Structure of book 10 in Ovid PDF

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General commentary of structure of book 10 in Ovid's metamorphoses, a look at the narration and way in which the stories are told...

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Structure of book 10 in Ovid’s metamorphoses In book 10, the role of narrator is took over primarily by Orpheus. This is a fairly common feature in Metamorphoses, yet Orpheus narrates for longer than most do, other than Ovid of course. In this essay I will be analysing the narration of book 10, and the features used to tell the many stories in this book. Initially the book starts with Ovid telling the story of Orpheus’ wife, Eurydice, being killed by a snake on their wedding day (Ov. Met. 10.10). This sets the scene for Orpheus’ narration of the remainder of book 10 after Ovid tells the story of Orpehus’ attempt to reclaim his wife from the underworld. (Ov. Met. 10.11-71) Ovid leaves Orpheus sitting on a hill playing his lyre with trees seemingly sprouting out of the ground around him. It is this such Lyre that Orpheus uses to tell his stories, as we picture him sat on a shaded hill surrounded by trees, whilst singing the many stories of how those trees came to be. In the first metamorphosis of book 10, Ovid says that Apollo “plays on thee Lyre-string”. (Ov. Met. 10.108) By linking Orpheus to Apollo in the way that they both play the lyre, Ovid almost associates some divinity to Orpheus. He has already shown that Orpheus has a way with words, due to the fact that he convinced Hades and Proserpina to allow Eurydice a second chance at life. (Ov. Met. 10.15-48). This therefore makes Orpheus seem even more special, as other stories where mortals encroach on the god’s divinity and power, they are punished. One such example is the story of Daedalus and Icarus (Ov. Met. 8.183-235) Where Icarus flies too high to the sun and therefore dies. It could be interpreted that Icarus was encroaching on the god’s territory and therefore was struck down in this story, showing the gods don’t take kindly to most mortals likening themselves to gods, however intentional it is. Orpheus however is seemingly mirrored to Apollo here, from the way they both play the Lyre, to the

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way that they both lose a loved one and have trouble dealing with it. At the end of the story of Cyparissus, Apollo says he will “mourn” for him. (Ov. Met. 10.141) This again links Apollo to Orpheus, as they are clearly both mourning. Moreover, Apollo also says, upon Cyparissus’ transformation into the cypress tree, that Cyparissus will always be there when people are mourning for their loved ones. (Ov. Met. 10.142) This shows that Orpheus is still in a state of mourning for his wife when he starts his tales, like Apollo is in this story, as the Cypress tree is present there too. Looking at the Metamorphoses in this book, they are handled quiet differently to the usually dragged out metamorphoses that feature in Metamorphoses. These transformations are surprisingly fast overall. It could be argued that the first transformation in book 10 is Eurydice’s transformation from the living world to the underworld, and the same for Orpheus, even though he makes it back out. These transformations are dealt with very quickly by Ovid, with Eurydice’s death to Orpheus’ failed attempt to bring her back to the world of the living happening within 55 lines. (Ov. Met. 10.10-65) This first transformation seems to set the tone for the majority of the book really, as all but a few of the transformations take place within a few lines if that. This could obviously be due to the fact that Ovid is trying to channel Orpheus grief for his wife’s untimely death. It is almost as if he is implying it was too fast, and that Orpheus didn’t have enough time with her, after all, she did die on their wedding day. This could also be why Orpheus deals with some of the transformations quite fast, as we know he is still mourning for his wife, so perhaps focusing on other tragic losses in too much detail would be too much for him. There also seems to be a general theme in most of the metamorphoses of the person being transformed being taken too early. This is obviously first present again with Eurydice’s death, but with the other transformations too. For example, Apollo’s ‘Darling’ (Ov. Met. 10.107) Cyparissus is

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described as a ‘boy’. (Ov. Met. 10.108) This obviously implies that Cyparissus is quite young, and at no age to die. This is seen again in the song of Hyacinthus. Here Orpheus, visualising through Apollo, says Hyacinthus was “cheated of youth’s sweet bloom”. (Ov. Met. 10.196) Other examples include Myrrha and Adonis also. This collection of stories with a fairly common theme of death before the unfortunate’s time really gives the whole book a tragic theme. Naturally, as most of the book is told through Orpheus, it is quite easy to see why this is done. Orpheus’ story himself is one of tragedy and misfortune. Ultimately of course, he is reunited, however bittersweet it may be, with his love Eurydice in the underworld, giving a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. (Ov. Met. 11.1-66) However, this story is not included in book 10, which makes it seem like Ovid clearly didn’t want to give this book a happy ending and keep a tragic feel to it. The only way he could do this is by including several other stories with a vaguely similar feel to Orpheus’, and it makes sense that it comes through Orpheus primarily, as we know that he is still mourning as he sings. Having said all that, about half way through book 10, Orpheus sings the story of Pygmalion, a sculptor. (Ov. Met. 10.243-297) This is the only real ‘happy’ story in the whole book. There is almost a mirroring in this story to that of Orpheus finally being reunited with Eurydice. Obviously they don’t really follow the same sort of path, but generally speaking they both include a man desperate to be with the woman of his dreams who simply can’t be. However, this story has a happy ending with Pygmalion eventually being granted his wish by the gods, more specifically Venus. Here it could be interpreted two ways, it could be a sort of foreshadowing, showing that Orpheus will eventually be reunited with Eurydice. However, it could also be seen as showing what Orpheus could have had if he didn’t look back at Eurydice on the way out of the underworld. This is probably the more realistic interpretation of the placement of this story however, as referring back to what I have said above, the

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general theme of the book seems to be one of tragedy, so the more tragic interpretation makes more sense. There is also quite a common trend in the transitions between stories in this book. Most of the stories are fairly continuous, and involve common characters or themes. For example the transition from the song of the Cerastae and the Propoetides (Ov. Met. 10.219-243) to the story of Pygmalion, there is a continuation of the theme of statues. The Propoetides are transformed into “solid granite”, (Ov. Met. 10.243) we then meet Pygmalion who had observed these women, and subsequently carved an ivory statue as he was sick of the “vices which the female sex had been so richly endowed”. (Ov. Met. 10.244-245) Then in the transition from the story of Pygmalion to the story of Myrrha, and again to the story of Venus and Adonis, there is a continuation of one family tree. This links all the stories almost as one continuous song, as it would have been heard if anyone had heard Orpheus singing. However, this transition of poems creating one long story that is linked together actually seems to create quite a stark contrast to Orpheus’ story, and more importantly, his current situation. Orpheus seems stuck in a state of grief, not knowing what to do with himself after losing his wife for the second time. In comparison, these stories simply go on, no matter how bad the situation is in them, there is still a continuation of some sort at the end. Without wanting to sound too ‘cliché’ it seems like these stories are effectively saying “life goes on”, something Orpheus doesn’t want to recognise in his state of mourning. In general in this book, there seems to be a lot of reflection of Orpheus’ own tragic story. For example, Ovid says that after losing his wife to the underworld for a second time, Orpheus became interested in ‘immature males’. (Ov. Met. 10.84) This is almost immediately mirrored in the next story of Cyparisssus. Here Apollo himself loves the young boy Cyparissus just as

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Orpheus may have with other un-named young boys. This theme of love of young boys continues into the next two stories as well, with the stories of Ganymede and Hyacinthus. However, it is interesting here that Orpheus only goes into detail in one of these stories, the tragic one. This again could show just how depressed he is following the death of his wife, as usually unhappy people won’t want to focus on happy things. This again makes Orpheus’ story seem more tragic. The next story focuses on the story of thee Cerastae and the Propoetides. If anything this story just seems to serve as an introduction to the more important story of Pygmalion, as Ovid only gives 23 lines to this story. As I have said I believe the story of Pygmalion is much more important. This is because of the massive comparisons that can be drawn from Pygmalion and Orpheus. They are both very skilled in arts. One in poetry/singing, and the other in sculpting. Pygmalion uses his skills to create his perfect wife, but he cannot truly have her without the help of Venus. However, Orpheus had already lost his wife, and used his skills to persuade the gods to give Eurydice another chance at life. Unfortunately as we know he doesn’t get Eurydice back into the world of the living however. These two stories both show that however skilled the men were in their arts, they were flawed as humans. For example, no matter how skilled Pygmalion was in sculpting, as a human he could never truly have his perfect wife without the help of the gods. In a similar sort of way, Orpheus used his gift to persuade Proserpina and Hades to release Eurydice from the underworld. Unfortunately, as a human being, he couldn’t resist the urgent need to check on his wife, even though he knew what would happen if he did. These two stories leave a massive contrast however, as Pygmalion’s story ends in a very happy way, with him having his ‘ideal’ wife and having a child with her. Orpheus however, at least in this book, is left to mourn for his wife on his own, and he will never get to have children with her or have the same

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amount of joy Pygmalion and his wife have. As I have mentioned above, Pygmalion’s story is almost foreshadowing Orpheus’ reunion with his wife in the underworld, so even though the story of Pygmalion makes Orpheus’ story seem more tragic, we can at least console ourselves with the hope that Orpheus will see his wife again. In conclusion, book 10 is clearly meant to be a tragic book mainly revolving around the horrible story of Orpheus and the poor fate of Eurydice. Many of the stories mirror Orpheus’ in some way and this makes it clear that despite the fact that there are many individual stories in this book, there is only really one story that is important, and that is the one of Orpheus and Eurydice....