Metamorphoses (Penguin Classics)

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Summary: Metamorphosis & Banishment
Review: In Ovid's elegiac Metamorphoses, love conquers all. Love conquers the humans, and love conquers the gods. For when Cupid is insulted by Phoébus Apollo, Apollo is hit with Cupid's golden arrow. Apollo's beloved Daphne is hit with a lead arrow, the result being unrequited love which causes her plea to her father for help resulting in her transformation from a human into a laurel tree. Punishment, unrequited love, transformation. Why is transformation the chosen theme of punishment? Simply because transformation is something between life and death. Metamorphosis is not as final as being sent down to Aïdoneus in the underworld, nor as easy as deterring menin and living. Something in between the two (life and death), could also be banishment. As the author himself was banished by Cæsar Augustus, his own life is beginning to fit the equation: Punishment (his banishment), unrequited love (of state) and yet to be seen is his transformation. Everyone is punished, both the victim and the punisher, at every level both mortal and divine.

In the stories of Cerastae and Propoetides, Pygmálion, Actaeon one sees evidence of this and in this edition the layout by Penguin makes the stories easy to read and wonderful to enjoy.