Quotes from Metamorphoses
17 notable lines from Ovid · 8
I want to speak about bodies changed into new forms. You, gods, since you are the ones who alter these, and all other things, inspire my attempt, and spin out a continuous thread of words, from the world's first origins to my own time.
Quotations follow the Allen Mandelbaum translation (Harvest Books, 1995) — our recommended edition.
I see, and I desire the better: I follow the worse.
Medea, Book VII (Latin: video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor) · trans. A. S. Kline Let me warn you, Icarus, to take the middle way, in case the moisture weighs down your wings, if you fly too low, or if you go too high, the sun scorches them. Travel between the extremes.
Daedalus to Icarus, Book VIII · trans. A. S. Kline Everything changes, nothing dies: the spirit wanders, arriving here or there, and occupying whatever body it pleases, passing from a wild beast into a human being, from our body into a beast, but is never destroyed.
Pythagoras's teaching, Book XV (Latin: omnia mutantur, nihil interit) · trans. A. S. Kline Wherever Rome's influence extends, over the lands it has civilised, I will be spoken, on people's lips: and, famous through all the ages, if there is truth in poet's prophecies, I shall live.
Final lines of the poem, Book XV (Latin: vivam) · trans. A. S. Kline Devouring Time, and you, jealous Age, consume everything, and slowly gnawing at them, with your teeth, little by little, consign all things to eternal death!
Pythagoras's teaching, Book XV (Latin: tempus edax rerum) · trans. A. S. Kline And now the work is done, that Jupiter's anger, fire or sword cannot erase, nor the gnawing tooth of time.
Ovid's Envoi, closing lines, Book XV · trans. A. S. Kline I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.
Medea (Book 7) The best part of me will be borne, immortal, beyond the distant stars.
Ovid's Envoi, closing lines, Book XV · trans. A. S. Kline The middle way is safest.
Phoebus warning Phaethon, Book II · trans. A. S. Kline What I want I have. My riches make me poor.
Narcissus, at the pool, Book III · trans. A. S. Kline He carved a figure, brilliantly, out of snow-white ivory, no mortal woman, and fell in love with his own creation. The features are those of a real girl, who, you might think, lived, and wished to move, if modesty did not forbid it. Indeed, art hides his art.
On Pygmalion and his ivory statue, Book X · trans. A. S. Kline Nothing keeps its own form, and Nature, the renewer of things, refreshes one shape from another. Believe me, nothing dies in the universe as a whole, but it varies and changes its aspect.
Pythagoras's teaching, Book XV · trans. A. S. Kline Time itself, also, glides, in its continual motion, no differently than a river. For neither the river, nor the swift hour can stop: but as wave impels wave, and as the prior wave is chased by the coming wave, and chases the one before, so time flees equally, and equally, follows.
Pythagoras's teaching, Book XV · trans. A. S. Kline This was the Golden Age that, without coercion, without laws, spontaneously nurtured the good and the true.
On the Golden Age, Book I · trans. A. S. Kline In the beginning was Chaos.
Opening (paraphrased) Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.
Ovid