The Best Translation of Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses was written in Latin. 2 recommended editions, ranked — with Gröblé’s verdict on which to read first.
Allen Mandelbaum
Harvest Books · 1995 · 576 pages
Mandelbaum's verse is ornate and literary, an Ovid that sounds like a Renaissance poet. Arguably that's how the Metamorphoses has always been read in English, since Shakespeare and Milton were reading it that way too.
Every recommended edition, compared
Charles Martin's verse shifts meter as Ovid shifts tone, comedy into horror into pathos in the same book. The Norton Critical edition adds essays and source texts, which is useful for a poem with this much afterlife.
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Reading Metamorphoses in translation
Metamorphoses was written in Latin, so unless you read Latin, the translator decides the book you actually experience — its register, its pace, how it sounds read aloud. Two editions of the same work can feel like different books.
The ranking above is Gröblé’s: one reader’s verdict on which English gets you closest, not a publisher’s blurb. Start with the top pick; reach for the others when you want a different angle on the original.