Peter Jones - Reading Ovid: Stories from the Metamorphoses (Cambridge Intermediate Latin Readers)

Reading Ovid

Reading Ovid presents a selection of stories from Ovids Metamorphoses, the most famous and in fluential collection of Greek and Roman myths in the world. It includes well-known stories like those of Daedalus and Icarus, Pygmalion, Narcissus and King Midas. The book is designed for those who have completed an introductory course in Latin and aims to help such users to enjoy the story-telling, character-drawing and language of one of the worlds most delightful and in fluential poets. The text is accompanied by full vocabulary, grammar and notes, with assistance based on two widely used beginners courses, Reading Latin and Wheelocks Latin. Essays at the end of each passage are designed to point up important detail and to show how the logic of each story unfolds, while study sections offer ways of thinking further about the passage. No other intermediate text is so carefully designed to make reading Ovid a pleasure.

PETER JONES is well known as an author, journalist, lecturer and publiciser of classics. He is co-founder of the charity Friends of Classics and regularly contributes columns, reviews and features on classical topics in the national media in the UK. His books include Learn Latin (1998), An Intelligent Persons Guide to Classics (2002) and (with Keith Sidwell) Reading Latin (1986).

Reading Ovid

Stories from the Metamorphss

PETER JONES

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, So Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521849012

Peter Jones 2007

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2007

6th printing 2013

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by the MPG Books Group

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-521-84901-2 Hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-61332-3 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables and other factual information given in this work are correct at the time of first printing but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter.

Contents

Passages

Illustrations

Maps

Preface

This selection of stories from Ovids Metamorphss is designed for those who have completed a beginners course in Latin. Its purpose is restricted and unsophisticated: to help such users, who will have read little or no Ovid, to enjoy the story-telling, character-drawing and language of one of the worlds most delightful and influential poets. Assistance given with vocabulary and grammar is based on two widely used beginners courses, Reading Latin and Wheelocks Latin (for details, see below).

My general principle is to supply help on a need-to-know basis for the story in hand. The Vocabulary, grammar and notes and Learning vocabularies accompanying the text speak for themselves. The Comment at the end of each passage is an occasionally embellished paraphrase whose main purpose is to point up important detail and show how the logic of each story unfolds. I make no apology for this. With the minimal amount of time todays students have for learning the language, the demands of translation alone can be so heavy that it is all too easy to miss the wood for the trees and hamper the whole purpose of the exercise pleasure, one of the most useful things in the world. The Study sections offer ways of thinking further about the passage.

My debt to W. S. Andersons excellent Ovids Metamorphoses Books 15 (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) and Ovids Metamorphoses Books 610 (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972) will be obvious. The translations by David Raeburn, Ovid: Metamorphoses: A New Verse Translation (Penguin Classics, 2004, brilliantly readable) and A. D. Melville, Ovid Metamorphoses (Oxford Worlds Classics, 1986, with a first-rate Introduction by E. J. Kenney) made stimulating companions. Arthur Goldings Ovids Metamorphoses (1565, used by Shakespeare, the spelling modernised for Penguin Classics, 2002) remains peerless.

My best thanks go to Andrew Morley for the maps.

Peter Jones
Newcastle upon Tyne, July 2005

Abbreviations

1f., 2m., etc. refer to the declension and gender of a noun

1/2/3/4 and 3/4 (which some grammars call 5) refer to the conjugation of a verb