Ted Hughes: Tales From Ovid

Relationship to Classical text Twenty-four passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Hughes Passages do not use the same order as Ovid.

         Creation; Four Ages; Flood; Lycaon (865-80) (Lycaon - Ovid Met 1.192-243);

         Phaethon (880-96) (Ovid Met 1.750-2.366);

         Callisto and Arcas (896-900) (Ovid Met 2.409-508);

         The Rape of Proserpina (901-11) (Ovid Met 5.346-571);

         Arethusa (911-14) (Ovid Met 5.409; 5.487-508; 5.572-643; 6.632-6);

         Tiresias (914-15) (Ovid Met 3.322-388);

         Echo and Narcissus (915-23) (Ovid Met 3.339-512);

         Erisychthon (923-30) (Ovid Met 8.738-878);

         Semele (930-34) (Ovid Met 3.259-315);

         Peleus and Thetis (934-36) (Ovid Met 11.217-406);

         Actaeon (937-42) (Ovid Met 3.138-252);

         Myrrha (942-53) (Ovid Met 10.298-514);

         Venus and Adonis (and Atlanta) (953-63) (Ovid Met 10.300-739);

         Pygmalion (964-68) (Ovid Met 10.243-97);

         Hercules and Dejanira (969-78) (Ovid Met 9.101-33);

         The Birth of Hercules (978-80) (Ovid Met 9.284-316);

         The Death of Cygnus (980-84) (Ovid Met 12.11-145);

         Arachne (984-91) (Ovid Met 6.5-145);

         Bacchus and Pentheus (991-1004) (Ovid Met 3.511-733);

         Midas (1004-12) (Ovid Met 11.85-193);

         Niobe (1012-21) (Ovid Met 6.146-312);

         Salmacis and Hermaphroditus (1021-24) (Ovid Met 4.285-388);

         Tereus (1024-36) (Ovid Met 6.424-674).

Comment  Four of the 'passages' were first published in Hofmann and Lasdun (eds) After Ovid: New Metamorphoses : ‘Creation, Four Ages’, Flood (pp3-20); ‘Venus and Adonis’ (pp 245-58); ‘Bacchus and Pentheus’ (pp94-109); ‘Salmacis and Hermaphroditus’ (p.114-17).

See also individual poem entries for further analysis.