Hughes/Ovid- Metamorphoses

Question 1

Creation, Hughes- shorter, simplified sentences. Undermining the power of the gods? More imperative than Ovid, gives power to the author

Answer 1

I summon the supernatural beings

Question 2

Creation, Hughes- accusative, emphasis on crueller nature of the gods

Answer 2

You did it for your own amusement.

Question 3

Creation- a disguise, more sinister than Ovid, gives more agency to nature

Answer 3

Nature wore only one mask-/since called Chaos

Question 4

Creation- Ovid’s version of Hughes nature wearing a mask; contrast, not personified at all

Answer 4

Chaos, a raw and undivided mass, Naught but a lifeless bulk

Question 5

Creation- in Ovid, the elements fight against each other but Hughes introduces the modern sense of war

Answer 5

arsenal of entropy/Already at war within it

Question 6

Creation- Hughes emphasises emptiness with short monosyllabic lines/words that are rare in Ovid

Answer 6

No sun
No moon
No earth
No ocean

Question 7

Creation- Hughes less grandeur of the creation process

Answer 7

He rolled earth into a ball

Question 8

Creation- Ovid, less human action

Answer 8

He rounded it into a mighty sphere

Question 9

Creation- Hughes, god teaches rather than commands, nature seems to have more control

Answer 9

‘educated’, ‘instructed’, ‘directed’, ‘taught’

Question 10

Creation- Hughes more gruesome, uses the same alliteration but seems more harsh and uncomfortable

Answer 10

clogged before in the dark huddle of chaos

Question 11

Creation- Ovid, simple description of darkness without added monstrosity, more personification

Answer 11

in darkness blind/long buried.

Question 12

Creation- Hughes, more glorification of humans

Answer 12

Nothing was any closer to the gods

Question 13

Creation- Ovid, doesn’t present humans as quite as similar to god

Answer 13

A holier creature, of loftier mind

Question 14

Creation- Hughes, anachronisms. Double meaning- modern science, but also supernatural substance that comes from the body of a medium and forms material

Answer 14

‘sculpted man from his own ectoplasm’ rather than ‘seed divine’, ‘after Jove had castrated Saturn’

Question 15

Creation- Hughes, theme of dust

Answer 15

cradled in its dust un-earthly crystals

Question 16

Creation- Hughes, much more critical of humans, reflects attitudes of the time

Answer 16

These hybrids were deaf/To the intelligence of heaven. They were revolted/By the very idea/of a god and sought only/How to kill each other.

Question 17

Creation- Hughes fascinated by Ovid’s theme of states lingering even after metamorphosis

Answer 17

Hughes: ‘His every movement possessed/By the same rabid self’ Ovid: ‘yet kept some human trace’

Question 18

Creation- Ovid’s simple ending

Answer 18

drown the human race

Question 19

Creation- Hughes’ extrapolation in a stand alone couplet

Answer 19

Drowned mankind, imploring limbs outspread,/Floats like a plague of dead frogs.

Question 20

Semele- Juno seems more aggressive in Hughes, in Ovid she seems weaker and jealous

Answer 20

Ovid - ‘She means to be a mother by great Jove-/Luck hardly ever mine.’, Hughes- ‘More than I ever gave him.’

Question 21

Semele- Hughes, references to nuclear warfare

Answer 21

‘known in heaven/as the general deterrent’, ‘became a silhouette of sooty ashes’

Question 22

Semele- Hughes, anachronisms

Answer 22

‘I shall destroy that whore’, ‘His brat is in her womb’, ‘Something about it smells fishy to me’, ‘That babe was then inserted surgically/Into a makeshift uterus, in Jove’s thigh’

Question 23

Semele- Hughes description of Bacchus, highlights Ovid’s central theme

Answer 23

describes Bacchus as ‘reborn’

Question 24

Pentheus and Bacchus- Hughes, emphasis on female violence apparent in Ovid, imagery of nature

Answer 24

‘And the whole horde of women/Pile on top of him/Like a pack of wild dogs,/Like a squabbling heap of vultures.’

Question 25

Pentheus and Bacchus- Hughes, emphasis on female violence apparent in Ovid, imagery of blood

Answer 25

Her red fingers hooked into the hair/Letting the blood splash over her face and breasts

Question 26

Pentheus and Bacchus- Hughes' emphasises criticism of Pentheus for his doubt of god, elongates his speech

Answer 26

Metaphysicians, where are your systems?/What happened to the great god Reason?

Question 27

Tireisias- Hughes, emphasis on the human indulgence of the gods

Answer 27

Ovid: 'warmed with nectar', Hughes: 'draining another goblet of ambrosia...drowsed in bliss beside him'

Question 28

Tireisias- Hughes, emphasis on the human indulgence of the gods, and Juno's disapproval

Answer 28

It needs more than a mushroom in your cup

Question 29

Tireisias- Hughes anthropomorphism, sexuality

Answer 29

Ovid: described as 'mating', Hughes: 'knotted as before in copulation'

Question 30

Tireisias- Hughes, use of modern pun

Answer 30

strolling to watch the birds and the bees

Question 31

Tireisias- Hughes, more sympathetic towards Juno?

Answer 31

Ovid: her rage is described as 'out of all proportion', Hughes: 'angrier/Than is easily understandable' could be a pun on inability to recognise female struggles? Hughes also gives the man the last word with direct reported speech

Question 32

Tireisias- Hughes, emphasis on change

Answer 32

male as any man

Question 33

Pygmalion- Hughes, makes Pygmalion a more sympathetic character, places the blame more on women

Answer 33

'so he lived/In the solitary confinement/of a phobia.'

Question 34

Pygmalion- Hughes, he has less of a choice than Ovid, seems to be controlled by a greater force whereas in Ovid he decides to

Answer 34

She moved into his hands,/She took possession of his fingers

Question 35

Pygmalion- Hughes, he becomes more threatening than in Ovid

Answer 35

Hughes: 'he half wanted to bruise her', Ovid: 'fears the limbs may darken with a bruise.'

Question 36

Arachne- Hughes emphasises her boldness, more direct and assertive

Answer 36

Ovid: 'Let her contend with me', Hughes: 'I challenge Minerva/To weave better than I weave.'

Question 37

Arachne- Hughes again more proactive in challenging Minerva

Answer 37

Ovid: 'Why doesn't Pallas come herself?', Hughes: 'I make up my own mind,/And I think I always did./If the goddess dare practise what she preaches/Why doesn't she take up my challenge?'

Question 38

Arachne- Hughes emphasises her ignorance but also her destructiveness

Answer 38

She plunged with all her giddy vanity/into destruction

Question 39

Arachne- Hughes, Minerva's attack seems more vicious

Answer 39

Hughes: 'One below between the eyes,then another/Then a third, and a fourth.' Ovid: 'three times, four times, struck Arachne on the forehead'

Question 40

Arachne- Hughes, Arachne is more indignant and takes more control of her fate

Answer 40

Ovid: 'unable to endure it', Hughes: 'She refused to live/with the injustice.'

Question 41

Arachne- Hughes gives Arachne more redemption in allowing her a final extra stanza (and reflects his interest in states lingering after change)

Answer 41

Ovid: 'pursues her former skill', Hughes: 'Her touches/Deft and swift and light as when they were human'

Question 42

Salmacius and Hermaphroditus- Hughes plays even further on the sexual

Answer 42

'let her lust flow hot and startled...open as a flower that offers itself,/wet with nectar.'

Question 43

Salmacius and Hermaphroditus- Hughes also plays on Hermaphroditus' status as a victim

Answer 43

Ovid: 'he knew not what love was', Hughes: 'The boy blushed- he had no idea/what she was talking about'

Question 44

Salmacius and Hermaphroditus- Hughes frequently describes him as young and innocent

Answer 44

He plays, careless as a child/Roams about happily

Question 45

Salmacius and Hermaphroditus- Ovid says she is struck with fear, but Hughes emphasises how she is entirely self interested, explains it more

Answer 45

That scared Salmacius, she thought he really might go.

Question 46

Salmacius and Hermaphroditus- Hughes echoes Ovid in calling her a snake/octopus but plays more violently on her status as a predator

Answer 46

And as the octopus-/A tangle of constrictors, nippled with suckers,/That drag towards a maw-/Embraces its prey.

Question 47

Salmacius and Hermaphroditus- Hughes condemnation of the gods

Answer 47

The gods heard her frenzy-and smiled.

Question 48

Pyramus and Thisbe- Hughes cynical addition of commentary on the story

Answer 48

For angry reasons, no part of the story

Question 49

Pyramus and Thisbe- Hughes plays strongly on the negativity of their love that is rarely mentioned in Ovid

Answer 49

Through signs/Their addiction to eachother/was absolute, helpless, terminal.

Question 50

Pyramus and Thisbe- negativity, Hughes describes their hole through which they speak

Answer 50

This crack, this dusty crawl-space for a spider

Question 51

Pyramus and Thisbe- paints Pyramus as bolder than she is in ovid

Answer 51

She embraced his corpse, fierce as any lion

Question 52

Pyramus and Thisbe- Hughes emphasises the sympathy of the gods

Answer 52

Ovid: 'the gods received her prayer', Hughes: 'The gods were listening and were touched.'

Question 53

Hughes Introduction- what he is fascinated/puts emphasis on from Ovid

Answer 53

'human passion in extremis' when 'the all-too-human victim stumbles out into the mythic arena and is transformed.'

Question 54

Hughes Introduction- says the Metamorphoses reflect his time

Answer 54

register the psychological gulf that opens at the end of an era

Question 55

Sarah Annes Brown, 'The Metamorphoses of Ovid from Chaucer to Ted Hughes'; special bond between our time and Ovid's

Answer 55

implying a special bond between our own age and Ovid's...such a claim is dubious: it is debatable how much impact the death of an obscure Jew would have had on a sophisticated Roman

Question 56

Sarah Annes Brown, 'The Metamorphoses of Ovid from Chaucer to Ted Hughes'; anachronisms

Answer 56

There is certainly plenty in Hughes to jar on the reader in search of classical remoteness...startlingly anachronistic

Question 57

Sarah Annes Brown, 'The Metamorphoses of Ovid from Chaucer to Ted Hughes'; unpleasantness but Hughes actually uses very similar words to Ovid

Answer 57

'a number of unpleasant touches...might seem to owe little to Ovid's famous urbanity and elegance' but 'words, not just objects, are subject to metamorphosis' like in Ovid

Question 58

Sarah Annes Brown, 'The Metamorphoses of Ovid from Chaucer to Ted Hughes'; changes Hughes made to Pygmalion tale

Answer 58

makes his misogyny 'unambiguously pathological' he is 'less unequivocally solicitous than Ovid's...The line ending is poised so that we must wait to learn that his strange wish is in some way justified, and the hint of sadism still lingers.' Hughes adds more 'sexual force'

Question 59

Sarah Annes Brown, 'The Metamorphoses of Ovid from Chaucer to Ted Hughes'; two things at once

Answer 59

Hughes is...engaged by the idea of being two things at once