Retelling of Arethusa

So my story is the story of the woman Arethusa. Arethusa is a very beautiful woman, but she hates that her beauty attracts men. She is in to much more manly things like hunting. One day she is out hunting and its very hot. She sees this amazing pool of clear water and decides to go for a swim. She strips down and enters the cool water. After swimming for awhile she sees a ripple in the water and runs to the bank. The god Alpheus comes out of the water and asks her where she is going. Her clothes are on the opposite bank of the stream so she decides to abandon them and runs away from Alpheus. He chases for a very long time, but he won't give up so Arethusa calls on Diana for help. Diana creates a fog to cover Arethusa, but Alpheus still won't give up looking for her. He is about to find her when Diana helps one more time and turns Arethusa into a stream. However, Alpheus returns to the form of a stream as well and mixes with Arethusa's water. Diana once again intervenes and opens a gorge for Arethusa who enters it and is free of Alpheus finally. She travels underground for a while before returning to the world again.

The transformation of course is the change of Arethusa into a stream. We have talked a lot about the extremes of human emotion that Ovid includes in his stories. In this story the extreme emotion is lust. A lust that consumes Alpheus so that he will not give up having Arethusa.

The Imaginary Life

The main connection in The Imaginary Life by David Moulaf is to Plato’s Symposium. When he first arrives in Tomis, Ovid hates it and can see no beauty in his place of exile. He dreams of Rome and the life he had there writing poetry and appreciating the arts. He sees these people he has come to live with, almost, as inferior to him. They have no time for the arts and when he tries to teach the grandson Latin, the boy is an unwilling participant in the process. When he first comes to Tomis he has two main complaints. One, there is no color and he constantly talks about the colors he remembers and loved from his time in Rome. Second, he cannot communicate. None of the people in Tomis speak Roman and he has not yet learned their language. For the first time in his life he is very much alone.
Then one day something amazing happens. Ovid is out on the steppes taking a walk and suddenly he sees a flash of color. He soon discovers that it is a single scarlet poppy growing out on the steppes. He is so overcome with joy at the sight of this tiny flower that he sits on the ground to observe it. He says “I love this poppy. I shall watch over it.” Ovid has come to the first rung in the ladder of love. He has found an inanimate, like a rock, and come to love it as he would a person. This was discussed in both the Symposium and A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud. After he discovers his poppy, his tone about the place around him changes. He talks more of the small joys he finds everyday in his life in Tomis. One of these times is when he accompanies them for the first time on the hunt and he experiences the running of the grave mounds. He has climbed the next rung of the ladder and he sees that everything possess some kind of beauty.
His final rungs of the ladder are attained with the coming of the child. Ovid is immediately taken with the child the first time he sees him. Ovid obsesses over the Child and his thoughts are only of him for several seasons. Finally the child is captured and Ovid climbs another rung of the ladder. Ovid himself says the Child is not beautiful and never really describes a physical characteristic about the Child that would cause him to be pleasing to the eye. However, Ovid loves him and cares for him because he can see the Child’s inner beauty; the beauty of his soul. He is fascinated by the way that the Child sees the world and sees the uniqueness and thus the beauty in the Child’s view.
At the end of the book, it seems that Ovid has climbed to the last rung of the ladder and grasped the idea of true beauty. Ovid lies dying in the grass watching the child at the nearby stream and describes the scene. Although he is describing the scene to us, he seems to understand that beauty is a concept to be grasped and not an idea or anything of a physical nature. Ovid dies having understood the idea of true beauty.
Another connection to The Imaginary Life is in the theme of the class; all that is in the past possess the present. This is seen in two main ways throughout the novel. One is Ovid looking back on his own life. Throughout the book Ovid looks back on his childhood and reflects on the way it influenced his later life and even his exile. He talks about his father’s disapproval driving him from the farm and his brother’s death bringing the unwanted burden of heir to him. Most importantly he talks of a child he knew as a boy his father’s ranch. He is convinced that the child he found in the woods is the same the child as the one from his boyhood. This is part feels so attached to the Child; he was part of his past. The other way Ovid talks expresses this theme is through is talk of the future. First, he talks about how he now sees how far Rome has come from a place like Tomis. He recognizes Tomis as a starting point and sees that places like it have been shaped into great cities like Rome. He says that he is “the product of generation after generation of wishing to thus.” He also talks of the future and often reflects on what kind of person the reader is and he often makes references to the reader as possibly a god. He understands the concept that each generation influences the next.

Ovid's Metamorphisis

So far Ovid's metamorphisis is my favorite book that we have read for class. I really enjoy his writing, and find myself captured by the stories he tells. As we have discussed in class they are the extremes of human emotion and I find myself responding emotionally to them. I believe that shows that Ovid really is a good writer. He writes stories that evoke emotion and allows his readers to live out the experiences of his characters.

I am always amazed at how ancient literature can still be relevant today. That is something that has only been reinforced by this class. The stories of Ovid are things that we still see today, in one form or another. Like the story of Callisto who becomes pregnant and then is cast out from her family. There are stories of young girls being abandoned by their family on the talk shows all the time. Also the story of Echo and Narcissus is another that still has a place in modern day. Unreturned love is more and more common today and while the men may not fall madly in love with themselves, they usually think that they are pretty awesome. The story of Midas is a prefect example of the saying "be careful what you wish for."

More than any other book that we have read, to me, Ovid's Metamorphisis shows up more in modern day. I have throughly enjoyed hearing everyone's stories and look forward to more Ovid on friday and perhaps meet more of Ovid's talk show guests.

The Flaying of Marsysas

Today in class we talked about the Tale of Marsysas from the tales from Ovid. Dr. Sexton told us that this story was not included in our translation of Ovid so I decided to do some research of my own on the story.

Here is the myth:

The story of Marsyas and Apollo is superficially simple: Athena, having invented the flute, realizes how she distorts her face in playing it. Cursing the instrument, she throws it away, whereupon it is picked up by Marsyas, who either doesn’t hear the curse or prefers to ignore it. Marsyas becomes a skilled player, so much so that he challenges Apollo to a contest.
The god wins, of course, though it is interesting to note that it is not always through honest means. Nearly all accounts indicate Apollo, rather than match Marsyas with instrument, plays upon his lyre; when it becomes apparent that Marsyas may, in fact, win, Apollo turns his lyre upside down and continues. Marsyas, with a flute, cannot. Whether through trickery or divine skill, what follows is defeat. As the terms of the contest clearly stated winner could do to the

loser whatever he liked, Apollo flays Marsyas alive.
“Why do you strip myself from me?” he cried.
“O I give in, I lose, forgive me now,
No hollow shin-bone’s worth this punishment.”
And as he cried the skin cracked from his body
In one wound, blood streaming over muscles,
Veins stripped naked, pulse beating; entrails could be
Counted as they moved; even the heart shone red
Within his breast.
The tale ends with Marsyas becoming the river of the same name: either through the tears of the contest’s spectators (woodland deities, mostly), or by his own blood as it left him.

As expected this is a very gruesome account. It makes my skin crawl to read it. As we were discussing in class it seems a human extreme. To have your very skin torn from your body is a torture that I can't even imagine. Ovid certainly seems to have quite an imagination for torture.

Here is the painting called "The Flaying of Marsysas"

Arethusa

Over spring break I read Arethus from the Tales from Ovid. At first I was very skeptical because the story was only about 3 pages long. I wondered how anything could really happen in a story that was only 3 pages long. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I read the story.

The three pages were filled with action. I did enjoy the fact that the story was about the woman. Her metamorphisis was based on a one-sided love connection, which I think might be a pattern in these stories, based on the things we've discussed in class. Also a pattern that I am expecting to see is that the changes, are caused by gods since they are the only ones that would have that kind of power. There are no exceptions in my story. Arethus is changed into a stream by the goddess Diana. I found my story extremely interesting and I am really looking forward to hearing about the other stories that people have read. I have a feeling that despite the fact that all these stories are about metamorphisis, that they will all be very different and all entertaining.

Death of a Child

In today's world we have become desensitized to many things. We see and hear things on TV everyday that would horrify and shock our grandparents and older relatives. Rap songs talk a lot about hoes, bitches, drugs use, sex, you name it there is probably a rap song with it. TV really isn't much better also having tons of sex, drugs and foul language. We see tons of things about rape and murder on TV, but constantly think that none of that will happen to us. The death we see on TV doesn't really seem to affect us that much anymore.

In class we talked about how Euripedes really understood tradegy and really understood how to tug at our heart strings. On Friday we watched the scene where Hector's wife learns that her son is to be killed. It was a heart wrenching scene, one of the worst I have ever seen on film. I believe in today's world this tradegy is something that still effects people very deeply. The death of a child is considered one of the worst things to ever happen and Euripedes understands that. Recently a teacher from my hometown lost her one year old son. I had never met the baby and barely knew the teacher, but as soon as I heard about it my heart went out to her and her family. There have been several sites, including a facebook group, created for people to send their condolences and support to the family. No matter how much our culture is exposed to I believe that the death of a child will never be something that people can deal with or just brush off. As we saw in the movie the death of a child deeply effects people no matter how close you were to the child or the parents.

My Favorite Part of Lysistrata

I throughly enjoyed Lysistrata as a whole, it was crude and funny. I believe that Ruden did a stellar job translating the jokes to the modern day. One particular part of the story I found especially enjoyable. Cinesias comes to visit his wife, Myrrhine, and he wants to have sex with her because he has been deprived for so long. Lysistrata greets him and then calls down his wife.

His wife is distracted by their baby so he sends the baby away and then asks her to have sex right there on the floor. She refuses and then proceeds to come up with many excuses to avoid having sex with him before running off and leaving him in a "compromised" position. Although we didn't talk about it much in class I believe this is one of the best examples of womanly wit in the play. A regular Athenian women would never have denied her man sex, and here Myrrhine didn't really do that either. She used her intelligence to not only to keep from having breaking her pact, but also to advance their cause. By teasing her husband he is more likely to get others to do what the women want. It was an enjoyable scene mostly for show of a strong female character that I always enjoy.

Athenian Women

For some reason I had this idea in my head that Athenian women had more power than other anicient women. I had an idea that they had more say in what was done and had more freedom with their lives. However, after reading the commentary on Athenian Women, I realize that I was dead wrong. They were more repressed than most other women. Their lives were made harder by the fact that many male Athenians were misogynists and wanted as little contact with women as possible. It makes me wonder what the women thought about their situation. I think they probably didn't realize their repression and were just happy to be provided for and to have their children provided for.

This fact made me enjoy the character of Lysistra even more than I already did. She is a strong female character who knows what she wants and exactly how she is going get it. She is interesting and funny. As Sarah Ruden says in her preface "She is just wonderful to have around, comforting and inspiriting as well as entertaining, a Joan of Arc you can go to a bar with."

Flyting Between Sisters

Most of my flyting over the years has happened between me and my sister. Being siblings close in age who shared a room, we had our fair share of fights. We are two very different people and the fighting was endless, especially when we hit middle school.

I don't remember that exact content of any specific fight, but I can come up with one that is pretty close to how a real fight would have gone. HER:Can I borrow a shirt to wear to school today? ME: Which one? HER:I don't know which one can I wear? ME: I don't really want you to wear my shirts, you'll stretch them out. HER: You're such a bitch, why don't you ever let me borrow anything. ME: You're the bitch, I'm so nice to you I give you rides everywhere. I'm too nice to you. HER: No you're not. You're a big bitch. All you do is tell mom what I say and tattle on me all the time. ME: Do not. Someone has to be nice to mom and dad, you only care about yourself. You're so self-centered! HER: Well at least I have friends. ME: You're an asshole!! The fight would eventually end up in a physical fight and we were always yelling. We've become closer since then, but we still fight because we have to share and a car. We both think that we deserve to have the car more.

First Thoughts On Lysistrata

Lysistrata is indeed full of crude sexual humor. I believe it is very well translated by Sarah Ruden. She does a good job of making as many jokes as possible, funny to a modern audience. I found the play extremely funny, enjoyable and quick read.

One of my favorite characters from this story is the choruses of old men and women. Today in class we were talking about how today we look to "shelter" older people instead of them sheltering us, but that definitely doesn't apply here. The old members of the story are as crude as their younger counterparts. They mostly argue with other and don't hold back on the insults. At one point the chorus of women says "Fine. Try it. Here's a cheek for you to smack. And then I'll tear your balls off like a bitch." By the end they have resolved their differences and have become one united chorus, but their arguments are definitely a constant source of enjoyment throughout the play.

Line From Aristophanes

In the Symposium Aristophanes, during his story on the three genders, says "For the intense yearning which each of them has toward the other does not appear to be the desire of intercourse, but of something else which the soul desires, but cannot tell..."

This is one of my favorite lines from the Symposium. It is something that in modern day everyone wants to find. We are all looking for our better or, at least, other half. Some people don't believe in only one person for everyone, but in the end we are all trying to find a partner in life that we can share everything with. That relationship, when we finally find it, it definately about more than sex. As is pointed out in the Symposium, if love is only the love of beauty then it will fade, but I believe the love of the person will remain much longer.

I believe that this quote speaks to all people. Many people know when they've found "the one" based on the fact that their relationship is deeper and has gone beyond the physical. It is something that still speaks to every modern day couple.