Io's son becomes friends with a boy named Phaethon, the son of Apollo. Suspicious, Juno takes possession of the cow, and Ovid goes on to describe how Jove sends mercury to kill Argus, Io's guard, and how Io must flee Juno's wrath until Jove forces Juno to pardon her. At the same time, Inachus the river god's daughter, Io, has been raped by Jove, who then transforms Io into a cow to protect her from jealous Juno. Ovid turns to the tale of Daphne and Apollo, and how Apollo's unrequited love leads Daphne to be transformed into a laurel tree. After the floods, this couple repopulates the earth by obeying the commands of the gods and throwing rocks behind them these rocks transform into a new, hearty breed of man. In response to all this corruption, Jove sends a great flood to the earth which destroys all living things except one pious couple: Deucalion and Pyrrha. The bad behavior of mankind lead to an attempt by the giants to seize the heavens. He describes how mankind progressed (or degenerated) from the Gold Age to the Silver Age to the Age of Iron. Then he begins his tale of transformations by describing how the earth, and the heavens and everything else were created out of chaos. At the beginning of the poem, Ovid addresses the gods and asks them to bless his undertaking.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |