Metamorphoses, Book 13

Book 13 of Ovid's Metamorphoses, the hexameter epic of transformations completed by AD 8, follows the fall of Troy and its aftermath, and then begins the journey of Aeneas that leads the poem towards Italy and Rome.

The Greek leaders meet to decide who should have the arms of the dead Achilles. Ajax, the blunt warrior, speaks first and claims them for his deeds; Ulysses replies with a far cleverer speech, recounting his services and turning Ajax's arguments against him. The judges give the arms to Ulysses, and Ajax kills himself, his blood becoming the hyacinth. Troy falls; Hecuba, its queen, is taken captive, sees her daughter Polyxena sacrificed at Achilles' tomb, and finds the body of her son Polydorus, murdered by the Thracian king Polymestor. She tears out his eyes and is turned into a dog. Aurora mourns her son Memnon, from whose ashes birds arise. Aeneas sets out and visits King Anius on Delos, whose daughters were turned into doves, and then reaches Sicily, where the sea-nymph Galatea tells Scylla how the Cyclops Polyphemus courted her with a grotesque love song and crushed her lover Acis under a rock, and Acis became a river. The sea-god Glaucus then woos Scylla, who rejects him.

The debate between Ajax and Ulysses is a masterpiece of rhetoric in verse and often studied for its arguments. Hecuba's grief and the song of Polyphemus show Ovid at his most tragic and most comic.