Metamorphoses, Book 11
Ovid, Metamorphoses XI
The death of Orpheus, Laomedon and the walls of Troy, Peleus and Thetis, Ceyx and Alcyone, and Aesacus (King Midas is in the course). 9 sections, 268 sentences, each with an English translation.
Read it with every word glossed and parsed, and keep your place.
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Book 11 of Ovid's Metamorphoses, the hexameter epic of transformations completed by AD 8, closes the story of Orpheus and then moves towards the age of the Trojan War through the families of Peleus and Ceyx. The story of Midas and the golden touch is in the course.
The book opens with the death of Orpheus, torn apart by the frenzied women of Thrace; his head and lyre float singing down the river Hebrus to Lesbos, and Bacchus punishes the women by turning them into trees. Later Ovid tells how King Laomedon of Troy cheated Apollo and Neptune of their wages for building the city walls, and how Peleus, on the advice of Proteus, won the sea-goddess Thetis, the future mother of Achilles. Peleus, in exile at Trachis, hears from King Ceyx how his brother Daedalion was turned into a hawk, and a monstrous wolf that ravages his herds is turned to stone. The longest story tells how Ceyx sails to consult an oracle against the pleas of his wife Alcyone and drowns in a storm; Juno sends a message through the god of Sleep, and Morpheus appears to Alcyone in her husband's shape. She finds his body on the shore, and both are turned into kingfishers. The book ends with Aesacus, a son of Priam, who becomes a diving bird.
The storm and the house of Sleep are among Ovid's finest descriptive passages, and Ceyx and Alcyone is one of the gentlest love stories in the poem. The Latin is clear and polished.
Contents
- Met. 11.1–74The death of OrpheusWhile with such song the Thracian bard leads the woods and the spirits of wild beasts and the rocks that…
- Met. 11.201–220Laomedon cheats the godsrising with difficulty and demanding no small resources; and together with the trident-bearing father of the…
- Met. 11.221–265Peleus wins the sea-goddess ThetisFor old Proteus had said to Thetis: 'Goddess of the wave, conceive: you will be the mother of a young man who…
- Met. 11.266–351Peleus at Trachis; Daedalion's fateHappy in his son, happy in his wife was Peleus, a man to whom, if you take away the guilt of the murdered…
- Met. 11.352–409The wolf that ravaged Peleus' herdsHe tells them: 'I had driven the weary bullocks to the curving shore, when the Sun, at his highest in…
- Met. 11.410–591Ceyx sails and is shipwreckedMeanwhile Ceyx, troubled and anxious at heart because of his brother's portents and those that followed his…
- Met. 11.592–707The house of Sleep; Alcyone's dreamNear the Cimmerians there is a cave with a deep recess, a hollow mountain, the home and inner sanctum of…
- Met. 11.708–748Ceyx and Alcyone become birdsGrief forbids more, and lamentation breaks into every word, and groans are drawn from her stunned heart.
- Met. 11.749–795Aesacus becomes a diving birdSome old man watches them as they fly together over the wide sea, and praises their love kept to the end;