This page is part of Classical Explorations a review of classic works and the identification of connections to other works. This page details an exploration of Book One of the Metamorphoses of Ovid. At the end you can proceed to the following books.
The Metamorphoses was written in Latin by Ovid in year eight of the current era in Rome. This page won’t review details as information on the history of Ovid, his work, and the other aspects surrounding the work’s creation are covered elsewhere.
What follows are examples of or references to other works of art either interpreting the stories shared by Ovid or inspired by those stories. Of course, there is a huge amount of work that could land here. I stand by my choices and accept suggestions.
Occasionally a link will connect to a separate page where an essay captures a certain connection between the work and others.
During the time of our reading, these pages will be updated. That’s between September 2026 to December 2027.
Book One
PROEM
The Proem orients the reader and invokes the gods. Since it is so short and we have little art to share here, let’s include the whole thing from the Stephanie McCarter translation from 2022.
My spirit moves to tell of shapes transformed
into new bodies. Gods, inspire my work
(for you've transformed it too) and from creation
to my own time spin out unceasing song.
Now for the same bit from the C. Luke Soucy translation from 2023.
Of new embodied shapes transformed, my mind
Is moved to speak! O gods (for you have shaped
These matters, too) inspire what I've begun
And draw the first creation of the world
Down to our times in one unbroken song.
THE FIRST CREATION
As promised, the poem leads with the creation of the world.
This image is from the workshop of Hendrick Goltzius in 1589. Karel van Mander who wrote a very influential book which included a translation of the Metamorphoses as an appendix to his Schilder-Boeck (Book of Painters, 1604) compared Goltzius to Michelangelo. This image was captured at richardnilsen.com.
Chaos or The Battle of the Four Elements by Louis Finson was painted in 1611. The struggle between the elements is palpable. This one is in a private collection, but was part of an exhibition that ended in May of 2026 in Amsterdam. So close…
This is the oil painting Chaos by George Frederic Watts. It was painted c. 1875-1882. It measures 1067 x 3048 mm or about 3 1/2 feet tall and 10 feet across. We’ll need to go to the Tate Museum in London to see it. Here’s where I found it online: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/george-frederic-watts-chaos-r1105605
Here is Hesiod’s Theogony: Chaos by Georges Braque (1932). I found it on a poster for a lecture given in 2025 exploring the earliest uses of the term “chaos” which the lecturer suggests was first used by Hesiod, but in a different way than Ovid who much later used the word in his story of creation.
As the promotion of the event explains:
The term ‘chaos’ appears for the first time in world literature in a remarkable passage in Hesiod’s Theogony, but almost certainly it does not have the meaning there that it has in modern languages; and this modern meaning cannot be found attested in any ancient Greek or Latin text before it appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Braque was a part of the cubist art movement. I would have liked to attend the lecture that used his artwork as promotion. Here is the link to the event: https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2025/04/04/lecture-invention-chaos-hesiod-ovid
It’s no great leap to think that Ovid had read Hesiod.
THE AGES OF MAN
I’m not drawn to the images associated with the Ages of Man. There are many of them, perhaps the most famous being those by Hendrik van der Borcht the elder, made in the mid 17th century.
By Attributed to Hendrik van der Borcht the elder – https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/hendrik-van-der-borcht-a-collection-of-5176038-details.aspx, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81757909
They were of course presented as a collection of four ages, each with their own image. The image above and below are of the Golden Age. This one below by Frans Francken the Younger betrays the era it was created (also coincidentally in the middle of the 17th century), but it still looks like a good time.
By Frans Francken the Younger / Ambrosius Francken II / Hans Jordaens III / Abraham Govaerts / Alexander Keirincx – Dorotheum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16084415
I was interested in the description of the Iron Age (or the Age of Steel as Samuel Garth calls it in 1826) where man falls from the Gold, Silver, and even Bronze Age. It sounds horrible. This one detail caught my eye:
The ground -- once shared, like light and air -- was marked
With lines drawn by surveyors in the dirt.
(This from the C. Luke Soucy translation (2023) which may be my favorite.)
The note of the land being shared struck me. We’ve known for millennia that this unshared way of being lacks virtue. Even Garth (1826) translates it thus:
Then landmarks limited to each his right,
For all before was common as the light.
This is followed by the pillaging of the land through extractive means. Indeed, despite the following events, we still seem to be in that age of baser mettle.
THE GIGANTOMACHY
This is a vase made in c. 400-390 B.C.E. attributed to the Suessula Painter and is held by the Louvre in Paris. This montage of many photos of the vase shows many scenes. Obviously better in person. Here’s where I got the image: https://www.theoi.com/Gallery/L20.1.html
The Gigantomachy can be seen as part of the Pergamon Altar in Berlin at the Pergamon Museum. The altar was excavated from on one of the terraces of the acropolis of Pergamon which is in modern day Turkey. A King Eumenes II originally had the altar built in the first half of the second century B.C.E.. The altar was brought to Germany in the late 19th century and into the early 20th century.
This image was created by Lestat (Jan Mehlich) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3099513
The story of the Gigantomachy exemplifies the supremacy of the gods. Mother of the Giants, Gaia encourages her progeny to overthrow the gods, but they are defeated by the gods. One interesting detail is the serpent tails for legs of most representations of the Giants.
This bronze sculpture of a Snake Legged Giant c. 180-200 is at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
This is a striking image of the Fall of the Giants, with Jupiter mounted on Eagle is from the 16th century and can be seen at the British Museum. Jupiter seems so calm as he rides that eagle to strike down the giants.
LYCAON
The first werewolf, Lycaon is the center of a gruesome tale of a human challenging the authority of the gods. I find this image of Lycaon’s transformation into werewolf energetic and intriguing. It’s by Hendrik Goltzius from 1589. We’ve seen his work above.
This one by Jan Cossiers after Peter Paul Ruebens is pretty fantastic: Júpiter y Licaón (c. 1637)
This engraving from the early 1500s by Virgil Solis hits it just right:
I’m tickled by this engraving from the mid 1600s by Crispijn van de Passe which shows Jove in the turban with the feather standing straight up at the front.
All these show the fire in the background, of course.
THE FLOOD
Wilhelm Janson 1601
DEUCALION AND PYRRHA
Amidst all the strife and horrors, including so many rapes within the Metamorphoses, we find a tender moment between the innocent and faithful Deucalion and Pyrrha. After the flood, these two alone are left of humanity. The passage is sweet in a way. Here’s a portion from the C. Luke Soucy translation (2023) of Deucalion speaking:
"O wife, O sister, last woman alive,
Who shares with me as cousins, race and birth,
Whom marriage and misfortune joins to me --
In all the land, from sunrise to sunset,
We two gather alone. All else is sea,
I am not fully sure yet of our lives;
Those clouds strike terror in me even now.
If fate saved you without me, my poor dear,
How would you feel? Alone, could you withstand
Your fear? How would your grieving be consoled?
Believe me, if the sea now held you, too,
It would hold me, for I would follow you.
Oh, would that I might, with my father's skill,
Breathe life anew into these reformed lands!
Instead we two live on (as heaven sees fit),
The final specimens of humankind."
Notably, Pyrrha does not answer, but they both weep, then pray. However, this scene of a man explaining how he would be unable to go along without her betrays the necessity of companionship in this life. While we may believe a story of an individualism that captures the mind of many modern people, from the ideal of the rugged cowboy to the single woman reveling in life without a partner, there is some truth that continues through time about having partnership on this journey of life.
“We two gather alone. All else is sea.” is such a haunting line. The companionship sustains us through our tribulations. Other translations use the word “hold” or “consumed” in the second part of that line, all else referring to the other people of the world. I just like this translation best. In any case, the story shows the desperation of Deucalion and perhaps the way in which we cling to another individual as a way of making through all the treachery of this life. I find it a tender moment in an often disturbing “unbroken song.”
Below, the couple repopulate the earth as instructed by the gods.
Virgil Solis (early 1500s)
THE PYTHON
After the flood, creatures emerge from the drying soil, including the python who Apollo dispatches with a thousand arrows, though most images I found don’t some near that number.
Hendrick Goltzius in 1589
Virgil Solis (early 1500s)
APOLLO ATTEMPTS TO RAPE DAPHNE
Following the killing of Python, Apollo insults Cupid who shoots him, making him fall for Daphne while simultaneously making Daphne repulsed by Apollo. Undeterred, Apollo continues to pursue until her entreaties turn her into a laurel tree that she not be raped.
Hendrick Goltzius 1589
Apollo and Daphne by Jakob Auer 1688 is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna
Apollo and Daphne by Gian Lorenzo Benini (1622-1625) in the Galleria Borgese in Rome
JOVE RAPES AND TRANSFORMS IO
Jupiter’s first of many rapes follows as he creates a darkness over a portion of the earth that he might take Io. He turns her into a cow. Jupiter’s wife is suspicious. In the end, Io is returned to human form.
Jupiter and Io (1520-1540, maybe 1533) Antonio Allegri (called Correggio) can be found at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Correggio created a series of paintings called the Loves of Jupiter, of which this is, of course, one. Amazing.
Juno, Jupiter, and Io by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout. This work was created sometime in the middle of the 1600s. Other depictions of this scene also show Juno elevated in some way as she confronts Jupiter with the Argive princess Io who he has transformed into a cow in a failed attempt to hide his infidelity.
SYRINX AND PAN
MERCURY KILLS ARGUS
There are a few landscapes painted to represent the this section of the story. Here’s one:
Landscape with Mercury and Argus (1606) Paul Bril
Mercury, Argus and Io (c. 1592) by Abraham Bloemaert
Mercury About to Behead Argus (circa 1770-1775) by Ubaldo Gandolfi is just vicious, but — damn — it’s well done.
IO REGAINS HER FORM
Io Recognized by Her Father (late 17th century) by Victor Honoré Janssens
PHAETHON
We will discuss this story more in the next book. From the first book we see Ovid’s playfulness and mastery of poetic form in his deliberate decision to end a book in the middle of a story. Cheeky. I can’t wait to go see this image in person.
This image is the painting Phaeton made in 1878 by Gustav Moreau. It can be found in the Louvre in Paris, France.
Proceed to Book Two.
