Week 2, Reading Diary B: Ovid's Metamorphosis I

For some reason, this half was a little harder for me to get into. I don't know if it was me or the stories, or the fact that the weather has been so nice the past couple of days that I didn't want to sit in front of a computer reading. I compromised and printed out the stories for me to read on paper. I'm old and old school, for some reason reading on a laptop just doesn't float my boat. Anyway, on to:

Ovid's Metamorphosis I

Echo
I thought this was a very interesting story. Continuing on from the first half, again, Jupiter and sex. This man! This time he is not out pillaging and raping, but arguing with him wife about whether women or men enjoy sex more. They decide to go to this guy, Tiresias, who had been turned from a man, to a woman, and back to a man--all by whacking two snakes on the head who had been mating (WTF?) Anyway, he confirms Jupiters accusation that "women do gain more...from the pleasures of love". This ticks off Juno off so she blinds the man, however, Jupiter feels kind of bad and makes him knowledgeable of the future...seems legit!
The story goes on to talk about Narcissus and what a pain he would be because he would fall in love with himself. This story also tells the story of Echo, who used to talk to Juno to keep her from finding Jupiter with other women, and how she came to be 'but an echo', only able to repeat the last words of other people. It explains that she retreated to a cave after being rejected by Narcissus, which I thought was an interesting way of explaining why there is an echo in caves.

Narcissus
His story was really boring, but at the end of this section, it talks about how "he had been received into the house of shadows". I thought this might be an interesting story to take off on for the storytelling part.

Perseus and Medusa
This story...I could make a dirty story out of it...but that would not be appropriate for class :)

(painting by Piero di Cosimo)