La Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea

When the story of “Diana and Actaeon” is mentioned, one’s mind most commonly recalls the episode in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which Actaeon accidentally stumbles upon the goddess Diana naked in the woods during a hunting trip, and she metamorphoses him into a deer; therefore, his hunting dogs devour him (Ovid 55). “Diana and Actaeon” is a very well known episode from the Metamorphoses; it is where Ovid first delves into a discussion of whether the gods are just in their punishments towards mortals. Perhaps for this reason, “Diana and Actaeon” has inspired numerous visual translations depicting various scenes from the episode. The famous Italian artist Titian created a visual depiction of “Diana and Actaeon,” titled “Diana and Actaeon,” in which he emphasizes what he believes to be main segment of the episode: Actaeon, while on a hunting trip with his hunting dogs, stumbles upon Diana naked, bathing with her nymphs. In “Diana and Actaeon” Titian attempts visually to recreate the components of the Ovidian episode “Diana and Actaeon” that he finds most pertinent to the storyline; however, to embody completely every part of the episode in a singly work of art proves to be virtually impossible. Therefore, Titian must pick and choose parts of the story to incorporate into his image to encompass as much of the tale as possible within the artwork. This technique of picking and choosing sections of the Ovidian episode leads to certain discrepancies between Titian’s visual version of…