SEPARAT AONIOS OETAEIS PHOCIS AB ARVIS,

TERRA FERAX DUM TERRA FUIT, SED TEMPORE IN ILLO

PARS MARIS ET LATUS SUBITARUM CAMPUS AQUARUM.

MONS IBI VERTICIBUS PETIT ARDUUS ASTRA DUOBUS,

NOMINE PARNASOS, SUPERANTQUE CACUMINA NUBES.

HIC UBI DEUCALION (NAM CETERA TEXTERAT AEQUOR)

CUM CONSORTE TORI PARVA RATE VECTUS ADHAESIT,

CORYCIDAS NYMPHAS ET NUMINA MONTIS ADORANT

FATIDICAMQUE THEMIN, QUAE TUNC ORACLA TENEBAT.

NON ILLO MELIOR QUISQUAM NEC AMANTIOR AEQUI

VIR FUIT AUT ILLA METUENTIOR ULLA DEORUM.

 

PHOCIS LIES BETWEEN BEOTIA AND OETAEA;

IT WAS A WILD LAND WHEN WAS STILL LAND, BUT AT THAT TIME

PART OF IT WAS SEA, AND A FIELD OF WATER STRETCHED FAR AND WIDE.

THERE YOU WILL FIND A MOUNTAIN WHOSE TWIN PEAKS STRETCH TO THE STARS,

CALLED PARNASSUS, WHOSE HEIGHTS EXCEED THE CLOUDS.

HERE (EVERYTHING ELSE WAS UNDER WATER) IS WHERE DEUCALION

AND HIS WIFE WERE CARRIED, CLINGING WITH ALL THEIR MIGHT TO A SMALL RAFT.

THEY PAY HOMAGE TO THE CORYCIAN NYMPHS AND THE DIVINITIES OF THE MOUNTAIN,

AND THE PROPHETIC GODDESS THEMIS, WHO HAD AN ORACLE THERE.

THERE WAS NO MAN BETTER, NO GREATER LOVER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS THAN HIM

NOR ANY WOMAN AS GOD-FEARING AS HER.


 

Now, a second act of the flood begins.  Calling it such (an “act” rather than an episode) is already polemical, however.  The division of the Metamorphoses into episodes is always a little contentious.  The poem was divded into “episodes” until the Middle Ages, it seems – Ovid certainly never divided it that way himself.  Therefore, any discussion of where episode breaks come is essentially a debate over which non-canon, arbitrary division we prefer.  Consequently, most scholars avoid the question – Holzberg (1998) inste provides a discussion of the much more academically interesting and pertinent topic of the division of the Metamorphoses into books.  Tarrant, whose critical text I use, does not include episodes in his text.  I, however, in my capacity as author of this comic, am essentially a translator; thus, I have to take a stance on division of episodes if I wish to include them at all.  I have some guidance from professional translators: I always try to check my translations against a published one.  I really like Martin (2010) and Raeburn (2004), the former for his poetic style, the latter for his scholarly loyalty to the original Latin.  For what it is worth, both of them would have started a new episode here, labelled “Deucalion and Pyrrha”.  I think these protagonists of our new story are important, and I appreciate that events are about to progress very differently from the preceeding text.  However, I am a bit radical in my reading of the flood as a continuous sequence that begins when Jupiter looks down on humanity’s sins after the Gigantomachy (approximately ll. 163); Deucalion and Pyrrha’s story (spoiler warning) will provide the resolution to a conflict that began many lines earlier.

I generally play fast and loose with episode transitions.  I also don’t always emphasise them.  You might notice my little titles in the top left of pages 1, 13, 17, and 18 (I just realised I skipped labelling “The Flood”, which started on page 28… time for a retcon!).  Since my line-to-page associations are equally arbitrary, I don’t see a reason to treat them as definitive.  I think, given his emphasis on linking passages and references to earlier parts of the poem, Ovid constructed the Metamorphoses to flow as a continuous stream of narrative (a carmen perpetuum, to quote the proem).  It certainly makes sense in light of the panta rei attitude to transformation expressed (spoiler warning) in the final book.

Right, enough about episodes… As I mentioned above, we’re starting the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha.  I decided the poignancy of this moment require a page with minimal dialogue, so there are some things depicted visually that the Latin does a better job of explaining.  For now, you know only that the man’s name is Deucalion and he is with his wife (Pyrrha, who will be named later).  You can already begin to understand why Deucalion has the nickname, “the Greek Noah”; he and his wife are the last people on Earth.  However, unlike Noah, he did not bring his relatives or children, nor did the couple manage to rescue any animals (don’t worry, the animals will be fine).  Our two heroes are particularly alone here, as Barchiesi (2004) points out.  They are bereft of their children, who feature in Apollodorus’ version.  Indeed, by leaving them without children, Ovid erases Hellenes, their son and founder of many Greek peoples and the mythical origin of Hellas, the Greek name for Greece.  Ovid has chosen one interpretation of the myth over the other, it seems.  His choice will make some difference, but I think it might be above all for enabling the image I tried to draw: a picture of forbidding solitude, at the end of the world.

Parnassus is the name of the mountain in the centre of the page (placed on my crudely drawn map in the upper right corner).  Mt. Parnassus is a setting for a variety of myths: Orpheus spent his childhood there and the mountain was associated with Apollo (you might take this as Ovid dropping a hint that the god will show up soon….); it is also one of the haunts of the Muses.  It is fitting that this mountain is associated with important mythological figures of literature.  All of them will make major appearances in the Metamorphoses, and Ovid is always ready and proud to declare his work’s poetic identity and roots.