{"id":2711,"date":"2023-12-03T12:49:33","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T12:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/?p=2711"},"modified":"2023-12-03T12:52:19","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T12:52:19","slug":"ovids-metamorphoses-a-new-translation-by-c-luke-soucy-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/?p=2711","title":{"rendered":"Ovid\u2019s Metamorphoses: A New Translation by C. Luke Soucy – review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ovid\u2019s vast mythological anthology is one of the outstanding achievements of literary history. It\u2019s both a perennial inspiration to later artists and a delight to multitudes who only come across a handful of its stories. As Soucy puts it in his introduction, \u2018Ovid\u2019s irreverent Roman epic has done more even than the works of Hesiod and Homer to codify what has become known as \u201cGreek\u201d mythology.\u2019 Reworkings of individual tales still keep coming out, showing how deeply they\u2019re embedded in popular culture, how widely they\u2019re known, how immediately they\u2019re recognisable as reference points, both resonant with many-layered associations and shaped around vividly expressive images and situations that new artists can bend to their own purposes. At the same time, I suspect that only dedicated classicists know the Metamorphoses<\/em> at all well as a whole. Soucy\u2019s translation seems to address itself both to academic specialists \u2013 those who do know the Metamorphoses<\/em> as a whole and can read it in Latin \u2013 and to the wider public who don\u2019t and can\u2019t. As well as the translation itself, his book contains a Commentary of about 150 pages offering contextual information, broad interpretative and critical remarks and cross-references from tale to tale; a fifty page Appendix of Text and Translation Notes; and a helpful seventy page index of names and places. The Appendix is essentially for scholars. Not being one myself, I\u2019ll focus on what the Translation and Commentary have to offer the general reader and lover of poetry.<\/p>\n

First, the translation. Though I can\u2019t judge its truth to the Latin, I found it highly effective as a medium of poetic narrative in English. There were rough points that jarred in a small and local way, like the use of \u2018tumble\u2019 as an adjective in the passage below. Overall, though, I felt that the peculiarities of its idiom and its leanings into a Latinate or Miltonic style worked very well, combining forcefulness with a vivifying strangeness that suited the subject matter. The opening will give a taste of the style at its most ringing and declamatory:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [ P R OL O G U E ] \u2020<\/p>\n

OF NEW\u2020 embodied shapes transformed, my mind
\nIs moved to speak! O gods (for you have shaped
\nThese matters, too) \u2020 inspire what I\u2019ve begun
\nAnd draw the first creation of the world
\nDown to our times \u2020 in one unbroken song.\u2020\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 5<\/p>\n

[ T H E F I R ST C R E AT ION ] \u2020<\/p>\n

BEFORE THERE were seas, lands, and arching skies,
\nThroughout the whole world nature bore one face,\u2020
\nWhich was called Chaos, an unordered, rough
\nAnd tumble mass of lifeless weight, wherein
\nLay packed the jangling elemental seeds. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 10
\nNo Titan then brought sunlight to the earth,
\nNo Phoebe yet wrought full her lunar curve;
\nNor hung the Earth self-poised in swaddling air,
\nAs Amphitrite\u2019s waves embraced her banks.\u2020<\/p>\n

This translation uses unrhymed iambic pentameter as the closest cultural equivalent to Ovid\u2019s hexameters. Soucy\u2019s approach generally emphasises the vigorous, muscular potential of the form, maximising the contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables and introducing a number of spondaic substitutions (ie replacing iambs with pairs of unstressed syllables). Reinforced by alliteration and assonance, this almost compels reading aloud. Latinate inversions give an air of Miltonic grandeur and solemnity, and by putting the verb before the noun (as in \u2018lay packed the jangling elemental seeds\u2019) or before its accompanying adverb (as in \u2018wrought full\u2019) they add an explosive force that\u2019s in dynamic tension with the slowing effects of the accumulation of stresses and the extensive use of adjectives. This grandeur is in keeping with the scale of the concepts. At the same time, it teeters on the edge of parody. The reader can have it both ways, standing on the threshold of awe, as it were, while retaining a sense of sophisticated distance from the primordial chaos Ovid describes (we have it both ways in another way too, in lines 11 \u2013 14, where the negatives evoke their opposite, so that in trying to imagine a cosmos without them we feel the godliness of the gift of sunlight to earth, the beauty of the moon\u2019s course, the wonder of Earth\u2019s balance, the protectiveness of the swaddling air and the lovingness with which the sea embraces earth).<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll stay with the opening of Book 1 to illustrate the flexibility of Soucy\u2019s style, its ability to adapt to the expression of different moods. These lines from the description of the Golden Age show how him in a caressing, meltingly soft vein:<\/p>\n

Spring saw no end. With gentle warming breath,
\nThe Zephyrs brushed through flowers that bloomed unsown,
\nAnd soon, the untilled land brought forth its fruit,
\nWhile never-fallow fields grew white with grain. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 110
\nAnd streams of milk by streams of nectar rolled,
\nWhile groves of verdant oaks dripped honeyed gold.<\/p>\n

In contrast, amid the violent anarchy of the Iron Age,<\/p>\n

At last, with virtue killed, the final god,
\nThe maid Astraea,\u2020fled the blood-soaked earth. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 150<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth contrasting the compact force of that final line with the translations by A. D. Melville for Oxford World\u2019s Classics:<\/p>\n

………………………………………………<\/span>from earth
\nWith slaughter soaked, Justice, virgin divine,
\nThe last of the immortals, fled away<\/p>\n

and with that by Allen Mandelbaum in Everyman\u2019s Classics:<\/p>\n

……………………………………………<\/span>Now piety
\nlies vanquished; and the maid Astraea, last
\nof the immortals, leaves the blood-soaked earth.<\/p>\n

The impression of heightened density and force given by Soucy\u2019s translation doesn\u2019t arise out of the adoption of an archaic and Latinate style in itself, of course. That style seems to be a by-product of something he talks about in the Introduction, his effort to bring his translation as close as possible to Ovid\u2019s wordplay, phonetic patterning and sequencing of ideas. The concern to reproduce the forcefulness of the original also appears in the way he removes the veils of euphemism and indirectness in which Ovid\u2019s presentation of rape is too often swathed by translators.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll finish my comments on the translation by juxtaposing Soucy\u2019s and Mandelbaum\u2019s versions of the death of Orpheus. Soucy has<\/p>\n

For you, O Orpheus, sad birds and beasts,
\nFor you the solid stones, for you the woods
\nWept tears, while trees who\u2019d thronged to hear your songs
\nShed leaves like grief-shorn locks. The rivers, too,
\nSwelled up with tears, they say, while, robed in black,
\nThe Naiads and the Dryads loosed their hair.<\/p>\n

Mandelbaum has<\/p>\n

The birds, in mourning, wept,
\no Orpheus \u2013 the throngs of savage beasts,
\nand rigid stones, and forests, too \u2013 all these
\nhad often followed as you sang; the trees
\nnow shed their leafy crowns \u2013 as sign of grief,
\ntheir trunks were bare. They say that even streams
\nwere swollen; yes, the rivers, too, shed tears;
\nNaiads and Dryads fringed their veils with black
\nand left their hair dishevelled.<\/p>\n

Mandelbaum\u2019s expression strikes me as clear but colourless. Soucy\u2019s is more compact and far more dynamic. Deferring the verb in his first sentence, making us wait to hear what first the birds and beasts, then the stones and then the woods do for Orpheus, further delaying the verb by the line break, and then making it start the iambic line with a stressed instead of an unstressed syllable, he makes \u2018wept tears\u2019 explode out of the sentence. In Mandelbaum\u2019s version, \u2018wept\u2019 barely makes a ripple. Soucy\u2019s \u2018thronged\u2019 is far more emphatic than Mandelbaum\u2019s \u2018followed\u2019. \u2018Thronged to hear<\/em>\u2019 imbues our picture of these thronging trees with a sense of their eager purpose \u2013 an impression of their mental<\/em> activity accompanying the description of their physical movement. The active \u2018Swelled up with tears\u2019 is more forceful than the passive \u2018were swollen\u2019 and again brings out the feeling behind the tears. In terms of syntax, \u2018The rivers, too, \/ swelled up with tears, they say\u2019 emphasizes the rivers\u2019 swelling by putting it first and subordinates \u2018they say\u2019 as a dry afterthought. \u2018They say that even streams \/ were swollen\u2019 puts the emphasis the other way around. Soucy\u2019s \u2018Shed leaves like grief-shorn locks\u2019 vividly conflates the visual image of falling leaves with that of ancient Greek mourners cutting off their hair. Mandelbaum\u2019s \u2018As sign of grief\u2019 presents the idea in tamely conceptual terms.<\/p>\n

Mandelbaum and Soucy are doing different things, of course. Mandelbaum\u2019s translation incorporates explanation into the text. Soucy doesn\u2019t have to do that because he has his copious notes to make things clear (each of the daggers in my quotations from his text points to a substantial note in the Commentary or the Appendix). One of many benefits of this is the way he\u2019s able to give the reader the full richness of the constantly varying naming of his gods and heroes, often referring to them by their paternity or grandpaternity or, in the case of the gods, by cascades of varying titles referring to different attributes.<\/p>\n

I must admit I found it hard work reading this translation straight through. I\u2019ve had the same difficulty with other versions. It\u2019s a difficulty in the substance of the work rather than the style of the translator. Though I admire the craftsmanship and cheeky wit with which Ovid links tales, in the end I find their sheer mass too repetitious and lacking in sustained narrative impetus. The great joy is in dipping. Reading like that, even the shortest tales open on riches \u2013 witness the immense afterlife of Midas\u2019 misadventures in many versions, or the haunting power Titian found in the little anecdote of Marsyas\u2019 flaying. Soucy\u2019s Commentary gives lavishly helpful guidance to the piecemeal reader, noticing links and making comparisons between different tales.<\/p>\n

For the general reader, in fact, this copious Commentary is a real treasure chest, something that can be enjoyed as a lucky dip box of information about the Greek and Roman worlds, regardless of a particular note\u2019s specific reference to the Metamorphoses<\/em>. Written in a chattily digressive style, it\u2019s fun to browse through on the hunt for interesting titbits, like the fact that the ancient Greeks kept weasels domestically, as pets and mouse-catchers. However, such things are just amuse-bouches to the main fare. They\u2019re interwoven with extensive examinations of aspects of Greek and Roman culture and attitudes, with reflections on Ovid\u2019s handling of particular themes in different stories, with comments on particular points of narrative technique, and with direct expressions of Soucy\u2019s subjective reaction to characters and events. All these are offered in a clear, engagingly personal style.<\/p>\n

In both translation and commentary two major strands are the desire to bring out the subversive, antiheroic nature of the Metamorphoses<\/em> and to give full weight to their erotic elements, particularly their erotic violence. As Soucy\u2019s website informs us, he himself is gay and biracial. He\u2019s refreshingly sensitive to the way contemporary concerns with sexual and identity politics can feel urgently addressed by the Metamorphoses<\/em>. Equally refreshing, from the other side, is the fact that as a scholar he feels the value and importance of seeing past attitudes clearly, neither discreetly veiling elements in them that might affront a contemporary sensibility \u2013 as many translators have done with divine rapes \u2013 nor reading them as if Ovid were our contemporary and saw life as we do. For example, he has an extensive note reflecting on differences between modern and ancient Greek or ancient Roman framings of homosexuality and pederasty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ovid\u2019s Metamorphoses: A New Translation<\/em> by Ovid, translated by C. Luke Soucy. \u00a314.99. University of California Press. ISBN: 9780520394858<\/p>\n

This review appeared in The High Window<\/a> and I would like to thank the editor David Cooke for permission to reprint it here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ovid\u2019s vast mythological anthology is one of the outstanding achievements of literary history. It\u2019s both a perennial inspiration to later artists and a delight to multitudes who only come across a handful of its stories. As Soucy puts it in his introduction, \u2018Ovid\u2019s irreverent Roman epic has done more even than the works of Hesiod […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,200],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-luke-soucy","category-ovid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2711"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2711"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2714,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2711\/revisions\/2714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}