® A publication of the American Philological Association Vol. 8 • Issue 1 • Spring 2009 Metabolizing The Book Review: Pots & of Ovid Plays METAMORPHOSES By A. J. Podlecki By Micheline Klagsbrun Oliver Taplin. Pots & Plays. Interactions o open Ovid’s Metamorphoses is to step into a continuous and time- between Tragedy and Greek Vase-painting T of the Fourth Century B.C.E. The J. Paul less narrative, a “seamless song” that echoes back to the caveman’s fire Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2007. Pp. and forward to our lives today. Over the 304, 94 color and 85 b/w illustrations. centuries countless visual artists have Cloth. $75.00. ISBN 978-0892368075. been inspired by his intensely- described scenes, in all their drama, pas- sion and shape-shifting surrealism. As t is hard to imagine a more thorough and just one of these artists, working with Iconvincing treatment of this intriguing these stories for over two decades, I topic than Taplin’s monumental study. have been reflecting recently on how What is more, it is a sheer joy to read (and Ovid enters into my creative process. review): sumptuously produced with numer- I believe the groundwork of Ovid’s ous large, clear, well-captioned illustrations influence was laid in my childhood, and an accompanying text to match, which when I perceived the world (mostly the Fig. 1. Daphne begins her transformation presents, vigorously and magisterially, the park I played in daily) as peopled by into a tree. ducks, rabbits, swans, and, my favorite author’s mature thought on a subject to companions, trees, all capable of human creeping up her soft torso (see Fig. 1). which he has devoted a good portion of interaction. The gnarled ancients that How to render the physicality of her his scholarly life. managed to ripple the London side- transformation, its creepy horror yet at Pottery imitative of Attic red-figure was walks with their hidden limbs were the same time the sensuality and pre- being produced in the Greek West from c. beings from another world. No wonder sumed relief of her submission to being then that the first of Ovid’s stories to ‘rescued’? How to express the irony and 430 B.C.E. and about 25,000 pots survive, capture my imagination, years later, was desperation of her compromise – she the most interesting and abundant category that of Daphne. A crumbling statue in escapes her unwanted suitor forever, yet being Apulian, (from the southeastern coast of Collodi, Italy, led me to the Bernini only by becoming permanently impris- Italy) of which we have about 15,000 exam- version in Rome, and I found myself oned. Liberty at the price of – liberty? ples. Of the total some 2,000 are what Taplin painting over and over the details that And what about the implications of terms “grander works” and of these he judges fascinated me the most – her fingers and being rescued by her father? Over- toes in the process of turning into protective paternalism? How do I feel between 300 and 450 to be tragedy-related. branches and roots, the rigid bark continued on page 2 He has selected for presentation here 109 vases, 5 Athenian and the rest from the south- Book Review: “Superheroes Book Review: “Etruscan Myths”. 14 ern part of Italy known as Magna Graecia. and Greek Tragedy: Comparing There is an interesting but so far unexplained Cultural Icons”. 3 Greek and Roman Kissing: Occasions, Protocols, Methods, tendency of the Greek West pots to depict Euripides on the Modern Stage: and Mistakes. 16 individual actors “offstage,” with the main- “The Women of Troy”. 4 Did You Know. 18 land vases showing mainly choruses (32; Book Review: “Rome: Empire of the Eagles, 753 BC – AD 476”. 6 Terence Awards Honor Taplin thinks this may indicate that in the Student Filmmaking. 20 West the chorus was “regarded as a second- Podcasting for Classicists: A Modern Path to the Ancient “IT WASN’T LIKE THAT”: ary feature,” 39). About a third of the total World . 7 DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE, FICTION-WRITING AND MYTH IN are related to extant dramas, the rest being Ask A Classicist. 10 MARGARET DRABBLE’S divided (not quite evenly) between pictures “THE PEPPERED MOTH”. 22 Inside capital campaign news. 11 apparently connected with lost plays about GUIDELINES FOR The Art of Medicine and CONTRIBUTORS . 24 which something is known and those that can the Lowly Foot: treating aches, only be matter for speculation. Aeschylus gets sprains, and fractures in the Ancient World. 12 continued on page 19 separated them was the thinnest shim- Metabolizing The METAMORPHOSES of Ovid mer of the water’s surface. I explored continued from page 1 this illusion in other pieces that used about her desire to preserve her chastity superimpositions, iridescent fabrics, – a feminist ideal? Or is it a virgin’s fear even snakeskin (itself a symbol of trans- of life, keeping her fixed in place, formation) to embody the theme of unable to move forward? reflection and refraction. In the case of Intoxicated with this drama, I bought Narcissus and Echo, it also took an my first copy of the Metamorphoses and installation, a room filled with layers and plunged into the stream. Later came echoes in three-dimensional space, to other translations, which often differed convey my sense of the story. At other from each other in the rendering of times, rather than try to convey the details. The realization that translation whole narrative in a single piece, I use a is itself a creative interpretation series or group of works. ‘SeaChanges,’ emboldened me to be more freely inter- In my 2006 exhibition pretive in my own work. My creative inspired by the story of Ceyx and process, which I think of as ‘metaboliz- Alcyone, a number of works depicted ing,’ consists in reading and re-reading, moments in the story, while others were mulling, free-associating, allowing peripherally related to it. Alcyone, images to emerge without conscious beloved wife of King Ceyx of Trachis, control. (Sometimes I imagine an had premonitions of terrible storms and unconscious communication connecting begged her husband not to depart on his sea voyage to Claros. She dreams of bro- all of us readers of these stories, span- Fig. 2. Alcyone is transformed into a ken planks on the beach, of reading the ning centuries.) What emerges onto the bird, to share her life with her husband names of sailors on empty tombs. And canvas can relate to Ovid’s text in sever- Ceyx who has also become a sea bird. al different ways. indeed his ship is caught in a violent The most direct re-imagining of an describes? Or is she overcome by awe, storm and destroyed. Ceyx murmurs Ovidian story involves trying to capture grief-stricken for the loss of her family, Alcyone’s name into the waters as long its emotional essence, or sometimes the or driven mad by the gods? as he has breath. Meanwhile, Alcyone essence of the protagonist. Often sever- Sometimes I focus on the formal prays daily to Juno for her husband’s al elements of the tale will be synthe- aspects of a narrative as a complement safety, until Juno, tired of unanswerable sized into a single painting, and combined to its content. In my first exhibition to prayers for a man already dead, sends with allusions to personal experiences or focus solely on the Metamorphoses, I took her messenger Iris to the house of to current events in a way that adds lay- Echo and Narcissus as my central Sleep, asking that god to send Alcyone a ers of meaning. theme, and used multiple media to dream that will reveal the truth. Mor- In 2002 I was drawn to the story of investigate qualities of surface and pheus appears to Alcyone as her Medea. Aware that few people know reflection, with visual and verbal echo- drowned husband. On waking she runs anything about her beyond the grim ing. Their dialogue was inscribed on a to the shore where she sees far off a infanticide, I felt a need to redress the series of translucent papers, hung so floating figure. Realizing that it is Ceyx, balance of her reputation. In a time of that it could be read from different she runs along a jetty and leaps into the personal turmoil and impending angles. A series of drawings of Echo ocean – yet in her leap she is trans- divorce, I empathized with her narra- showed her in the process of turning formed into a bird . she soars, dives, tive: her abandonment of country and into thin air. We tend to think of wast- and skims the ocean surface on new- family in order to devote herself to a ing away as a process of shriveling or found wings . with her mouth, now a husband who eventually betrays her. In shrinking, but I had the opposite con- slender bill, she kisses Ceyx, who rises addition, my imagination was fired by cept. With medical illustrations of osteo- back to life. As sea-birds they are never Ovid’s detailed description of the magic porosis in mind, I conceived of the parted (see Fig. 2). rituals she uses to restore Jason’s father pockets of air in her bones expanding In “Alcyone dreams of broken planks” to health and youth. I depicted her in into passages of blue sky, until flesh and in“Alcyone’s long dark night” I use her young glory as a sorceress, an incar- became voice. deep shifting colors layered with silvery nation of female power, hands thrown Narcissus, moreover, was portrayed strands that evoke a starry night sky, yet up and hair flying.