The Metamorphoses is the richest treasury of mythological stories that we have inherited from the ancient world. Ovid gave to many classical myths their definitive form for later generations, creating a convincing imaginative world with a vitality all of its own. Apollo and Daphne, Phaethon, Daedalus and Icarus, Echo and Narcissus, Actaeon, Proserpina, Pygmalion, Philomela and Tereus, Pyramus and Thisbe – these are just a few of the charmed names that are held together in a living system of extraordinary richness.
“Metamorphosis” is a transliteration from the Greek word used to describe the process or action of changing form or substance, so the Latin plural, metamorphoses, can be roughly translated a…
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