Will I love Metamorphoses?

This classic is one of the main sources for Greek and Roman mythology, giving us the tales, among others, of the daughter of the river god, the nymph Daphne, turning into a laurel tree to escape the suffocating love of Apollo; the son of Neptune, Cygnus, beaten in battle by Achilles and turned by his father into a swan to escape terrible death; the King of Cyprus, Pygmalion, falling in love with his own sculpture, only to have her turn into a real woman.

When Ovid completed his great work, he stated: “Evening has overtaken me, and the sun has… show more.

Metamorphoses is like a compact classic for the classical era. If you’re interested in the works of Apollonius of Rhodes, Homer, or Virgil, but the idea of epic poetry is a bit intimidating, or if you love them and want to get an early start introducing your kids to them—Metamorphoses is a great start.

Ovid takes all the beautiful mythology—Perseus, Argonautica, Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Romulus and Remus, Atalanta—and presses them down to easily-digestible bites that are written with such levity and humour that nobody can walk away unmoved.

I love the classics. Jason and the Argonauts is probably the… show more.