Metamorphoses

Ovid (43 B.C. - A.D. 17) was the favorite Latin poet of the Renaissance, and the Metamorphoses was his most favored poem. Its fifteen books explain more than 250 myths in chronological order, beginning with the organization of Chaos into separate entities and ending with the deification of Julius Caesar. A bodily change or transformation of some kind marks each story.

Amongst the best-known stories in the poem are those of the lovers Echo and Narcissus (book 3); Perseus and Andromeda (book 5); Pyramus and Thisbe (book5); Orpheus and Eurydice (book 10); the flight of Daedalus and Icarus (book 8); and Midas´s golden touch (book 11).

Quick, charming, and inventive, the Metamorphoses has delighted scholars, critics, and common readers for two millenia.