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The Metamorphoses

Ovid · Translated by Henry T. Riley, 1851

Ovid

The Metamorphoses

Translated by Henry T. Riley, 1851

What this is

Two hundred and fifty stories of people turned into something else, strung end to end from the creation of the world to the death of Julius Caesar. Almost everything later Europe knew about Greek myth, it knew from here.

How it is set

One leaf per book, with the sections numbered inside it as Long numbers them. A section of Marcus is often three lines, and a page holding three lines is not a page.

What is not here

Notes. These books have the text and nothing else at present — no map, no lives, no commentary. The Gospel of St Luke shows what an annotated book looks like on this shelf, and these will follow it. An empty heading is better than invented filler.

The 15 books

  1. I My design leads me to speak of forms changed into new bodies. Ye Gods, (for you it was who… 18 sections
  2. II The palace of the Sun was raised high, on stately columns, bright with radiant gold, and… 13 sections
  3. III And now the God, having laid aside the shape of the deceiving Bull, had discovered himself, and… 8 sections
  4. IV But Alcithoë, the daughter of Minyas, does not think that the rites of the God ought to be… 10 sections
  5. V And while the hero, the son of Danaë, is relating these things in the midst of the company of… 7 sections
  6. VI Tritonia had {meanwhile} lent an ear to such recitals as these, and she approved of the songs… 7 sections
  7. VII And now the Minyæ were ploughing the sea in the Pagasæan ship; and Phineus prolonging a needy… 8 sections
  8. VIII Now, Lucifer unveiling the day and dispelling the season of night, the East wind fell, and the… 7 sections
  9. IX Theseus, the Neptunian hero, inquires what is the cause of his sighing, and of his forehead… 6 sections
  10. X Thence Hymenæus, clad in a saffron-coloured robe, passed through the unmeasured tract of air,… 10 sections
  11. XI While with songs such as these, the Thracian poet is leading the woods and the natures of… 7 sections
  12. XII His father Priam mourned him, not knowing that Æsacus, having assumed wings, was {still}… 3 sections
  13. XIII The chiefs were seated; and a ring of the common people standing {around}, Ajax, the lord of… 5 sections
  14. XIV And now {Glaucus}, the Eubœan plougher of the swelling waves, had left behind Ætna, placed upon… 10 sections
  15. XV Meanwhile, one is being sought who can bear a weight of such magnitude, and can succeed a king… 5 sections
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Text: Ovid, The Metamorphoses — Henry T. Riley’s prose translation, Bohn’s Classical Library, 1851, public domain, from Project Gutenberg ebooks 21765 and 26073, set unaltered. Riley’s own explanatory notes are his and are not printed here.