Metamorphoses - Ovid's Mythological Transformations or Metamorphoses

Midsummer Night's Dream owes much to Ovid, particularly his story of the transformation of the mulberry, aka Pyramus and Thisbe. Comparison of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' and Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream.'

Ovid was a Roman poet who wrote an important poem called 'The Metamorphoses' or Transformations, which tells most of the stories from Greek mythology that we still know. Ovid inspired many artists. Here are some of the paintings inspired by his Metamorphoses.

An overview of the prolific, Roman, Augustan Age poet Ovid.

Public domain English translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

In the Metamorphoses (of Transformations) if Ovid, one of Midusmmer Night's Dream-like stories within a story is about the fulfillment of the transgendered blind seer Tiresias' prophecies.

Narcissus and Echo. In Ovids' Metamorphoses, Tiresias warns about the dangers of letting Narcissus get to know himself.

Tiresias tried to warn Pentheus, but the king wanted nothing to do with gods or prophets and so Pentheus wound up being mistaken for a wild animal and torn to pieces.

Narcissus' mother couldn't figure out Tiresias' warning about her son. The seer told her the boy would live a long life as long as he didn't get to know himself. Echo pined away for love of the beautiful lad.

Tiresias lost his sight and gained his prophetic skills at the same time -- when he used his transgendering experiences to settle an argument between Jupiter and Juno.

Ovid-based stories of Apollo and Daphne, Pyramus and Thisbe and Cephalus and Procris in Bullfinch.

The Latin text of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

An online concordance to discover patterns in Ovid's Metamorphoses, a work in which "Ovid has paid much less regard to smooth, logical transition between stories than to complex repetition of themes and images, even to extensive wordplay."

Sources used by Shakespeare for his plays include Ovid's Fasti and Metamorphoses.

Perseus' browsable version of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

A book-by-book outline of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Ovid Metamorphoses Book V

Ovid Metamorphoses Book IV

You could say Venus was 'the Roman goddess' since she was counted the ancestor of the ancestral founder of Rome. While Venus was the Roman goddess of love and beauty, like her Greek counterpart Aphrodite, there was more to her. Here you'll learn about various aspects of Venus the Roman goddess.