anghraine | Entries tagged with person: ovid

I didn’t manage to stick it out and finish the Metamorphoses yesterday (in fairness, I had a three-hour phone call) BUT I just finished it now!! All 470-odd pages.

The summaries of the Aeneid were … well, clearly summaries of the Aeneid, but at least easy to breeze through, the pages arguing for vegetarianism were not breezy but at least unexpected and interesting, and “The Deification of Caesar” was honestly kind of hilarious (but reinforced Augustus == earthly Jupiter with all the complicatedness that entails). And then there’s the conclusion, lol:

if a sacred poet
Has any power to prophesy the truth,
Throughout the ages I will live on in fame.

Well, he’s not wrong!

Tagged: #he has a whole stanza about how he'll be remembered forever and i kind of love it

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Too Much Love Will Kill You (Queen)

And so, Achilles, you conquered everyone
But you yourself were conquered by a coward
Who abducted a married Greek woman.

Damn, Ovid.

Tagged: #i mean ... no lies detected

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: I Was Born to Love You (Vocals and Piano) (Queen)

I’m going to get through the Metamorphoses today if it kills me. Currently at Book 11 (pg 304 in my edition) and:

“Peleus was fortunate in his son and his wife
And everything else, except for the crime
Of murdering Phocus, his brother.”

Well, except that little thing.

Tagged: #i know that this is not what anyone followed me for and y'all deserve a prize for sticking around

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: My Life (Billy Joel)

Atalanta manages to get a shot in at Diana’s boar, but there is always That Asshole, and this one (Ancaeus) goes:

“All right, boys, let’s find out how much a man’s weapons
Outweigh a girl’s. Leave this to me. I don’t care
If Diana herself protects this boar with her arrows.
I’m taking this animal down, Diana or not!” (8.444-7)

*five minutes later*

Cause of death: boar.

Tagged: #i do appreciate that ovid smacks down misogynistic hubris at pretty much every opportunity #i mean... all hubris. but there is a special flavor to this kind

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: What About Love? (Heart)

Diana:

“This will not go unpunished,” she said to herself.
“Although we may be unhonored, it will not be said
We are unavenged.”

Literally no one is saying that, Diana

Tagged: #asdfjk;adsk there's a guy who prays to apollo to guide his blow against diana's beast and apollo even tries to answer #diana is just FUCK THAT and breaks the iron off his spear #it's terrible but i kind of love her anyway

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: The Grand Illusion (Styx)

Back to reading:

Gods can get really angry. (8.323)

no shit, Ovid

Tagged: #i like him by and large and mostly enjoy his running commentaries but sometimes it's just like #REALLY

Current Location: Washington

Pluto and Proserpina/Hades and Persephone in Ovid is uhhhh

[CW rape]

( Read more... )

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler)

I’ve reached Book 3 of the Metamorphoses and appreciated this bit:

“And now Thebes stood, and you could seem, Cadmus,
Happy even in exile …
But a man’s last day
Must always be awaited, and no one counted happy
Until he has died and received due burial.” (3.140-41, 145-47)

Cheers!

Tagged: #thanks ovid

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Young and Beautiful (Lana del Rey)

bailesu responded to this post:

I’m amazed the Greek Gods can be worse than anyone’s expectations. They are certainly asses.

I replied:

Eh, the Roman ones have their own special flavor of terrible, especially in Ovid.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Princes of the Universe (Queen)

I’m currently 25 pgs into the Metamorphoses, and the gods have managed to be even worse assholes than I expected!

I guess Apollo has some excuse in being struck by Cupid’s arrow, but literally the first thing Jupiter says to Io is:

“Virgin worthy of Jove, clearly destined to make
Some man or other happy in your bed,
You should find some shade over there in the woods”

>_<

Tagged: #yes yes values dissonance but also: the fuck? #also i'm not sure it is /that/ much values dissonance; the introduction argues that the gods are deliberately written as capricious tyrants #in any case jupiter is so relentlessly terrible that it is all the more satisfying that ovid explicitly compares augustus to him

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Hit Me With Your Best Shot (Pat Benatar)