Book X
The book opens with Orpheus and Eurydice’s ill-fated marriage. Soon after the wedding, Eurydice takes a walk in the woods and is swiftly bitten by a poisonous snake; though she lies still and pale, Orpheus refuses to accept the finality of his new wife’s demise. He journeys to the underworld and pleads his case to Proserpina, emphasizing Eurydice’s youth and explaining that they will not begrudge their eventual return to the underworld when they are much older. Orpheus’s musical talent and loving words win over the goddess, and she permits him to free his wife. Proserpina places one condition for Eurydice’s return: Orpheus must not turn to look at his wife, whose shade will follow him as he journeys home. If he does, she will be returned to the underworld. As they walk back into the world of the living, Orpheus turns back, thinking that Eurydice has reached the light; he misjudged, so she slips back into the darkness. Devastated, Orpheus mourns intensely for the following three years.
When Orpheus plays his lyre in the woods, the natural world bends to listen. One of the trees in attendance is the cypress, which was once a boy named Cyparissus. A favorite of Apollo, his transformation was spurred by his attachment to a favorite stag. He treated this creature as his pet. One day when Cyparissus was out hunting, his stag rested under a tree; accidentally, he hit the animal with his spear, killing the stag. Cyparissus was heartbroken and asked the gods to allow him to mourn forever. Apollo changed him into the cypress tree and lamented his loss.
Having contextualized the woods, Ovid describes Orpheus launching into a series of songs. In the introductory tune, Orpheus calls on Jupiter and Calliope for inspiration. His stories will be about boys loved by the gods and girls driven mad by passion. Next, Orpheus briefly tells of Ganymede, with whom Jupiter once fell in love and kidnapped in the form of an eagle. The story of Hyacinthus follows, which is about a boy loved by Apollo who was going to be deified but died before the process could be complete. In his pursuit of Hyacinthus, Apollo forgets his duties. One day, the two decide to compete against one another in discus throwing. Apollo executes a beautiful throw; when the boy tries to catch the discus, he is hit in the head, causing a fatal injury. The god tries to revive him but to no avail; he then changes Hyacinthus into a flower and establishes a festival in his name.
Next, Orpheus sings of the Propoetides of Amathus. The people of the city are not proud of these women, nor do they want to claim the Cerastae, men whose heads are “disfigured by horns.” In Amathus, human sacrifice is practiced on guests visiting the city, breaking the rules of hospitality. Venus is appalled, but she realizes the wrongdoings are the acts of one family, not the whole city. The goddess changes the Cerastae into bulls and makes the Propoetides into temple prostitutes for their denial of her divinity before later transforming them to stone.
Another story concerning a stone figure is that of Pygmalion, who swears off the company of human women and makes a statue of his ideal “feminine beauty” out of ivory. He falls deeply in love with his creation, kissing and caressing it until he can hardly tell the difference between stone and skin. Pygmalion also brings his statue gifts and adorns her with clothes and jewels. He eventually asks Venus to bring her to life, after piling offerings on the...
(This entire section contains 1337 words.)
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goddess’s altar during her festival. Venus sends a sign of approval, and the sculptor rushes home to his statue; he begins stroking her until she becomes human. Soon she bears a daughter, Paphos, who will later have a son named Cinyras.
Cinyras becomes king of Cyprus and the object of his daughter’s lust. Before he learns of Myrrha’s illicit desires, Cinyras attempts to marry his daughter to one of the many eligible suitors vying for her hand. The girl laments that humans are not permitted to enter into incestuous relationships, but in the animal kingdom, fathers can and do mate with daughters. She tries to talk herself out of her feelings, promising to love her father only as a father and nothing more. When Cinyras expresses his concerns about Myrrha not choosing a suitor, he asks her what kind of man she wants to marry. She explains that she wants to be with someone like her father, but he does not understand her meaning. Myrrha determines to take her own life, writes a note, and is on the brink of hanging herself when her nurse breaks in and discovers the girl’s intentions. The nurse tries to get Myrrha to confess what is troubling her, and she declines again and again before eventually telling her secret.
When the girl says she will not live if she cannot be with Cinyras, the nurse offers to help her. During the Bacchic rites, Myrrha’s mother, Cenchreis, is away from home, so the nurse tells Cinyras that a young girl wishes to lay with him. He agrees, and Myrrha gets her wish, though her father, of course, does not know it is his child. After many rendezvous together, Cinyras wants to know who the girl is, so he shines a torch on her and discovers that she is his daughter. He threatens her with his sword, and she flees, wandering for nine months, pregnant with his child. She prays to the gods, claiming she is not fit for this world or the underworld. The gods change her into a tree that weeps and name its resin myrrh, after the mourning girl.
Myrrah and Cinyras’s child, Adonis, is born of the tree, helped by the goddess of childbirth. He is such a beautiful boy that, when he grows older, Venus falls in love with him. One of Cupid’s arrows grazed Venus’s breast, causing her to desire Adonis. The goddess shirks her divine duties to pursue and advise him. Venus tells Adonis that she hates lions and proceeds to tell him the story of how that feeling arose. A girl named Atalanta—different from the one who impressed during the Calydonian boar hunt—was a skilled runner who could beat any man in a race, but she was also very beautiful. Men wanted to win her hand in marriage, so she allowed them to race her; if they beat her, she would marry them, but if they did not, they would be killed. Nonetheless, men signed up to race her. A young man named Hippomenes came to watch the race but quickly fell in love with Atalanta, too. Despite seeing so many men fail, he decided to take his chances. The girl was somewhat taken with Hippomenes and faced an internal conflict about whether she truly wanted to outrace him.
Hippomenes prayed to Venus, who helped him strategize. She told him that he must obtain three apples and use them at key moments to throw Atalanta off. When they were racing, Hippomenes would throw an apple, and the girl would chase it, permitting him to take a brief lead. The youth won the race and won Atalanta as his wife; however, he failed to properly thank Venus with offerings. The couple even used her temple for a sexual rendezvous, further angering the goddess. Thus, she transformed them into lions and in telling her story, pleads with Adonis to beware of such animals.
Adonis hunts a boar while Venus is riding her chariot. He strikes the beast in the back with his spear, but the boar removes it. It charges Adonis and gores him terribly, killing him. Venus finds her dead beloved and grieves, vowing to memorialize him at an annual festival. She also changes him to a flower, albeit one with a short life span.
