Chapter 25- Greek and Roman legends in Ovid's poetry

-Every district in the Greek world has its local heroes and heroines whose legends were often associated with local cults, while a few became famous throughout the Greek world and were the subjects of Greek tragedies, epics and other poems, many of which are no longer extant. Ovid is by far the most important of the classical authors in the transmission of Greek, Roman and Near Eastern legends. His unparalleled imaginative and narrative powers, his rhetorical skill and his deep sympathy with the emotions and sufferings of his characters have made his poems the dominant influence in the transmission of classical legends in the Roman empire and in medieval and modern times. -In his early poetry, Ovid used mythological legends more for decorative or allusive purposes. Later when he wrote Heroides, fifteen letters from mythological heroines to their absent loves to which he added three pairs of letters in which the lovers replied the poetry displayed still more Ovid's understanding of women in love and the hardships of separation.

Hero and Leander

-First is the story of Hero and Leander, told in the second pair of letters added to the original fifteen whose setting is the Hellespont, the straits that divided Europe from Asia. Leander, a young man from the city of Abydos on the Asiatic shore, loved Hero, priestess of Aphrodite in Sestos on the European shore. He swam the Hellespont each night to visit her, guided by a light that she placed in a tower on the shore. One stormy night the lamp was extinguished and Leander, bereft of its guidance, drowned. Next say his body was washed up on the shore near the tower and Hero in grief threw herself from the tower to join her lover in death.

Cydippe and Acontius

-The second story comes from the Aegean island of Ceos and is told in the third pair of letters. A Cean girl, Cydippe was loved by Acontius, a youth who was not her social equal. Unable to appraoch her and declare his love, he left in her path an apple on which were inscribed the words " I swear before Artemis to marry only Acontius" She picked it up and read the words out loud, thus binding herself by the vow. Each time her parents found a suitable husband for her, she fell so ill that she could not be married: eventually the truth was revealed and she and Acontius were united.

The Fasti and the Metamorphoses

-Ovid was exiled on the orders of the emperor Augustus in A.D 8 and spent the rest of his life at Tomis. When he left Rome, he had almost completed work on his greatest poem Metamorphoses and he had written the first half of Fasti, a poem on the festivals and customs in the Roman calendar, which he organized by months, one book to each month. The six completed books cover January to June, and they are important as a source for our knowledge of Roman religious customs and their related myths. In them Ovid developed his poetic technique of letting the mythological characters speak for themselves, often in response to an enquiry from the poet.

Flora and Zephyrus

-The italian fertility goddess Flora, was the goddess of flowering, especially of grain and the vine. Her six day spring festival included cheerful festivities and indecent mimes in the theater at Rome. She tells Ovid the story of her rape by and marriage to Zephyrus, god of the west wind and describes her garden and the flowers that grow there, mythological figures who were turned into flowers. Here Ovid uses Greek mythology to give substance to the ancient Italian fertility goddess. The Greek figures of Zephyrus, the Horae (Seasons), the Charites (Graces) and the youths who were changed into flowers give a narrative element to Flora, who otherwise has no myths, a Roman mythology created from Greek stories. Ovid's description of the garden of Flora was the inspiration for Nicolas Poussin's famous painting with this title, in which Poussin has gathered six of the young men and women who were changed into flowers and were celebrated as the subjects of Ovid's stories. -Ovid's epic Metamorphose, his only work written in hexameters, is an inexhaustible source of mythological stories, many of which we have already related for Ovid's narrative is often the most complete or even the only narrative that is extant. The poem is distinguished by its visual quality, with descriptions of forests, pools, mountains and other natural features which are of great beauty in themselves but also are often the setting for violent and tragic events. The importance of the poem for the survival of classical mythology can be seen too from the sheer number of its legends. Not all of them end in a metamorphosis bit the transformations are generally the common theme giving the vast narrative some coherence, ending in a final metamorphosis, that of the poet himself who will live and be read all over the Roman world long after his death. Ovid gathered his stories from many Greek, Italian and Near Eastern sources, few of which can now be identified. Their loss is not important, for Ovid transformed everything by its own brilliance and poetic skill into an original work that left his sources far behind. We tell eight of his stories here as illustrations of local legends which he wove into the tapestry of his universal poem.

Pomona and Vertumnus

-From Italy comes the story of Pomona, like Flora an Italian fertility goddess, goddess of fruit that can be picked from trees. She too had no myths of her own, but Ovid linked her to an Etruscan god, Vertumnus. In the Fasti Ovid meets an old woman near the Roman Forum, who tells him how the place used to be on times past before it was drained and the so called Via Nova was put through it. She gestures to an old statue of Vertumnus, the subject also of a poem by Ovid's contemporary Propertius but does not tell his story. In the Metamorphoses Ovid links Vertumnus with Pomona in one of the best loved of his stories and the source for innumerable paintings and musical works. Pomona had a garden from which she excluded her lovers, among them Vertumnus who could change himself into different shapes. Disguised as an old woman, he approached Pomona and advised her to marry Vertumnus. His advice included the cautionary tale of Iphis and Anaxarete, and was so successful that he resumed his natural appearance as a young man and won Pomona's love.

Ceyx and Alcyone

-From Trachis in central Greece comes the story of Ceyx, king of Trachis and son of Eosphoros (Lucifer) and his wife Alcyone, daughter of Aeolus, who called themselves Zeus and Hera and were punished by being turned into sea birds. Ovid portrayed them as romantic lovers. Ceyx left Trachis on a sea voyage and drowned during a storm. Alcyone who had been left in Trachis, learned of her husband's death in a dream. She found his corpse washed up on the shore and in her grief she became a seabird. As she flew by the corpse and touched it, it came to life and became a bird. For seven days each winter Aeolus forbids the winds to blow while the halcyon sits on the eggs in her nest as it floats upon the waves.

Atalanta and Milanion

Atalanta, daughter of the Boeotian Schoeneus has a part in the Calydonian boar hunt. She is easily confused with another Atalanta, daughter of the Arcadian Iasus, who also was a virgin huntress, joining in the Calydonian boar hunt, in some versions and attempting unsuccessfully to join the Argonauts' expedition. As a baby she was exposed by her father and nurtured by a bear that suckled her until some hunters foundher and brought her up. Grown up, she was recognized by her father but she refused to let him give her in marriage unless her suitor could beat her in a footrace. Those who lost were executed. Milanion, who had three golden apples given to him by Aphrodite, dropped them one by one during the race to delay Atalanta. So he won the race and his wife, but in their impatience to lie together, they made love in a sacred place and for this sacrilege they were turned into a lion and lioness.

Anaxarete and Iphis

-In the Cypriot city of Salamis lived Anaxarete, who scorned her lover, Iphis. In despair, he hanged himself at the door of her house, yet she still showed no pity. As she was watching his funeral procession pass her house, she was turned into stone. Ovid says that her stone figure became the cult statue of Venus at Salamis with the title of Venus the Beholder. This was the story told by Vertumnus to Pomona that persuaded her to yield to him.

Iphis

-Crete is the setting for Ovid's legend of Iphis, daughter of Ligdus. Her mother, Telethusa when pregnant had been ordered by Ligdus to expose the baby if it proved to be a girl. Encouraged by a vision of the Egyptian goddess Isis, Telethusa kept the baby girl, giving her a name suitable either for a boy or a girl and dressing her like a boy. Thus deceived, Ligdus betrothed Iphis to another girl, Inathe whom Iphis did indeed come to love. On the night before they were to be married, Telethusa prayed to Isis to pity Iphis and Ianthe who did not know that Iphis was a girl. The goddess heard her prayer: Iphis became a boy and next day married Ianthe.

Baucis and Philemon

-From Phrygia comes the legend of Baucis and Philemon, a poor and pious old couple who unwittingly entertained Zeus and Hermes in their cottage. The gods, who had not been received kindly by anyone else on their visit to the earth, saved Baucis and Philemon from the flood with which they punished the rest of Phrygia and their cottage became the gods' temple. Being granted one wish each, they prayed that they might together be priest and priestess of the shrine and die together. And so it happened:full of years, they simultaneously turned into trees, an oak and a linden.

Byblis and Caunus

-Byblis, daughter of Miletus, fell in love with her brother, Caunus. Unable either to forget her love or to declare it, she wrote a letter to Caunus confessing it. In horror he left Miletus, the city and Byblis followed him. Still unable to achieve her desire, she sank down to the ground in exhaustion and became a fountain that was called by her name.

Pyramus and Thisbe

-Ovid's setting for the story of Pyramus and Thisbe is Babylon. Perphaps Cilicia in southern Asia Minor is the home of the legend, for the river Pyramus was there and the name Thisbe was variously associated with springs in Cilicia or Cyprus. Pyramus and Thisbe were next door neighbors in Babylon, forbidden by their parents to marry or even to meet each other. They conversed through a crack in the common wall of their houses and arranged to meet at the tomb of Ninus outside the city. Thisbe arrived first only to be frightened by a lioness that had come to drink in a nearby fountain. As she fled, she dropped her veil, which the lioness mangled with her jaws, bloodstained from a recent kill. Pyramus came and found the footprints of the lioness and the bloodstained veil. He concluded that the lioness had eaten Thisbe and fell on his sword'. As he lay dying, Thisbe returned and in grief killed herself with the same sword. They lay together in death beneath a mulberry tree, whose fruit which before had been white, now was black, in answer to Thisbe's dying prayer that it be a memorial of the tragedy.