As with most myths there are different versions of the story. In the original Greek version, Actaeon is not innocent. Upon seeing Diana--the Roman version of the Greek Artemis, virgin goddess of the hunt--he is overcome by her beauty, hides behind a tree, and deliberately spies upon her while she bathes. According to Ovid, Actaeon's encounter with the goddess is accidental. He is "guiltless; put the blame/ On luck, not crime: what crime is there in error?" Interestingly, this is the same way Ovid described the reason for his own exile.
In the story, Actaeon has finished the day's hunt and he tells his "company" to "Give up the labor,/ Bring home the nets." Somehow he ends up "wandering, far from certain,/ Through unfamiliar woodland till he entered/ Diana's grove, as fate seemed bound to have it." Note that fate is to blame. It's also interesting that Actaeon seems to be wandering the "pathless woods" just as Daphne had done. When Diana, bathing with her nymphs or handmaidens, sees him she blushes "As the clouds/ Grow red at sunset, as the daybreak reddens" and throws water into his face, crying, "'Tell people you have seen me,/ Diana, naked! Tell them if you can!'" Note that her punishment is directed at his voice.
At that moment, Actaeon sprouts horns and turns into a stag. "There is one thing only/ Left him, his former mind." Again, as with Daphne, the metamorphosis involves appearance and not mind. He still thinks like a human, making the punishment somehow worse. He is too ashamed to go back home and too fearful to remain in the forest. However, it's too late. His hounds have seen him. We are next given a "catalog" of his hounds, their names and characteristics as they attack him. "Actaeon, once pursuer/ Over this very ground, is now pursued."
He tries to cry out to tell the hounds and his companions who he is but he cannot speak. "He groans,/ Making a sound not human, but a sound/ No stag could utter either, and the ridges/ Are filled with that heart-breaking kind of moaning." He kneels on the ground "like a man praying" but since he has no arms his pleading is in vain. He is mangled and torn. "And so he died, and so Diana's anger/ Was satisfied at last."
What does loss of speech symbolize?
I looked up Ovid's exile and though no one really knows the reason, it appears to be caused by a poem. The Emperior banishes him to the frontier, Ovid's work is taken out of the libraries and though he pleads to come back, no Emperior will let him. (Must have been some poem)
ReplyDeleteI would say that Ovid is commenting on his own silenced exile, but from what I can tell "Metamorphoses" was written before his exile.
Talk about foreshadowing . . .
Speech is what is 'thought' to make humans different than the animals. When Diana takes his human form away from him, leaving him with a human mind, she has taken away any pity or sorrow that might accompany a human death. He is only an animal, one to be hunted by a pack.
Interesting link to a statue of Actaeon's death: Can't tell if the person they site is the sculpture or the photographer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Actaeon_Caserta.jpg
Hi Melanie. It seems to me that animals have many ways of communicating. (As you know from the Newfs!) I've never agreed that humans are really that much different. I've also wondered if animals are getting revenge on the hunter in this story. That may be a bit of a stretch since Diana is goddess of the hunt.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at my post titled "Ovid" of March 15, I talk about Ovid's exile. He may have started Metamorphoses before that but he wrote most of the fifteen books while in exile. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.
I will look at your post when I get a chance. Was doing zoom research (quick) and first couldn't find when he had written it, then it was listed as his first works.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm. Quick and dirty does not always get the job done.
Wish I had more time, but this week . . . Yikes.
I am getting things crossed off my list. The fact that I wrote a list is amazing.
In his autobiographical poem "Tristia" Ovid wrote that he burned Metamorphoses before he left in exile because it was "rough and unfinished." I don't really believe that he burned it! It's apparently very difficult to date his poetry but from what I've found he may have started composing it around 2 CE and "onwards." There are many things in it that seem to me to be directed to, or to be about, Augustus (but very subtle). The poem that he was referring to as one of the causes of his exile was probably The Art of Love. It was very popular and some quotations from it have been found on the walls at Pompeii. Augustus seems to have been a bit prudish and wouldn't have liked the how-to book on the art of seduction!
ReplyDeleteIsn't it nice to get things crossed off lists?
Melanie: I've seen a picture of that sculpture before. It's really lovely. Three artists are listed and they may have done all of the sculptures at the Caserta Palace: Paolo Persico, Brunelli, Pietro Solari. I'll see if I can find out anything more.
ReplyDelete