Metamorphoses..."The Epilogue"

Of course justice has not been served and I suspect that that is the point behind Ovid's masterpiece. Feasting on a relative, often in ignorance, is a story that runs through several Greek myths. Check out the family of Pelops, specifically the Descendants of Atreus. Part of that story is in the Oresteia, a trilogy of plays by Aeschylus performed in 458 BCE. (It's the only complete trilogy to survive.) The theme of revenge runs throughout. The final play concludes that revenge leads to further revenge through several generations and is not a substitute for justice. That third play, Eumenides (The Furies), is the legendary foundation of the Areopagus court--the Greek court that judged cases of homicide. In other words, justice can only be obtained through judicial procedure using objective citeria.

I think that Ovid uses satire to get the justice he did not receive from Augustus. Near the end of the Metamorphoses is the tale titled "Pythagoras." (He was a sixth century BCE philosopher and mystic who preached vegetarianism based on the belief that we can be reincarnated into any living form. An animal may be an ancestor--too bad Tereus was not a vegetarian. He also believed that the universe could be explained through numbers and their relations to other numbers. Abstracts, such as injustice, were numbers and part of the cosmos within his system.) Near the end of this tale Ovid writes:

  The eras change, nations grow strong, or weaken,
  Like Troy, magnificent in men and riches,
  For ten years lavish with her blood, and now
  Displaying only ruins and for wealth
  The old ancestral tombs. Sparta, Mycenae,
  Athens, and Thebes, all flourished once, and now
  What are they more than names?

He is saying that even the greatness of Imperial Rome will not last. He gives tribute to both Julius Caesar (ending with the "Deification of Caesar") and to Augustus stating "far be the day,/ Later than our own era, when Augustus/ Shall leave the world he rules, ascent to Heaven,/ And there, beyond our presence, hear our prayers!"  (Ovid outlived Augustus by four years but was forced to remain in exile.) However, no matter how great their status and achievements they and their work will not last.

In his twelve-line "Epilogue," Ovid makes it clear that what will last is his poem. Even though metamorphosis, transformation, is the essence of life, works of art will endure. "I shall be read, and through all centuries,/ If prophecies of bards are ever truthful,/ I shall be living, always." He does have the final say.