Ovid's Metamorphoses Essay

Ovid's Metamorphoses is considered a masterpiece in Roman literature. It was translated by the great poet John Dryden It begins with the creation of the world “
Ovid continues further and describes the creation of man
Then carries on with mythological stories passing through the founding of Rome and to the reign of the emperor Augustus in Ovid's own time. The poem is allegorical, using various figures from Greek Mythology and Roman Legend to embody human virtues and sins.
Pygmalion decides to live as a bachelor after seeing the sins committed by females at that age
His desire to love and be loved has urged him to sculpt a statue that of a female, and he put all his skills in creating this statue that it becomes a perfect image. Pygmalion
fell in love with his statue and treated it as a real girl. He prayed to the gods to grant him a companion like his statue;
Venus, the Goddess of Love heard his prayer and granted him his wish the statue “yielded to his touch, and lost its hardness, altering under his fingers … The lover is stupefied, and joyful, but uncertain, (Klein 269-270).