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Ovid
Translated
by
Ian Johnston
Vancouver Island University
Nanaimo, British Columbia
Canada
[This
document has some copyright restrictions. For details please consult the
following link: Copyright]
For
a free copy of the full translation in Word format, please contact Ian
Johnston.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
For
more specific details of the contents of a particular book, consult the summary
provided at the opening of that book.
BOOK 1
Invocation; Creation; Four Ages, War of the Giants; the Flood; Deucalion and
Pyrrha; Apollo and Pytho; Apollo and Daphne; Io, Argus, and Mercury; Pan and Syrinx;
Phaëton.
BOOK 2
Phaëton; Callisto and Jupiter; Callisto and Arcas; Coronis and Apollo; Ocyroë; Battus and
Mercury; Aglauros, Mercury, and Juno; Europa and Jupiter.
BOOK 3
Cadmus and the Dragon; Actaeon and Diana; Semele, Jupiter, and Juno; Juno,
Jupiter, and Teiresias; Echo and Narcissus, Pentheus and Bacchus.
BOOK 4
The Daughters
of Minyas; Pyramus and Thisbe; Mars and Venus; the Sun, Leucothea and Clytie; Salmacis and Hermaphroditus; Athamas and Ino; Cadmus
and Harmonia, Perseus and Atlas; Perseus and Andromeda.
BOOK 5
Perseus and Phineus; the Muses and Minerva; the Daughters of Pierus and the Muses;
Typhoeus and the Gods; the Rape of Proserpine; Ceres and Cyrene; Arethusa and
Alpheus; Triptolemus and Lyncus.
BOOK 6
Arachne and Minerva; Niobe; Leto and the Lycians; Marsyas; Tereus and
Philomela; Orithyia and Boreas.
Jason and Medea, Medea and Aeson, Medea and Pelias, Medea and Aegeus, Aeacus
and the Myrmidons, Cephalus and Procris
BOOK 8
Minos and Scylla, Daedalus and Icarus, Calydonian Boar Hunt, Althaea
and Meleager, Permela and Achelous, Baucis and Philemon, Erysichthon and Maestra
BOOK 9
Hercules and Achelous, Nessus and
Hercules, Galanthis, Dryope, Iolaus, Byblis and Caunus, Iphis and Iänthe
BOOK 10
Orpheus and Eurydice, Attis and Cybele, Cyparissus, Hyacinthus and
Apollo, The Propoetides, Pygmalion, Myrrha and Cinyras,
Atalanta and Hippomenes,
Adonis
BOOK 11
Death of Orpheus, Midas and Bacchus, Midas, Pan
and Apollo, Peleus and Thetis, Chione and Daedalion, Peleus and Psamathe, Ceyx and Halcyone, Aesacus and Hesperië
BOOK 12
Agamemnon at Aulis, Cycnus and Achilles, Caeneus, the Centaurs
and Lapiths, Periclymenus and Hercules,
Death of Achilles
BOOK 13
Ajax and Ulysses, Hecuba and Polymnestor,
Memnon, Aeneas
and Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus, Glaucus
BOOK 14
Scylla and Circe, The Cercopes, The Cumaean Sibyl, Ulysses,
Polyphemus and Circe, Picus and
Circe, Diomedes in Italy, Aeneas in Latium; Vertumnus and
Pomona; Iphis and Anaxarete;
Romulus
BOOK 15
Mysceleus, Croton, Pythagoras. Egeria, Hippolytus, Tages, Cipus, Aesculapius, Julius
Caesar, Augustus.]
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
In this translation, the numbers in square
brackets refer to Ovid’s Latin text, the
numbers without brackets refer to the English text. In the latter, partial
lines are counted together in the reckoning, so that two or three consecutive short
lines are equivalent to one full line.
The explanatory endnotes, the headings at
the right-hand margins, and the summaries at the start of each book have been
added by the translator.
A word on pronunciation of names: the
letters –eus and –aus at the end of a name
are normally two syllables in this translation: (e.g., Orpheus is
pronounced Ór-phe-us, Pentheus is
pronounced Pén-the-us, Menelaus is pronounced Me-ne-lá-us,
and so on); a dieresis over a vowel indicates that it is pronounced by itself
(e.g., Danaë is
pronounced Dá-na-e, not Dá-nai, Nereïds is
pronounced Né-re-ids, Caÿster is pronounced
Ca-y-ster, and so on); final vowels are
pronounced by themselves (as in Calliope, Penelope, Achaea,
and so on), although there are a few exceptions, usually when the name has long
been adopted into English (e.g., Crete, Palatine,
Rome, Ganymede, Nile).
Ovid’s text sometimes creates minor
confusion with names either because he does not use a specific name (or uses it
very sparingly) or because he identifies someone with a phrase which is not
always immediately clear to the modern reader (e.g., “girl from Arcady,” “descendant of Abas,” “Cyllenean god,” and so on). I have in many cases
inserted the more familiar name (e.g., Perseus, Mercury, Callisto), sometimes in addition to the original phrase,
sometimes in place of it.
Another source of minor confusion is
Ovid’s habit of changing verb tenses frequently from present to past and back
again, often in mid-sentence. While this stylistic habit is not uncommon in
conversational English, it is rare in formal English. Different translators
handle this feature in different ways. Some put all verbs into the past tense,
while others follow Ovid’s changes faithfully. Most recent translations (so far
as I can tell) retain the movement back and forth between present and past
tenses, but do so less frequently than Ovid does, so that there is more
consistency within short passages of the English. This last-mentioned practice
is the one I have followed in this translation.
Finally, Ovid’s speeches are sometimes
difficult to keep track of, because he will have a speaker telling us what
someone else said, and that account may include more direct speech also
containing direct speech. At one point he has speeches within a speech within a
speech within a speech. To avoid complex, awkward, and confusing punctuation, I
have tried to stick to a simple use of quotation marks (double quotation marks
for direct speech, and single quotation marks for all speeches within speeches)
and have indented the left margin appropriately to indicate how direct or
indirect a particular speech is.
I would like to acknowledge the great help
I have received from other translations and commentaries, above all those by
Mary M. Innes, A. S. Kline, Henry T. Riley, and A. D. Melville.
[Link
to Book 1]
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