OVID'S METAMORPHOSES

I have just finished reading Metamorphoses by Ovid - the Penguin Classic version translated by Mary M. Innes. Given my interest in this sort of story (see my WORM IN THE BLOOD trilogy) I feel a little embarrassed that I haven't read it before. Perhaps I was put off by the fact that Ovid was born in 43 B.C. and I'd wrongly assumed a Roman writer would be hard-going. But in fact I found Metamophoses surprisingly readable, though some of the extreme violence requires a strong stomach! It's a collection of many stories all woven together, moving from the creation of the universe to what was then contemporary times, with the death of Julius Caesar. A kind of history of the world, then, based around the theme of transformation. People are changed into all manner of gods and monsters, fish and fowl, frogs and wolves, bears and birds, stars, stones, trees, flowers, rivers, pools, even a type of sound (Echo). Quite a few of the tales are familiar. It can feel a bit relentless at times, both the gods and the mortals are often cruel and generally bloodthirsty (apart from Pythagoras, who makes a surprise appearance near the end to endorse vegetarianism and reincarnation in a way that somehow feels very modern). But for anyone with an interest in tales of the Ancient Greek and Roman gods and the culture of those times, it's certainly worth a read.