The Metamorphoses

The Metamorphoses is a long Latin poem in fifteen books that retells myths from the creation of the world to the age of Ovid's own Rome. Its linking theme is change: gods, men and women are turned into animals, trees, stars, stones and flowers, often through love, anger or punishment. Stories such as Daphne, Narcissus, Pyramus and Thisbe, and Orpheus are told with humour, pathos and a quick, shifting narrative voice. Ovid moves from tale to tale, sometimes nesting one inside another. The poem became a main source of classical mythology for later writers and artists, and it remains one of the most lively and influential works of Roman literature.