he has taught Latin, Greek, and courses in Classics in translation and mythology. He earned the B.A. in 1958 and the Ph.D. in 1963 at Princeton. He has published in the fields of Greek drama, Latin epic, and the Classical tradition.

 Table of Contents                                     

Preface
Introduction
Books 1-15
Bibliography
Index and Glossary

 Ancillary                                                 

Click here for an errata sheet for the first printing.

       Ovid's Metamorphoses has enjoyed unparalleled popularity as a sourcebook for painters, sculptors, writers, composers, and school teachers. That popularity stems from the high quality of its poetics, structure, versification, diction, and thought, as well as from its wealth of mythological information. As a result there have been many translations of this work into modern languages and English, and many excellent ones are available. I have rendered Ovid's dactylic hexameters with basically iambic lines of varied length and have kept the line numbering of the transmitted text. Almost as an experiment I have tried to maintain the inconsistency of Ovid's tenses in which the shifting back and forth between past and present tenses lends vividness to the narrative. Ultimately, the goal in these measures has been to encourage the reader's return to the original.

       It has been the special purpose of this translation to enhance the effectiveness of the work as a mythological handbook by preserving virtually all of the proper names. Ovid's Alexandrian style deliberately challenged his reader's learning by using patronymics, place names, meaningful names (often of Greek origin), and obscure or rare names. The footnotes and the Index/Glossary are primarily intended to help the modern reader meet this challenge

       Some footnotes also refer to mythological material Ovid has derived from Greek epic or drama or, occasionally, from later sources. Specific authors referred to in these notes are briefly identified in the Index/Glossary. Only rarely do the footnotes refer to the rich secondary literature dealing with this work. The never-ending labor and delight of literary interpretation is left to the reader in the hope that the translation will be of help. 

       One of Ovid's most interesting achievements in this work is his success in weaving together a seemingly endless series of episodes, narrated by either himself or by his characters within embedded tales, without losing sight of the overarching direction and form of the epic. To help the reader contend with Ovid's frequent leaps both ahead and back to the point of his original divagation, the principle episodes are listed at the beginning of each book and the subsections and digressions marked with indentations (or as needed with double indentations).

       For those who wish to work with this translation while reading the Metamorphoses in Latin, there is a short list of available commentaries. In the Bibliography are also listed a few of the major books on the poet's life and works.

       The illustrations are selected from editions of the Metamorphoses in the Bailey-Howe Library of the University of Vermont.  Begun by Lester M. Prindle, Professor of Latin at the University of Vermont until his death in 1949, this fine collection was given by his widow, Olwen Prindle, to the University in 1963, where it has been faithfully tended and enlarged by the Curators of Special Collections, John L. Buechler from 1962 until his retirement in 1989 and, since then, Connell B. Gallagher.

       This translation is based upon an eclectic use of modern editions, particularly those of Haupt-Ehwald, Anderson, and Tarrant. I am very grateful to Professor Tarrant for allowing me to see his new edition for the Oxford Classics Text series before its actual appearance in April 2004. 

 -- Z. Philip Ambrose
Summer 2004 

This book will be welcome in every Ovid class taught in the US, especially among teachers and students attuned to the inseparability of language and substance in the Metamorphoses.

-- Barbara Boyd, Bowdoin College