Though I could easily blog about the absudity and sheer horrific spectacle contained in Euripides' The Bacchae, which was the locus of class today, I won't. I will instead focus on the story from Ovid's Metamorphoses that most struck me, that of Cephalus, Procris and Aurora(for the record, I was also drawn to Orpheus, but that story is much more famous and I knew it before reading Metamorphoses, which was not the case with the former story).
It is in (I believe) book 7 of Metmorphoses and I will give a drastically reduced version of it. Cephalus is a hunter, who marries this woman named Procris, and they are deeply in love. But one day, the goddess Aurora sees Cephalus out hunting and is immediately infatuated with him(he happens to be extremely good looking). But when she asks him if he'll submit to her, he says "No, I love my wife!". Aurora lets him go, but is royally pissed off and vengeful--as the gods are wont to become--. So she disguises herself and goes to Procris, and tells her that Cephalus has fallen in love with the goddess Aurora. Procrsi is heartbroke, and jealous.
The next morning Cephalus goes out hunting again, and he hears a sobbing sound over in the bushes. Thinking it an animal, he casts his enchanted hunting spear(which was a gift from Procris, who recieved it as a gift from Artemis), and hits the mark. And when he goes over the spot, it turns out it was his wife who he speared, and as she dies, she declares her love for him and only asks in return that he not share his bed with Aurora.
The simplest answer I could give for the question "What was it that struck you about this story?", it would probably be the potent force of tragic irony that comes through at the conclusion, coupled with the almost equally potent sting of thwarted love--it should have lasted much longer than this--.
The following are places where I found pictorial representations, including paintings by Rubens and Poussin, and a sculpture by John Flaxman.
http://www.nationalgalleryimages.co.uk/search.aspx?q=Cephalus&frm
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=7&id=51
It is in (I believe) book 7 of Metmorphoses and I will give a drastically reduced version of it. Cephalus is a hunter, who marries this woman named Procris, and they are deeply in love. But one day, the goddess Aurora sees Cephalus out hunting and is immediately infatuated with him(he happens to be extremely good looking). But when she asks him if he'll submit to her, he says "No, I love my wife!". Aurora lets him go, but is royally pissed off and vengeful--as the gods are wont to become--. So she disguises herself and goes to Procris, and tells her that Cephalus has fallen in love with the goddess Aurora. Procrsi is heartbroke, and jealous.
The next morning Cephalus goes out hunting again, and he hears a sobbing sound over in the bushes. Thinking it an animal, he casts his enchanted hunting spear(which was a gift from Procris, who recieved it as a gift from Artemis), and hits the mark. And when he goes over the spot, it turns out it was his wife who he speared, and as she dies, she declares her love for him and only asks in return that he not share his bed with Aurora.
The simplest answer I could give for the question "What was it that struck you about this story?", it would probably be the potent force of tragic irony that comes through at the conclusion, coupled with the almost equally potent sting of thwarted love--it should have lasted much longer than this--.
The following are places where I found pictorial representations, including paintings by Rubens and Poussin, and a sculpture by John Flaxman.
http://www.nationalgalleryimages.co.uk/search.aspx?q=Cephalus&frm
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=7&id=51
posted by Kari Bowles at 1:22 PM
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