1. See the thorough appendix of Lafaye, G., ‘Classement des métamorphoses par genres,’ Les Métamorphoses d'Ovide et leurs modèles grecs (Paris 1904; reprint 1971) 245–249Google Scholar.

2. Tr. 2.64, 4.7.11-20, cf. Metam. 14.60 ff.; Am. 3.6.13-18, cf. Tr. 3.8.1-12; Am. 3.12.21-42.

3. The Theogony, seven hundred years the elder, is also written in epic hexameters and also proceeds from cosmogony and cosmology to theogony, theology, and even catalogues of Zeus’ loves and of metamorphoses. The Theogony, however, is reverent and ethical in purpose, an explanation and celebration of Zeus’ government, explaining, as do the Hebrew prophets, the ways of God to man. The Metam. on the other hand has no tendentious metaphysic and no constant tonality: it leads us in, to mislead us. It provides a spoof on the old gods in which a moralistic tone is generally no sooner suggested than ridiculed (Galinsky, G. K., Ovid's Metamorphoses [Berkeley and Los Angeles 1975] 53, 203Google Scholar) — as far as public morality is concerned. The surprises, unexpected twists, and Ovidian judgments produce an image of myth as Ovid's toy, Ovid as juggler; cf. Quint Inst. Or. 4.1.77: ut Ovidius lascivire in Metam. solet, quern tamen excusare necessitas potest res diversissimas in speciem unius corporis colligentem (‘Ovid likes to indulge in tricky transitions in the Metamorphoses, but one can excuse him [here] because he had to gather totally unrelated subjects into the appearance of a unified work’).

4. Vergil's Aeneas figured prominently in the Latin poetry of Naevius, Ennius, and Accius, and also in the prose of Fabius Pictor, Cato, etc.

5. Galinsky (above, note 3) 4. Johnson, W. R., ‘The Desolation of the Fasti,’ CJ 74 (1978) 16–18Google Scholar, argues that Ovid himself changed when he came to understand the spiritual wasteland of Augustus’ New Rome. The Fasti, then, would attempt to capture dim glimpses of ancient truths and past piety, now dead or dying. The Metam. and the Fasti are, rather, complementary approaches to Rome's bizarre religious heritage.

6. Expedit esse deos et, ut expedit, esse putemus (Ars 1. 637).

7. Weinstock, S., Divus Julius (Oxford 1971Google Scholar); Taylor, L. R., The Divinity of The Roman Emperor (Middletown, Conn. 1931Google Scholar); Syme, R., History in Ovid (Oxford 1978) 174–175Google Scholar.

8. Rudd, N., ‘History: Ovid and the Augustan Myth,’ in Lines of Enquiry (Cambridge 1976) 6, 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Syme (above, note 7) 190-191, seems unaware of Rudd's useful analysis, but refers to Ovid's ‘malicious frivolity or even muted defiance.’ Remember also that the Ars was published in 2 B.C., just after the elder Julia's misbehavior become known. See Am. 1.15. 32-33. Even in exile, Ovid dared to write that the Emperor would better deserve his civic crown for rescuing citizens, if he now were to rescue Ovid (Tr. 3.1.45-50).

9. Suet. Aug. 70; for Augutus’ coins see, e.g. Kent, J. P. C., Roman Coins (London 1978) Nos. 109-150Google Scholar. Ars 1. 25-29, 2. 493, 239; 3. 142, 389, 789. Williams, G., Change and Decline (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1978) 77Google Scholar, believes that ‘the tone of panegyric throughout [the Ars] is unmistakable.’ His analysis desperately ignores Ovid's principal intellectual tool: witty parody. I do not see how he can explain, e.g., Tr. 2.348: quodqueparum novit, nemo docerepotest (‘no one can teach what he scarcely knows’).

10. For the other buildings: Am. 2.2.3 ff.; Ars 1.71-74, 492; 3. 389-394.

11. Ars. 1. 453; cf. Verg. Aen. 6. 129. Ovid calls Augustus dux eleven times, a pointed reminder of the days of civil war quite contrary to Augustus’ expectations for ‘good poets.’ As for the return of the Golden Age, Ovid emphasizes the cash value of the contemporary concept (Ars 2.277-278, 3.113-114; Fasti 1.193-224).

12. Tr. 2. 295-296, with its suggestions of the wife's indiscretion with Mars (cf. Homer, Odys. 8. 266–369Google Scholar); Ars 1. 87-88.

13. Macrob., Sat. 2. 4. 21Google Scholar: at ego taceo; non est enim facile in eum scribere qui potest proscribere. In the Amores (3.15.9), Ovid defends his Paelignian family's honorable resistance to Rome in the Italic wars, for a libertas dead now for a century. For the quotation in the text, see Syme (above, note 7) 182-189, 200-204.

14. P. 2.1. 55-56; Tr. 2. 133. Frequent references to Julius Caesar and Cornelius Gallus (seven times), both of whom Augustus was content to see forgotten, exacerbated Ovid's error. Ovid's exilic poems endlessly repeat the word ira, as Syme notes, p. 223. They are full of embarrassing reff. to Augustus’ imperial difficulties and mistakes.

15. Suet, Aug. 71, 62; 66 with Dio 54.19.3. Syme (above, note 7) 204. Suetonius’ information provides us with significant aspects of the contemporary image, even if it be false.

16. Suet. Aug. 68-69, cf. Pseudo-Victor Epit. 1.24. Absurd or satirical are the only possible descriptions of Horace's verse: unico gaudens mulier marito (‘a wife rejoicing in one husband only’) of Livia (Odes 3.14.5), and Ovid's more fulsome lines, Tr. 2.161-164.

17. Suet. Gaius 23 (incest); Aug. 71.1 (dice); lively and bizarre paintings (house of Livia: Maiuri, A., Roman Painting [transl. Gilbert, S.; Geneva 1953] 28Google Scholar; Hanfmann, G. M. A., Roman Art (Greenwich, Conn. 1964) 228Google Scholar; also Tr. 2.521-524, if vestris be read with a majority of mss.; obscene mimes: Tr. 2. 497-516; patron of erotic verse: Tr. 2.533-538; epigrams: Martial 11.20 (quotation), cf. Plin. Ep. 5.3.5, 4. 14; Macr. 2. 4. 21. Aesthetics and sexual ethics comprise separate categories in the twentieth century, to be sure, but Augustus, to judge by his censorious actions, thought differently.

18. Pliny, , N.H. 7.149Google Scholar. See Rudd (above, note 8) 13, who assembles the sources, and Syme (above, note 7) 204-206, quoting Tac. Ann. 3. 25.1, 3.54, 3.55. Wiedemann, T., ‘The Political Background of Ovid's Tristia 2,’ CQ 25 (1975) 265–271CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues that the many reff. to Augustus’ problems in Tr. 2 suggest that it was intended not for the Emperor but for those who might pressure him to recall Ovid (p. 271).

19. Syme (above, note 7) 213-214, tries to advance the date of this innovation in the laws on maiestas from A.D. 12 to 8. Ovid was the first poet to suffer: Tr. 2. 495-496. His comment on Jupiter's passion for another's wife deserved some response (Metam. 2.846-847): non bene conveniunt nec in una sede morantur/maiestas et amor (‘they do not harmonize well or dally long in the same place/divine majesty and sexual passion’).

20. Humans have no choice: Lycians 6. 313 ff.; Cadmus 3.1 ff.; Ceyx 11.411 ff.; Lycaon 1. 211 ff.; Pierides 5. 662 ff. Humans have no acceptable choice: e.g., Daphne 1. 452 ff. Gods test: Arachne 6. 26-27. Gods seduce: Antiope, Proserpina, Europa 6. 103-114; Chione 11.310; Ganymede 10.155-160. Gods punish: Semele 3.274-278; Pentheus 3. 574 ff.

21. Leaving Augustus aside for the following notes, the historian notes that Sextus Pompey fancied himself a new Neptune, dressed accordingly, and so appears on some of his coins; cf. Horace Ep. 9.7, App. B.C. 5.100 and L. R. Taylor (above, note 7) 121, note 41. We learn even more of the pretensions of Antony, if the evidence of Plutarch can be trusted (for a caution, see Syme, R., The Roman Revolution [Oxford 1939] 104Google Scholar). Antony fancied himself to be descended from Hercules (Plut. Ant. 4). In the East, he appeared as the god Dionysus — in Greece as well as in Egypt and Ephesus (24, 26, 57, 61, 75, and the coins support this). In Egypt, Cleopatra appeared to him as Venus, when not Isis (26, 54: cf. Taylor, 108-109). Their children were presented as the sun and the moon (36). Much of this posturing, to be sure, constitutes part of the Hellenistic-oriental monarch's obligations, but we are also told that Antony had enjoyed disguising himself in Rome as a common slave (29), a persona which his descendent Nero adopted.

22. Taylor (above, note 7) 181-204, 232, 239-246. In the following notes, references are confined to Suetonius (in the main), but from Appian and Dio the material can be multiplied. The farcical aspect of apotheosis was known to the Romans as well as to the Greeks (Sen. Apocol. 9; Deinarchus, Against Demosth. col. 31; Plut. Mor. 187e, 842d).

23. Apollo: Suet. Aug. 70 (a bevy of Olympians with sexual sport in personis); cf. 94: Apollo as father to Octavian, and see Metam. 15.760. Also, Prop. 4.6.27 ff., with Taylor (above, note 7) 154. Romulus: Suet. Aug. 7, 95; Jupiter: 70, 94; Ovid. Tr. 3.135 ff.; Taylor, 232-237.

24. Suet. Tib. 13, 24, 43; Tac. Ann. 1.7-8, 12, 15. The indisputably hostile bias of our sources on Tiberius’ reign does not invalidate the good evidence that the man was constantly disguising his thoughts and feelings.

25. Suet. Gaius 22, 33 and 57, 52.

26. Suet. Claudius 3-4, 38.

27. Suet. Nero 7, 21, 26; cf. 28-29: his mock marriages to members of both sexes.

28. In all his poetry, Ovid easily slips in and out of character. In the Amores he is sometimes lover, sometimes bemused observer, sometimes critic of his own poetry, sometimes several personae within a single poem. Contradictory statements, when juxtaposed, unsettle the reader and force him to participate in a poetic dialogue. Ovid implies: ‘You be the judge.’ See Parker, D S, ‘The Ovidian Coda,’ Arion 8 (1969) 80–97Google Scholar.

Characters in the Metam. who at first glance seem to evoke little sympathy sometimes deserve scrutiny. The artists and story-tellers in particular often incarnate some aspect of Ovid's own art. For instance, the three Minyeides (4.1 ff.) scorn the approved stories and well-known tales. They are connoisseurs of the recherché, mythical Alexandrians before Alexandria who might serve to inspire Callimachus and his devotee Ovid, and who pass by the vulgaris fabula and vulgati pastoris amores in order to enthrall souls with dulci … novitate (4.53, 276, 284). For the influence of Callimachus, see Lateiner, Donald, ‘Ovid's Homage to Callimachus … (Am. 2.19),’ Hermes 106 (1978) 188–196Google Scholar. Like Arachne's, their stories concern divine power and human fraility and again like Arachne's, their attempt to maintain personal autonomy and a detached human freedom through art brings about their violent disintegration as human beings at the hands of authority. In their taste and in their defiance (and eventually in their punishment), they prefigure and parallel the neo-Alexandrian Ovid.

29. To avoid burdening the reader with the weighty bibliography, the curious is referred to one scholar who argues well the anti-Augustan case: Segal, C. P., ‘Myth and Philosophy in the Metam.,’ AJP 90 (1969) 257–292Google Scholar; and to one who rejects any emphasis on ideological, political, or philosophical aspects of the poem: Galinsky (above, note 3) ch. 5. Perhaps it is safe to say that no longer do scholars consider the poem a hymn to the emperor, although Galinsky (253, 258) regards the end of book 15 as a tactful and tasteful eulogy. Here he follows the earlier view of Otis, Brooks, Ovid as an Epic Poet (Cambridge 1966) 339Google Scholar, abandoned in the second edition, pp. 351, 366. For an interpretation which considers even the poems from exile as hostile to Augustus, see Syme (above, note 7) 225 and note 1, citing Marache, R., ‘La revolte d'Ovide exilé contra Auguste,’ Ovidiana (Paris 1958) 412–419Google Scholar. Marache's examples can easily be multiplied. Further bibliography below in notes 37, 39, 43, 99, 108.

30. Cf. Horace, Odes 1.12, 3.5. 1–4Google Scholar, the gemma Augustea in Vienna, the Blacas cameo, Augustus’ worship as Zeus Eleutherios in Egypt and Zeus Olympios in Lesbos. Rudd (above, note 8) 26 offers these references. Ovid presents Augustus-Jupiter as a bully (Tr. 1.5.78, 3.11.61-62), quick to anger and slow to calm down (P. 2.2.62-66). Not every reference, of course, is derogatory: cf. F. 1.590-616, 650; but one ought to pause, before one accepts as sincere a passage such as Tr. 3.177-78. The ironic of Ars. 3.115-116 (alterius Iovis) strikes the keynote.

31. Rudd (above, note 8) 24-25. Sometimes the comparison to Jove simply renders Augustus’ behavior ludicrous: Tr. 2.30, 216-218; 3.4.5-8.

32. Ars 1.633-634; Metam. 1.244-252; 1.595-597, etc. Later Ovid even twits the Emperor's notorious fondness for dice (Suet. Aug. 71; Tr. 2.471-472, 483-484).

33. Metam, 15.858-860 and 871; Tr. 3.11.71-72; 3.5.7; 4.3.69; cf. above, note 30. See Jove's injustice at 2. 378, 391, 396-397 (carrot and stick). Ovid dedicated no work to his princeps, unlike Horace (e.g., Ep. 2.1, Odes 4.14.3). He sought no patron, as Syme (above, note 7) 180 remarks.

34. Galinsky (above, note 3) ix, whose portrait of Augustus is overly tender. G. Williams (above, note 9) 3. Williams falls victim to the controlling metaphor of growth and decay; cf. his p. 2. A couplet such as Tr. 2.233-234 (Urbs quoque te et legum lassat tutela tuarum/et morum, similes quos cupis esse tuis (‘Rome also and this protection of your laws and morality tires you out; you want [everyone's] morals to be like your own’) is indeed ingenious, but hardly panegyrical.

35. Ibid., 52-101. One is indebted to Williams’ careful collection of evidence.

36. Syme (above, note 21) 516. Subjects as well as rulers could find refuge in deceiving masks, as the Amores and the Satyricon make clear.

37. Williams (above, note 9) 87-89 manages all these feats while condescendingly accusing others of misunderstanding. Little, D. A., ‘The Non-Augustanism of Ovid's Metamorphoses,’ Mnemosyne 25 (1972) 389–401CrossRefGoogle Scholar, realized that ‘Ovid is prepared to clutch at any straw to prove his devotion to Augustus’ in the Tristia (p. 391Google Scholar). Furthermore, even in Tr. 2, one encounters plenty of pointed criticism: Augustus has attacked the Muses themselves by banning Ovid's poetry (3); Vergil himself may be in danger (533); Augustus has attended ribald performances of Ovid's works (509-514, 519); no other poet has ever been so persecuted (495-496). There is also reference to Rome's insecure frontiers and famine in Italy, as Wiedemann (above, note 18) 269 remarks.

38. Williams (above, note 9), 94: ‘Large-scale symmetry and subtly significant arrangements are missing from all Ovid's work.’ This can be easily disproved from his earliest work, the Amores, to the maius opus, the Metamorphoses. See Lateiner (above, note 28) and the bibliography quoted therein for the Amores; for the Fasti, see Johnson (above, note 5). Excepting his predecessors in poetry, Ovid rarely praises anyone without irony.

39. Galinsky, G. K., ‘The Cipus Episode in Ovid's Metam.,’ TAPA 98 (1967) 181–191Google Scholar; Coleman, R., ‘Structure and Intention in the Metam.,’ CQ 21 (1971) 476CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Williams (above, note 9) 92-93, n. 72, criticizes Galinsky's article as ‘utterly implausible.’ For another comparison to an early Roman hero, in which Augustus conquers only in the eyes of readers uncomfortable with irony, see the passage about Romulus in Fasti 2.133-144.

40. RGDA 4, 19, 21, 24, 34, and Galinsky's reff. (previous note) on epigraphic and numismatic sources. Cf. Metam. 1.560-565. Divus Julius had been granted the privilege of a permanent bay-leaf crown, as Weinstock notes (above, note 7) 107.

41. See his comments on Cicero and on Livy's recreation of ‘Pompeian’ republicanism: Plut. Cic. 49; Tac. Ann. 4.34. Ovid addresses Augustus as rex: P. 1.8.21.

42. See Williams (above, note 9) 59-61. The ‘Augustan’ passages of Metam. 15 are, at best, ‘practically judicious but artistically irrelevant’ (Little [above, note 37] 399).

43. Tr. 1.5.45-46, 51-52; 2.207. In this and similar cases, Tacitus avers (Ann. 3.7A) that the Emperor exceeded his own harsh laws. Thibault, J., The Mystery of Ovid's Exile (Berkeley & Los Angeles 1964Google Scholar), canvasses over one hundred unsatisfactory attempts to explain the ‘facts.’ He dismisses much too easily (36-37) the Metam. as the carmen in question. See Holleman, A. W., ‘Ovid and Politics,’ Historia 20 (1971) 458–466Google Scholar, for a better analysis, and Syme (above, note 7) 216, for the quotation.

44. Tr. 2.54; similarly, P. 1.1.63; 1.2.105; 2.8.52Mrs 1.203ff.; Tr. 3.2.27ff.; 3.8.12-16; 4.420; Augustus as Jove, or his equal: Tr. 5.245-46; Metam. 14. 746-751, 758-761, 816-818, 838-842, 850-851, 858-860, 869-870; as his superior: Tr. 3.1.77-78.

45. Ovid's admissions of guilt, such as P. 3.6.9-10, Tr. 5.8.23, are not any more convincing than his transparent statement that Augustus’ judgments are infallible (Tr. 1.2.95-96). There is a veiled insolence and a thinly disguised contempt for Augustus in the exilic poetry meant to be enjoyed by those Romans who could see behind masks. Wiedemann (above, note 18) 269-271 collects some of the choice passages from Tristia 2.

46. One must explain why Ovid's punishment was more severe than that of Julia's lover, D. Junius Silanus (Tac. Ann. 3.24), especially if the latter had been involved in palace intrigue (so Syme [above, note 7] 207, 220). The irreverent provocations of his widely known and highly popular poetry supply the most likely explanation.

47. Syme (above, note 7) 227 denies, for no apparent reason, the accomplishments in Getic that Ovid plainly and repeatedly asserts: Tr. 3.14.47-50; 5.12.58; P. 3.2.40, 4.13.17-22.

48. Bauer, D. F., ‘The Function of Pygmalion in the Metam. of Ovid,’ TAPA 93 (1962) 20Google Scholar.

49. See Leach, E. W., ‘Ekphrasis and the Theme of Artistic Failure in Ovid's Metamorphoses,’ Ramus 3 (1974) 102–142CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and her note 4 for further bibliography. Leach's fine article marks a significant improvement on previous contributions dealing with Ovid's treatment of artists. Although I shall disagree with some major points, especially her interpretation of the Pygamalion episode, I thank her for sending a copy of this essay.

50. Discordia (9, 60), instabilis tellus (16), nulli sua forma (17), sine imagine (87).

51. Fecit (78), traxit (29), coercuit (31), inposuit (67), locavit (50), finxit (83); concordipace (25), disposita (32), in effigiem (83),figurae (88). This deus is not in any way similar to the brute of the tales of Io, Ino, Danae. This impersonal force appears again in response to Myrrha's unbearable anguish (10.488-489): numen confessis aliquod patet: ultima certe/vota suos habuere deos (‘some divinity is accessible to the penitent; certainly her pleas found responsive gods’). Cf. 4.373.

52. The loftier tone of the prologue and of the Creation is recaptured not in the story of Pythagoras, but in Ovid's epilogue. Pythagoras offers a ‘universal expression of the theme of the Metamorphoses,’ in ‘a context that destroys’ the seriousness of the philosophical thoughts. See DeLacy, Ph., CJ 48 (1947) 156–157Google Scholar. In Pythagoras’ wordy monologue one finds not moral system but a naturalistic fatalism, according to which rise and fall, transmigration of souls, and mindless change of the elements and beings rule the world. Rather than a higher force, melior natura, one meets only endless change (15.252-253):

nec species sua cuique manet rerumque novatrix

ex aliis alias reddit natura figuras …

Nothing retains its own appearance; the Changer of everything,

Nature, keeps exchanging shapers, one to another …

That is, there is no justice and nothing melius to hope for, an idea alien to Ovid's prologue, his Creation story, and to his epilogue. See Segal (above, note 29) 287, and contra, Otis, B., Ovid as an Epic Poet ² (Cambridge 1970) 302Google Scholar.

53. Tr. 3.14.13-14; cf. Metam. 2. 553.

54. Reverence: metuentior deorum (323), cultores numinis ambo (327). Moral purity: melior, amantior aequi (322), innocui (327).

55. Prayer (371-380); God's pity (367-368); their humanizing of rock (401-406). Note: molliri (‘to soften’), mollita forma (402), naturaque mitior (‘kindlier nature,’ 403), forma … de marmore coepta,/ … rudibusque simillima signis (‘shape blocked out of marble,/ … most similar to unfinished statues,’ 405-406).

56. Bauer (above, note 48) 2.

57. In addition to artes (2 times), remollescunt (4 times), fades, forma (3 times), note other artistic, creative terms: tractata, pollice, flectitur, etc.

58. As the account of Pygmalion develops this story's theme of the innocent human creator, so the story of pious Baucis and Philomon echoes the present theme of reverence rewarded (8.631, 711: vota fides sequitur, ‘fulfilment follows their prayer’).

59. Books 1 and 15 also point the parallels and divergences between Jupiter and Augustus: Galinsky (above, note 39) 188 and n. 18.

60. See Anderson, W., Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books 6-10 (Norman, Okla. 1972) 171Google Scholar.

61. There is more to the stories of Narcissus and Niobe than their false consciousness concerning creator and created, but that alone is the present concern.

62. Copia (6.194), opes (181), bona (197); formosa (167), digna dea fades (182), felicissima (155). She has ‘more’ (152, 192, 195-196, 199-200, 207).

63. Animals (11.42); Trees (10.90-106, 11.45-47); Stones (11.10-11, 45; cf. Apollonius Argon. 1.26-27; Apollodorus Bibl. 1.3.2.).

64. Metam. 8.16; 5.204-206; 9.303; 14.337-339.

65. 10.82, multae doluere repulsae (‘many rejected women grieved’); 11.13-14, temeraria crescunt/ bella (‘reckless warfare increases’); 11.12, pro tarn furialibus ausis (‘for such wild daring’). Segal, C. P., ‘Ovid's Orpheus and Augustan Ideology,’ TAPA 103 (1972) 490Google Scholar, overshoots the mark in asserting that ‘Ovid's Orpheus exempjifies … in a certain sense, the victory of art.’ For Leach (above, note 49) 119-127, on the other hand, Orpheus exemplifies the failure and self-destructiveness of art. Segal, C. P. again, ‘The Magic of Orpheus and the Ambiguities of Language,’ Ramus 7 (1978) 141–142, nn. 47 and 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, rightly calls her analysis exaggerated and one-sided. Now Segal regards the myth of Orpheus as representing the potential and the limitations of art.

66. 6.8; 23, 60; 6, 8. Minerva awkwardly serves as both the vengeful and jealous Olympian and also as the personification of Wisdom and Artistic Inspiration. In the first guise, she loses and tries to destroy her rival; in the second, she wins as she must in the end, and transforms ( = preserves) her aspirant.

67. 6.14, 20, 129-130. Notorious Livor, Envy, is invoked for no one else in the Metam.; Ovid uses the word frequently when referring to his own problems, e.g., Am. 1.15.39, Tr. 4.10.123. It is ‘voracious’ (edax) at Am. 1.15.1 and Rem. 389 with respect to Ovid's opus. The adjective qualifies ‘long age’ (vetustas) with respect to Ovid's work at Metam. 15.872.

68. Cf. Anderson's commentary (above, note 60) at 6.129. Pallas’ two purposes for Ovid can be analyzed in yet another way (cf. n. 65): she represents both repressive, earthly, and Olympian political power and the cosmic forces which define and delimit human accomplishment.

69. Leach (above, note 49) 104, 106-107. One cannot readily agree with her assertion that ‘Arachne does not, by her representation, make a moral judgment upon the loves of the gods’ (p. 117).

70. Contra, Otis (above, note 52) 146. Nor is his purpose to exalt Minerva's Augustan themes of peace (101), city foundation (77), victory (82) — moral edification, in short. For explicit sneers at Augustus’ peace, cf. P. 2.5.17, 7.67. The following characters (besides Arachne: 6.4) are described as spretores numinum: Perithous (8.612-613), the Lycians (6.318), Minyeides (4.390), Erysichthon (8.739-740), Polyphemus (13.857). Pentheus (3.513-514), Acrisius (3.559), Polyphemus again (13.761), and the antidiluvian race of men (1.161) are all described as contemptores deorum.

71. Leach (above, note 49) 118. It is tempting to suggest that the shape of the tale of Arachne belongs to revisions produced in Ovid's exile, but little evidence (other than this interpretation and Tr. 1.7, perhaps) supports the assertion. Nothing counters it, either.

72. Ars: 8.159, 188, 215, 234; 9.743-744.

73. 8.188: dixit et ignotas animum dimittit in artes (‘he spoke and directed his attention to unknown arts’). His skill resembles that of the divine artificer Vulcan (4. 178, 181, 183). Cf. Ars 2.21 ff., esp. 42. His avant-garde love of hazard marks him as far removed from the faltering Daedalus of Vergil, Aen. 6.14-33, esp. 30-33.

74. 8.166-167: Daedalus implet/ innumeras errore vias vixque ipse reverti/ ad limen potuit (‘designs numberless paths in a maze and scarcely could he himself return to the entry’). For opus, see 160, 199-200, 201, 210. For ignotus: 188, 209; cf. Icarus ignarus: 196. In the next story, Daedalus, lacking self-control, tries to kill his nephew, Perdix.

75. See Fränkel, , Ovid, A Poet between Two Worlds (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1945) 95Google Scholar; Bauer (above, note 48) 14-15. They refer to Euripides Alcestis 348-353, Philostephanus, etc. The tale had served as a crude wish-fulfillment fantasy of amatores exclusi.

76. Fränkel, pp. 75, 93; Bauer, pp. 7-9, referring to Stephens, W.' dissertation, The Function of Religion and Philosophical Ideas in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Diss., Princeton 1957Google Scholar; non vidi) 293.

77. Steiner, G., ‘Ovid's carmen perpetuum’ TAPA 89 (1958) 225, n. 15Google Scholar; Viarre, Simone, ‘Pygmalion et Orpheé chez Ovide,’ REL 46 (1968) 237Google Scholar, who compares Anaxarete for the inverse ending: she is turned into a statue by Venus (p. 244; Metam. 14.753ff.) as were the Propoetides (10.242).

78. Audax: 8.223, Icarus; 12.210, Ixion; 6.288, Niobe; 5.451, etc. Temerarius: 6.32, Arachne; 8.407, Ancaeus; 4.2, Alcithoe; 9. 585, Byblis, etc. Contemptor: see note 70, above. Compare Pygmalion: timide(214), reverentia (251), vota(‘vows,’ 278, 288), non ausus (‘not daring,’ 275), munere functus ad aras (‘made his offering at the altar,’ 273), Veneri grates agit (‘thanks Venus,’ 291).

79. Fränkel (above, note 75) 95; Bauer (above, note 48) 13.

80. Ars: 247, 252; fades, 258, 286; forma, 248; mira, 247, 252; opus, 249, 254; simulat, 253, 280; stupet, 287; flectitur, 286; mollescit, 283.

81. Anderson (above, note 60) 253. A parallel to Pygmalion's technique of vivification by kiss and embrace can be located in the story of Ceyx and Alcyone (11.737-738, 741), mentioned by Viarre (above, note 77) 244. There too divine sympathy for exceptionally pure human love permits resuscitation (741-743).

82. Pygmalion, like the good and worthy lover in elegy, speaks soft words to his statue and brings her modest gifts, avoiding the extravagance of the rich but vulgar suitor (Ars. 2.261-262, and cf. Polyphemus’ boasts: 13.831-837).

83. Bauer (above, note 48) 17.

84. Ars 1.637 ff.: innocue vivite, numen adest (‘live a blameless life, divinity is present,’ 640); pietas sua foedera servet (‘let piety observe its obligations,’ 641). The artist's wish for immortality must be based on a spiritual clarity and dedication. This theme, personified in his Pygmalion, can be found in Ovid's earlier works, for instance when he eulogizes his predecessor Tibullus (Am. 3.9. 37-38):

vive pius: moriere pius: cole sacra: colentem

mors gravis a templis in cava busta trahet.

Live right; you die the same; observe the rites; but even the pious —

While praying — Death will drag from temple to hollow tomb.

Ovid argues here that, for humans, only carmina survive (28-29); the gods do not protect mere flesh (17, 19, 59); conventional, ritualist piety will not prolong ordinary existence (33, 43-44). Poetry and a poet's name persist (48, 59) because they originate from the quasi-divine status of the poet (sacri vates, numen). The epitaphic elegy for Tibullus explicitly refers to the poet's being pius (66). This ‘piety’ or ‘spiritual dedication,’ as one might better translate, ensures an afterlife for the holy and prophetic Tibullus, and similarly for Corinna's parrot, a voluble stand-in for the garrulous Ovid (Am. 3.9. 17-18, 59-60, 65-66; 2.6.49-52; 58). The religious worship mirages (36). Tibullus’ service (sacer vates = holy priest) and art led to the same death (39-42). And yet Tibullus is better off (sed tamen hoc melius), because his name survives as well as his shade (59).

85. E. W. Leach (above, note 49) has presented a radically different interpretation of Ovid's Pygmalion. She finds sinister the following circumstances: the failure Orpheus tells the tale, and it represents an unobtainable fantasy of triumph and gratification for him; the descendants of Pygmalion include the incestuous Cinyras and Myrrha, a foul criminal duo foreshadowed in Pygmalion's marriage to his own creation; the wife is constructed of ivory, a material eternally condemned by Vergil's use of it for his gate of false dreams; his gifts to the ivory maid make a whore of her rather than a modest ‘lover; in putting himself in Venus’ hands, Pygmalion acknowledges the defeat of his art and as ‘a lover he sacrifices his identity as an artist.’ Leach, in emphasizing Ovid's dedication to art, thus wishes to see this story as an extravagant burlesque: Pygmalion's ‘humorless obsession’ is an escapist's irrelevancy played out in a world ‘wholly isolated from reality’ (pp. 123-125).

Both Leach and the contrary-minded critics who argue that Pygmalion has achieved a great victory (including, for example, Fränkel, Bauer, Segal, Viarre, and Anderson) agree that the story of Pygmalion is different. In my opinion, although her argument deserves attention, Leach has not considered adequately the vocabulary of the story, the moral import and effect of Pygmalion's modesty, and the desirability of a mythical parallel for Ovid's artistic achievement which has overcome the constraints of man's situation. (Although the poem as a whole ought not to be read as allegory, any artist who appears in Ovid's verse has a special status and burden.) Finally, to assert that ‘throughout the poem love is invariably fatal to the power of the artist’ (p. 127), indicates a failure to see, first, that many others besides artists suffer for love in the Metam., and, second, in this poem love is responsible for nearly everything, both good and bad. It is a power binding men and gods, animate and inanimate nature. Along with ira, its nasty underside, it supplies the motive force that powers everything, including the poem itself.

86. Metam. 1. 222-223, 2. 649-654, 11.203, 13.918-920; earthly: Aeneas 14.605-608; Romulus 14. 808-811, 824-828; Caesar 15. 818; Augustus 15. 868-870.

87. Metam. 6. 130-133, 6. 215 ff.; etc.

88. Passim, but note esp. 5. 325-331.

89. Metam. 1.197-243, Zeus and Lycaon; 8. 637-724, Baucis and Philemon.

90. Metam. 1.5-75; Niobe, 6. 301-312; Typhoeus, 5. 346-358, etc.

91. Lèse-majesté: Actaeon, 3. 177-193; Narcissus, 3. 509-510; Juno's Lycians, 6.337-381; Erysichthon, 8.779-780; Chione, 11. 321-327; Picus, 14. 388-396.

92. Hyacinthus 10.203-219; Cyparissus 10. 130-142; Pyramus and Thisbe 4. 158-166.

93. Daphne 1. 541-552; Cyane 5. 425-437; Galanthis 9. 304-323; Lotis 9. 346-350; Dryope 9. 351-370.

94. Syrinx 1.703-712; Arethusa 5. 599-641; Perdix 8. 250-259.

95. Tiresias 3.324-331; Laelaps 7. 785-793; Daedalion 11. 336-345.

96. For Ovid's view of poets as gods, see Tr. 4.10.42; Am. 1.15.7-8; 3.9. 17-18:

at sacri vates et divum cura vocamur,

sunt etiam qui nos numen habere putent.

We poets are called sacred, the darlings of the gods;

Some even think we have divine powers.

97. A fourth point of subsidiary significance is that the most effective and perfect art effaces itself, becomes a better reality, a point which Ovid is fond of repeating. Pygmalion's success, for instance, is such that his art is concealed by his consummate skill: ars adeo latet arte sua (10.252). The aphorism ars celare artem is a topos in classical literature. See Harry Caplan's notes to Rhet. ad Herennium (Loeb edit., pp. 250-251, referring to authors from Aristotle to Quintilian [Inst. Or. 1.11.3]: eaprima ars est, ne ars esse videatur, ‘that art is supreme that does not seem art at all’). One may add, inter alia, Tasso, Gerus. Lib. 16.9: L'arte che tuttofa, nulla siscopre, and Joyce, J., A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916; [N.Y. 1964] 215Google Scholar).

The artist's skill at self-effacement had a special appeal for Ovid, although some still seem to think of him as the P. T. Barnum of the vatic genus, Italian species. At some risk of petitio principii, one might suggest that his success in hiding his talent has led others to deny it altogether. First, a few Ovidian passages: Ars 2. 313: si latet, ars prodest (‘art works best when least perceived’); Metam. 3. 157-159: antrum. ./arte laboratum nulla: simulaverat artem/ingenio natura suo (‘a cave produced by no human art: nature copied art with her own native talent’); Metam. 11.235-236: specus …, natura factus an arte/ ambiguum, magis arte tamen (‘a cave produced perhaps by nature or perhaps by human art; it was unclear but it seemed man-made’). To these might be added the many passages in which the author of the Metamorphoses seductively appeals to the reader (with a second-person singular verb or pronoun) to confirm a judgment about the perfection of a character's artificial or natural beauty or artful accomplishment (e.g., 6.23, 104; 14.759). At 6.104, of Arachne's depiction of Jupiter as a bull, Ovid declares, ‘You would think it a real bull and a real body of water.’ The wit is double here, in that not only is this merely a weaving (not reality), but the animal in the scene is itself false, in that Jupiter is but impersonating a bull in order to capture Europa. The beholder is twice deceived, or thrice, since all of this is Ovid's fiction. Such labyrinthine manipulations of the reader help to explain why Joyce's Stephen Dedalus remembers of his Latin school-days little more than ‘the rector who had taught him to construe the Metamorphoses of Ovid in a courtly English’ (Portrait …, p. 179).

No critic can lay bare all of Ovid's artfulness. The theme of metamorphosis transmutes not only matter but manner. His skill in reinforcing meaning by word placement is found in nearly every story. The very first line encloses or enshrouds former shapes changed into new bodies, by word order or syntactic enactment as well as in sense:

in nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas/ corpora.

98. Auden, W. H., ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats.’ For the symbolism of Orpheus, cf. Segal (above, note 65) 110–114Google Scholar.

99. Simpson, Michael, Gods and Heroes of the Greeks (Amherst 1976) 87Google Scholar, an annotated translation of the Library of Apollodorus. See Curran, L. C., ‘Transformation and Anti-Augustanism in Ovid's Metamorphoses,’ Arethusa 5 (1972) 71–91, esp. 86 ff.Google Scholar, for Ovidian Dopplegängers in his quarrel with Augustus, and for Ovid's rejection of Augustus’ attempt to deny and prevent change.

100. Galinsky (above, note 3) 256. Tacitus understood Augustus’ approach more thoroughly. He says that Augustus ‘enticed everyone with the pleasures of otium’ (Ann. 1.2), while he arrogated to himself all power. Bold spirits perished, servile alacrity gained cash rewards. Ovid certainly had no political ambition and enjoyed Augustan otium (Tr. 4.10.37-40), yet he failed to prostitute properly his poetic talents.

101. See 15. 139-142, 158-159, 165-172, 456-461, and Segal (above, note 29) 284-285.

102. 2. 485, 3. 203; 15.167, 171. See Johnson (above, note 4) 14-15 for reflections on the change in Ovid's approach to his world as he grew older.

103. Segal (above, note 29) p. 289. See the remarks on Ovid's creation (above, p. 18, and n. 51).

104. Cic. Tusc. Disp. 1. 34; Georgics 3.9; Prop. 3.1 21-38, esp. 35; 3.2, esp. 25-26; Horace 3.30. We still require a study of the poet's vaunt of immortality in Roman poetry. For some similarities between Horace 3.30 and the end of the Metam.: Bauer (above, note 48) 17.

105. 15. 418-452; Tr. 3.72; Anderson, W. S., ‘Multiple Change in the Metamorphoses,’ TAPA 94 (1963) 27Google Scholar; Segal (above, note 29) 288, n. 67.

106. Rudd (above, note 8) 12, 19. At Metam. 15.832-834, Jupiter prophesies that the absolutely just Augustus will pass civil legislation and by his own example will control morality. These statements are ironically true.

107. Segal (above, note 29) 288, 290.

108. Segal (ibid.) 281-288, establishes that Ovid's Pythagoras, with his metempsychosis and vegetarianism, is a figure of parody. His grand principles are repeatedly undercut by trivial injunctions. Yet one may note that his advice was congenial to Ovid, and that the Samian was also an exile who suffered his tyrant's hatred. At least Segal 290 seems to credit the long speech with considerable relevance to the defiant epilogue. Johnson, W. R., ‘The Problem of the Counter-Classical Sensibility and its Critics,’ CSCA 3 (1970) 138 ff.Google Scholar, concentrates on this speech as a satire of Augustan ideals and regards the Metam. as an ‘attack on Augustus’ efforts to reform society’ and ‘a protest against the attempt of Augustus to interfere with human beings’ (p. 147).

109. The remarkably brief proem announces an original work in a new genre for Ovid: in nova fert animus, ‘my spirit carries me into something new.’ A change in him and his ideas leads him to a work of unprecedented magnitude: thus the appeal to the gods, the description of the scope of the work, the learned allusions to Callimachean (deducite, ‘spin out’) and anti-Callimachean (perpetuum carmen, ‘continuous poem’) aspects of this uniquely ambitious epic. For a discussion of the ‘programmatic nuances’ of these four lines, see Kenney, E. J., ‘Ovidius Prooemians,’ PCPhS 22 (1976) 46–53Google Scholar.

110. 15. 871, 875 parte meliore mei, cf. Am. 3.9. 28-29.

111. Ore legar populi perque omnia saecula fama/ … vivam (Metam. 15. 878f.).

112. For the topos of poetic immortality in Ovid, see also: Am. 1.15.39-42; 3. 15.20; Tr. 3.3 77-80; 4.10. 125-132; 5.14.