Reading Notes: Ovid's Metamorphoses

All stories from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000)

Deucalion and Pyrrha

Jupiter, Neptune, and the rivers work together to create a flood. Some people and animals survive the initial flood, but die of starvation. 

Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha land their rowboat on the top of Mount Parnassus. Jupiter sees them, the lone survivors, and orders the waters to retreat.

Deucalion and Pyrrha are distressed at being the last people on earth, and they pray to the gods to change it. The goddess orders them to throw rocks behind them. The rocks turn into people. 

Io

Jupiter is his usual terrible self, rapes Io.

Juno sees that Jupiter is gone and goes down to Earth to catch him in the act. Jupiter turns Io into a cow, and when Juno arrives, she asks him where the cow is from. Jupiter, always a quick-thinker, says she came from the earth. Juno takes the cow as a gift, and Jupiter allows it, so as not to cause suspicion. Juno leaves the cow under the guard of Argus, the many-eyed man. When Io sees her reflection in the river, she screams a cow scream and runs away.

Io finds her father, Inachus, and follows him around. He takes a liking to the cow, and she writes her tale on the ground. Inachus only seems worried that he will never have grandchildren, only grand-calves. While Inachus is distracted, Argus shows up and takes Io again. 

Jupiter orders Mercury to assassinate Argus. Mercury disguises himself as a shepherd, complete with stolen sheep. Argus hears Mercury playing his reed pipe, and invites him to sit down. Mercury tries to put Argus to sleep with his magic pipes, but Argus only sleeps a few eyes at a time. Finally, he falls asleep, and Mercury beheads him. Juno puts all of Argus's eyes on the tail feathers of a peacock, her sacred bird, and sends a Fury to terrify Io. Io runs away.

Jupiter hears Io pleading for him to change her back into a human, and, after he calms Juno down, he does. 

Phaethon and the Sun and Phaethon's Ride and The Death of Phaethon

After Io's cow ordeal, she gives birth to a son by Jupiter, Epaphus. Ephaphus has a friend, Phaethon, who insists that he is the son of Apollo. Ephaphus doesn't believe it, so Phaethon asks his mother for proof. She tells him to go ask Apollo himself, at sunrise.

He makes his way to Apollo's palace, where he barges into the throne room, where Apollo is sitting with other, minor gods. He demands that Apollo acknowledge him as his son, and Apollo says he'll do a favor for Phaethon as proof of his parentage. Phaethon asks to drive the sun across the sky for a day. Apollo, terrified of what could happen, tries to dissuade him, but Phaethon is insistent. 

Apollo gives Phaethon sunscreen and tells him to hold the reins tightly, and that the horses know the way, and that he just has to follow the chariot tracks from Apollo's earlier rides. The gates open, and the horses shoot out. Phaethon doesn't hold the reins tight enough, and the horses go crazy. They leave the track and heat the constellations up. Phaethon looks down and discovers he is afraid of heights, and then looks up to see the constellation Scorpio looking ready to sting. He drops the reins entirely, and the horses weave wildly up and down, setting the Earth on fire. The Earth cries for help.

Jupiter hears the Earth, and sets out to destroy the fire. He shoots Phaethon with a lightning bolt, killing him. He lands next to a river and is buried by nymphs. Phaethon's mother is consumed with grief; his sisters are turned into poplar trees; and his best friend (lover?) Cycnus turned into a swan. Apollo decides to never ride the sun across the sky again, and the other gods try to talk him out of it. 

Callisto

Callisto is one of Diana's Hunters and a favorite of Trivia. Jupiter disguises himself as Diana and rapes her, because he's Jupiter and that's his whole thing. 

Nine months later, Callisto and Diana (the real one this time) are bathing in a sacred stream; Diana sees that Callisto is pregnant, and makes her leave.

After she gives birth to a baby boy, Juno decides to turn Callisto into a bear. (Sidenote- why does Juno always blame the women that Jupiter assaults? It's literally always 100% his fault) 

Years later, Callisto's son, Arcas, is out hunting. He runs into his mother, and is about to kill her when Jupiter turns both of them into constellations, the Big Bear and the Little Bear. 

Smele

Jupiter impregnated Smele, and Juno, rather than harassing him about it, she attacks her. She disguises herself as an old woman, and talks Smele into asking Jupiter to show her his true form, to prove that he is indeed who he claims to be. 

Smele asks Jupiter for a gift, and Jupiter says he'll give her anything she wishes for (Sidenote- why do the gods always do that. It never ends well. Like, ever.). She asks him to show her his true form, and he does, though he tries to show a weaker version of his godly form. Smele is still burned to a crisp, but her fetus, the unborn god Bacchus, survives, and is sewn onto Jupiter's thigh to complete his gestation. 

Jupiter and Semele by Gustave Moreau (source)