Week 3 Reading Diary B: Ovid's Metamorphoses

Image information: Danae by Gustav Klimt: Source: Gustav Klimt

      This is part two of my Reading Diary log for the Unit of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Please feel free to ignore at will.

Echo:

Division by nature between the nymph and Narcissus and although she loves him she can only repeat the last word spoken by someone else. So she follows him around and hopes that he will see her and fall in love with her also. Instead he sees her, rejects her and she withers away until literally the only thing left of her is her voice. Extremely depressing.

Narcissus:

Turnabout is fair play. Just as Narcissus scorned Echo and the other nymphs and some other men he is cursed to fall in love with his own image. He becomes so enraptured with his own image in a pool that he wastes away so that he can look at himself more. There is a lot of scorn and then revenge in these stories. His hits his chest and it colors and turns him into a flower. In the end no one is gifted with requited love. Honestly very sad and very dramatic.

Pyramus and Thisbe:

Past Romeo and Juliet. Kind of ridiculous how their “love” is. They have known each other for such a short amount of time and they are willing to run away together. But when they go to run away together the whole thing is steeped in misconceptions. Pyramus kills himself because he thinks Thisbe was killed by a lioness. The whole story is just riddled with bad choices and overreactions. And then Thisbe comes back sees her dead love and kills herself. And their blood dies the mulberry tree’s fruit blood red. So weird.

Mars and Venus:

Another story about infidelity. But it was weird to me that it was easily laughed off. Was it because they are both gods? Or what?

Perseus and Andromeda:

Another story in which the lady of the story is paying for someone else’s actions.

Perseus and Medusa:

Killing Medusa was this great prize—worth earning the dowry of Andromeda. But if you look deeper this poor woman was once so beautiful that she was envied by all was raped by Neptune. But surprise surprise, her punishment is to have her most beautiful feature turned into something that is feared and hated by everyone.