Summary Of Ovid's Metamorphoses

In Ovid’s poem, Metamorphoses, he retells the stories of many Greek myths. The theme behind all of the stories is the title, the changes or metamorphoses that happen in the myths. One of the stories that is littered with changing forms that appears in the text is the tale of Medusa. It has been depicted in various different ways over time, but this paper will focus on comparing the representation of Peter Paul Rubens’ The Head of Medusa to the retelling in Ovid.
Ovid tells the story slightly out of order, since he is recounting it from the perspective of the one who slayed Medusa, Perseus. To put the tale chronologically, Medusa was once a beautiful maiden, wanted by many men. It was said that her best attribute was her hair. Poseidon raped her in Athena’s temple, and Athena punished Medusa for this act by turning Medusa and her sisters into the Gorgons. However, only Medusa had snakes for hair. Since she was so horrible to look at, her face was used on Athena’s breastplate (Ovid. Book IV. Lines 790-803). While the image alone …show more content…
In the far distance of the piece, the sea can be seen. Blood from the severed head that dripped into the sea created the coral, so having the water in the background reminds one of that part of the myth. Looking closely at the neck, not only do you see blood, but tiny snakes emerging from it. This relates back to the venomous snakes that grew from blood dropped in the sand in the desert when Perseus flew over it while holding Medusa’s head. There could potentially also be a third reference to Medusa and Atlas. There seems to be the beginnings of a mountain in the background, which is what Atlas was turned into when Perseus showed him the head (Ovid. Book IV. Lines 651-652). The piece shows at least some part of almost all of the elements mentioned in Book IV of things that had been transformed by Medusa or some part of