Book 1 – Lycaon’s Feast / The Great Flood
structure: Lycaon aggravates Jove –––> Jove takes revenge on Lycaon –––> Jove takes revenge on all humans. Jove goes to earth to observe humans, Lycaon tries to kill Jove/feed him human remains, Jove gets angry and turns Lycaon into a werewolf, Jove vows to wipe out humans, calls a council of the gods, quick discussion, Jove floods the earth POV: told from Jove’s POV speaker: Ovid tone: godly (ha!), angry, entitled Jove angry because humans keep trying to kill him (I feel, bro). entitled/godly because Jove feels like he can just wipe out the humans and doesn’t think about the effect or the human’s feelings. Book 3 – Juno, Jove, and Semele structure: infidelity ––> jealousy ––> revenge Jove cheats on Juno with Semele, Juno feels like yelling at Jove won’t do anything, disguises herself and convinces Semele to make Jove show her his true form, Semele is incinerated (major bummer). POV: Juno speaker: Ovid/Juno Juno - at the beginning when she’s deciding what to do about Semele. tone: vengeful, angry, jealous, deceitful, clever Juno is angry, jealous, and feeling vengeful toward Semele/all of Jove’s lovers. Instead of yelling at Jove, Juno decides to be clever and trick Semele into killing herself. Book 6 – Arachne structure: mortal claims to be as good as a god –––> god vs. mortal ––> god takes revenge on mortal Arachne boasts that she is a good as Athena ––> Athena vs. Arachne ––> Athena is a sore loser ––> revenge on Arachne POV: audience member, Arachne, Athena Ovid describes each woman’s weaving as if he was a spectator. speaker: Ovid/Arachne/Athena Arachne: at the beginning, Athena - when she challenges Arachne tone: boastful, entitled, angry, humiliated Arachne is very boastful at the beginning Arachne and Athena both feel entitled to praise about being the best weaver. Athena feels humiliated when Arachne wins, but instead hides the humiliation through anger and revenge Book 7 – Medea and Pelias structure: offensive act ––> angry feelings ––> someone else takes revenge Pelais offends Jason’s dad, Jason is angry, Medea offers to take revenge on Pelias POV: Medea speaker: Ovid/Medea Medea: when she tells the daughters to kill their father with swords tone: deceitful, manipulative, straight-forward Medea is very deceitful and manipulative throughout the story, and Ovid highlights these characteristics. Medea approaches the whole situation very straight-forward. Like 1) convince Pelias that he will comeback to life with my magical herbs. 2) show him that my herbs work with a demonstration 3) make a fake potion 4) get daughters to kill their dad 5) kill Pelias 6) boil him
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1) What is the ethics of revenge Ovid establishes and presents in the Metamorphoses?
2) How does Ovid manipulate the terms of revenge and justice that he inherited from the philosophers in the packet we read about philosophies of justice? I still stand by my previous claim that Ovid does not provide any ethics for revenge. This is because the revenge in Metamorphoses acts as a tool to keep the gods above the mortals. It doesn’t matter if the action was really bad or not. The only thing that matters is the fact that someone has offended the gods; and the level of punishment depends on how offended the god(s) are. For example, Arachne claimed that she was better than the goddess Athena. Athena was a sore loser when Arachne actually was as good if not better than her. Athena felt like she had to put Arachne in her place by making her an example of what happens when mortals try to be gods. The same thing happened when Niobe claimed to be a goddess. Apollo and Artemis murdered her whole family because she offended their mom, Latona. Zeus had affairs with two women related to Cadmus, Europa and Semele, so Juno continually took revenge on anyone related to Cadmus, regardless of if they actually did anything wrong. In addition, Cadmus founded Thebes so then Juno took revenge on all of Thebes just because it had a relation to Cadmus. Ovid’s system of revenge draws from many different philosophers. At first I thought it took after Aristotle’s justice system in the way that “justice rather requires inequality for people who are unequal” because the gods constantly keep the mortals beneath them. I thought this concept could also play into Plato’s idea that justices was a “rational order, with each part performing its appropriate role” because one could argue that gods and mortals must be unequal to keep order in the world. Later, I found my conclusion in the wrong because Plato also believed that “each part [… should] not [interfere] with the proper function of other parts.” This statement would not work with Ovid because the gods ALWAYS interfere with mortal business. However, I found that Hobbes’ idea of justice could reaffirm my original idea of justice existing to keep order. Hobbes believed that justice existed to enforce the social contract. This works with Ovidian revenge in a kind of twisted way. In Ovid, the social contract is really just a contract that the gods have made, outlining that all mortals should be below them, and that this will somehow help the common good (i.e. just the gods – “oh, it’s tough to be a god”). So, the freedom and autonomy of the mortals is taken away to teach a lesson and keep the gods on their pedestals. Ovid draws from many different philosophers to create this system of revenge that is used as a tool for “justice,” but not really because justice is also used as grounds for revenge.the only justification Ovid offers for revenge is that the mortals must be kept in their place no matter what. Ovid’s ethics (moral principles that guide actions) of revenge do not exist among his characters. Instead, many of the characters act out of emotional disturbances, tying into Timo’s revenge structure. For example, Cupid, angered by Apollo’s bragging, shot Apollo and Daphne, which led to that whole chase scene ending with a tree. Another example is Jove and Io. Fearful that Juno would catch him and Io, Jove turned Io into a cow. Then Juno, suspicious of Jove’s “activities” set Argus to watch Io the cow. Jove, unable to bear the suffering of Io, sent Mercury to kill Argus. Then Juno got really pissed, resurrected Argus, and then proceed to torment Io until Jupiter came clean. Neither of the characters, Cupid, Jove, or Juno stopped to think “now did I follow all the necessary steps to enact to revenge?” They just did it because they were angry, jealous, or scared.
I guess the right to revenge depends on your ethics and the audience’s ethics. For example, in the Unwind series, a cop constantly purses, Connor, an escaped criminal. The cop is bent on killing Connor as payback for embarrassing him in front of the world by escaping on his watch. However, the audience may feel like it is stupid for one guy to go after this kid just because the kid tased him. Along that note, is violence a form of justice? Is it ever? Is revenge ever deserved? I can agree and disagree on this part. Like before, I think it depends on the character’s reason and your own personal morals. For instance, if person A accidentally injured or caused harm to person B, then person B should not immediately try to eliminate all of person A’s family along with their pet turtle. On the other and if someone is sadistic psychopath who kills a bunch of people, then I wouldn’t be overly sad if everyone ganged up to eliminate them. The tone of Book 1 in Ovid seems exploratory and observational, as if he is standing on the sidelines watching everything play out and then relaying his thoughts to the audience. Ovid recounts how the world was created, mostly by describing each scene. He then chronicles the tales of popular Roman gods, telling them in a factual rather than fictional way. Like, “Juno turned Io into a cow not because I think it’s what Juno would have done, it’s just what Juno did.” I would say this basic tones remains throughout the text. However, the mood changes. In the Creation stories the mood is chaotic, hopeful, and logical. In the stories about specific gods the mood is jealous, suspicious, angry, and entitled. The victims of Ovid’s revenge stories seem to always be female mortals. I guess one could make a case for Apollo being a victim, but he wasn’t really that much of a victim. Daphne, Syrinx, and Io are very big victims in this story. The sad part is, they are usually powerless to stop their fate. Daphne and Syrinx couldn’t help the fact that Apollo and Pan were both creepy stalkers, and Io couldn’t change the fact that Jove had some serious trust issues with Juno (almost as serious as Juno’s personal problems.) So let’s recap. In Book 1, Ovid does not have any ethics for revenge. Characters simply act off of their emotions. The right to revenge and the justification of revenge depends on the characters and the audience’s own morals. Ovid’s tone is not opinionated, he is just watching form the sidelines and narrating for the crowd. However, the mood is always changing. Does this fit into the revenge factory theme? I think it mostly does. There is emotional disturbance, which causes characters to lash out. and leads to death or self-validation. However, I don’t think the process repeats at all, except for maybe in Io and Jove. It depends. I think Ovid passively speaks of the idea of revenge within The Four Ages. For example, starting at line 172, Ovid writes of the age of iron, where “all forms of evil burst[ed] upon this time” (line 173). People are deceiving each other, killing each other, lusting after each other, and all around being unjust creatures. I would consider this passively covering revenge because Ovid is describing a characteristic of something versus telling a story of someone is enacting revenge. So, where would I consider the start of “active revenge?” I would point to the story of Lycaon’s Feast and the Great Flood, starting on lines 221 and 337, respectively. In Lycaon’s Feast, Jove after Lycaon tries to murder him, decides that all humans must be eliminated from the earth. Here, Jove had one bad experience, and took vengeance upon all species. After turning Lycoan into wolf, Jove proclaims, “‘One house has fallen: many more deserve to; / over the brand earth, bestiality / prevails and starts the Furies up to vengeance” (lines 333-335).
When describing the Second Creation, Ovid highly stresses the impact of the sun, writing “the sodden marshes / swelled with heat, and the fecund seeds of life grew in that soil as in a mother’s womb.” This action of making the sun the main engineer of the creation differs from Ovid’s First Creation because that was organized by a higher being. However, Ovid makes a connection between the First and Second Creation through the word “seeds.” In the First Creation, Ovid mentioned the “discordant seeds / of disconnected elements [were] all heaped together,” and here, in the Second Creation, he shows the seeds, with the help of sunlight, finally growing into something. Connecting to that, the phrase “as in a mother’s womb” further’s the idea of mother earth and everything starting from seeds.
One passage that really caught my eye was “It is when heat and moisture join as one / that life is generated; all living forms / originate from these opposing sources; for even though they are at odds by nature, / the two of them create all living things, and their discordant harmony is suited / to foster varied offspring in abundance.” The fact that Ovid chose to use the words “discordant harmony” side by side was especially surprising. It reminded me of one of our class discussions when we talked about things being in harmony, but not actually going together. After some further thinking, I realized that if heat and moisture, two very opposite things, can come together to form all living things, then maybe using two opposing words like discordant and harmony is the only way to accurately describe the Second Creation. |
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May 2017
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