CLCV 115 Exam 2 - Ovid Stories

Io (Zeus)

Priestess of Hera seduced by Zeus, who was turned into a heifer to be hidden from Hera. Hera, out of jealousy, appoints Argus, the hundred-eyed monster, to guard her, and later sends a gadfly to torment her, leading her to wander the world, and ultimately be restored to human form and give birth to Zeus’s son in Egypt.

Semele (Zeus)

Becomes a lover of Zeus who impregnates her, and Hera disguses herself as Semele’s nurse and convinces her to ask Zeus to appear before her in his full divine form as a testament to his godhood, which kills Semele. Zeus is able to rescue their child before she dies, who is Dionysus.

Ganymede (Zeus)

A Trojan prince who is abducted by Zeus, whot akes the form of an eagle, to serve as a cupbearer on Mount Olympus. This is against Hera’s will, as Ganymede replaces her daughter Hebe.

Europa (Zeus)

A princess abducted by Zeus, who transformed into a beautiful white bull to approach her. Zeus carries her across the sea to Crete, where she bears him three sons, including Minos.

Rape of Persephone (Demeter)

The abduction of the spring goddess Persephone by Hades, who is compelled by Aphrodite and Cupid to take a wife for the underworld. He abducts her while she is picking flowers. They come to a compromise, as Demeter finds out what has happened. Since Persephone has eaten a few pomegranate seeds in the underworld, she must spend part of the year in the underworld with Hades, and the other part in the world of the living with her mother. This explains the changing seasons.

Slaying of Python (Apollo)

Apollo slays the monstrour serpent Python using a thousand arrows at Delphi to claim the oracle for himself.

Daphne (Apollo)

Apollo falls in love with the nymph Daphne after being struck by Cupid’s arrow. As Daphne flees from his relentless pursuot, she pleads with her father, the river god Peneus, to change her appearance. He transforms her into a laurel tree to escape Apollo, who then honors her by making the laurel tree sacred and using its leaves to crown victors.

Phaethon (Apollo)

The son of the sun god Apollo boasted so much that he convinced his father to let him drive the sun chariot for a day., who reluctantly allows it due to an oath on the river Styx He loses control, causing the horses to scorch the Earth and create deserts. To stop him, Zeus strikes him with a lightning bolt, causing him to fall into the river Eridanus and die.

Marsyas (Apollo)

A satyr who invented the music of the flute challenged Apollo to a musical contest, and the winner was allowed to do whatever they wished with the loser. The muses judged the competition, but when Apollo played his lyre upside down and Marsyas couldn’t do the same, Apollo won. Marsyas was punished by being tied to a pine tree by Apollo and flayed alive.

Hyacinth (Apollo)

While playing discus, Apollo accidentally killed the Spartan prince Hyacinthus. In his grief, Apollo transformed his spilled blood into the flower hyacinth.

Coronis (Apollo)

Apollo’s lover who was unfaithful with a moral man named Ischys. Apollo’s raven reported this to him, and Apollo killed Coronis with his own arrow and punished the raven by turning its white feathers black. He also saved his son, Asclepius, from Coronsis’s womb and entrusted him to the centaur Chiron.

Callisto (Artemis)

One of Artemis’ huntress companions and swore to remain unwed. She was loved by Zeus, and was turned into a bear either by Zeus (to hide her) or by Artemis or Hera (who were enraged by her unchastity).

Niobe (Artemis)

The queen of Thebes and daughter of Tantalus boasts that she is superior to the goddess Leto because she has fourteen children. As a punishment for her pride, Apollo and Artemis, Leto’s children, kill of Niobe’s children. Zeus takes pity on her and transforms her into a rock on Mount Sipylus.

Acteon (Niobe)

A hunter who accidentally stumbled upon Artemis while she was bathing. Enraged, she transforms him into a stag, and he was then torn apart by his own hunting hounds, who did not recognize him.

Atalanta (Artemis)

A fierce huntress who participated in the Calydonian Boar Hunt, where she was the first to wound the beast. She is also known for her footrace where she agreed to marry any man who could outrun her. Hippomenes, with the help of Aphrodite, distracted her with golden apples, beat her and won. However, they had sex in the sacred shrine of Cybele, and were turned into lions as punishment.

Arachne (Athena)

A mortal weaver who boasted her skills were superior to Athena’s. Angered, Athena challenged her to a weaving contest. After Arachne’s tapestry, which depicted the gods’ flaws, was deemed flawless, Athena, in a rage, destroyed the tapestry and transformed Arachne into a spider, forever condemning her to weave webs.

Adonis (Aphrodite)

A beautiful young man whose mother, Smyrna, was cursed by Aphrodite to fall in love with her own father, King Cinyras. After a prolonged affair, Cinyras discovered the truth and tried to kill Smyrna, who was transformed into a myrrh tree. The tree was struck by a boar, and Adonis was born from it. Later, Aphrodite fell deeply in love with the adult Adonis and warned him against hunting dangerous animals. He was killed by a wild boar anyway, and, in her grief, Aphrodite transformed his blood into the anemone flower.

Pentheus (Dionysus)

The king of Thebes who is torn apart (sparagmos) by his mother, Agave, and other maenads because he refused to acknowledge his cousin Dionysus as a god and forbade his worship.

Pyramus and Thisbe

Unable to marry due to their families’ rivalry, the two communicate through a crack in their shared wall and plan to elope. They planned to meet secretly under a mulberry tree near the tomb of Ninus. Thisbe arrived first but fled when a lioness with a bloody mouth appeared, dropping her veil as she does so. When Pyramus arrived, he found the blood-stained and torn veil and assumed Thisbe was dead, then stabbing himself with his sword. Thisbe returns and finds Pyramus dead and takes her own life with the same sword. In memory of the lovers, the white mulberry fruit was forever stained dark by their blood.

Hermaphroditus

The son of Aphrodite and Hermes who was loved by the water nymph Salmacis while he was bathing in her pool. She tried seducing him but was rejected. When he entered the water, Salmacis followed, embraced him, and prayed to the gods they would be joined together forever. The gods responded by merging their bodies into one, which created a new being which had both male and female characteristics, and the pool was cursed so that anyone who bathed in it would become a man who behaved in ways traditionally associated with women (effeminate).

Pygmalion and Galatea

The sculptor becomes disgusted with women he sees and resolves to dedicate himself to art and remain celibate. He carves an ivory statue of a woman who he names Galatea and falls in love with the statue, treating it as if it were alive. On Aphrodite’s festival day, he prays at her altar, wishing for a bride who is the living likeness of the statue. Once he comes home, he kisses the statue and she becomes real. The two marry and have a child named Paphos.

Narcissus

Narcissus was a beautiful young man who rejected all his suitors, which led to the suffering of his admirers. After being scorned by Narcissus, one of his suitors prayed for revenge, which is when the goddess of vengeance, Nemesis, answered the prayer and cursed Narcissus to fall in love with his own reflection. Narcissus sees his reflection in a pool of water and falls deeply in love with it. He stays by the pool and pines away for his love, and eventually dies there. When Narcissus dies, the nymphs could not find his body and instead discovered a new flower in its place.

Echo

Echo was known for her excessive talking, and Zeus used her as a distraction for Hera to hide his affairs with other nymphs. When Hera discovered this, she took away Echo’s ability to speak freely and left her only able to repeat the final words of others. After the curse, Echo fell in love with Narcissus but was rejected and wasted away, heartbroken.

Midas

After treating the satyr, Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, to a lavish feast, Midas was granted a wish by Dionysus. Midas asked for everything he touched to be turned into gold, but he soon realized that this was a curse and begged Dionysus to take the gift back. Dionysus told him to bathe in the Pactolus River to rid himself of the curse. The river’s sands became infused with gold dust.

In another story, Midas sided with the satyr Pan over Apollo in a musical contest, and Apollo, angered, cursed him with the ears of a donkey. Humiliated, Midas hid his ears under a Phrygian cap, and only his barber knew the secret. Unable to keep the secret, the barber dug a hole in a measow and whispered the truth into it. A bed of reeds grew from the hole and whenever the wind blew, the reeds would whisper the secret to all who passed by.

Pan and Syrinx

Satyr god of the shepherds and the wild. While chasing the nymph Syrinx, she was cornered at a river and begged her sisters to transform her to escape him. She was turned into a clump of reeds, and when Pan tried to embrace her, he found only the reeds. He then cut some of the reeds and fashioned them into a set of pipes, which were named after her.

Orpheus and Eurydice

A master musician, whose music could charm animals and inanimate objects, marries Eurydice. However, while walking in a field, Eurydice is bitten by a venomous snake and dies instantly. Orpheus travels to the Underworld to plead with Hades and Persephone for her return. His music is so powerful that they agree on the condition that Orpheus must walk ahead of her and not look back until they both reach the surface. As they near the exit, Orpheus is overcome with doubt and fear and turns to look at Eurydice, leading him to lose her forever.