Metamorphoses

“One of the most captivating books ever written, a whole library of love stories, murder stories, horror stories, fairy stories, and adventure stories… Humphries’s version… has the sound merits of directness, unpretentiousness and integrity… [His English is] swift, lucid … and admirably suited to its general purpose, the telling of a story.” –New York Times

“It is very much alive, fresh, racy, and above all, vivid… .Humphries reproduces most successfully the speed and animation of Ovid’s narrative, its modernity, its gaiety, and its tenderness.” –Classical Review

“So easy to read that one may have to think twice to realize these tales are nearly 2000 years old.” –Washington Post

Not too many 12,000-line translations from the ‘50s are still in print, let alone getting a brand new set of annotations. About those I wanna say: jam a bookmark back there and read every single note. They’re the real thing, impossible to fake… . As for the translation as a whole, the main thing it’s got going for it is clarity. I, for one, felt I was able to pay attention to the stuff like never before… . So I say double thumbs up to Humphries and Reed. Recommended.

Reed’s annotated edition of Ovid’s realistic, moving, and influential classic can now easily be adopted for classroom use, and it will also serve the curious who wish to know more about this unparalleled, captivating array of Roman mythology… . Highly recommended.

One of the most captivating books ever written, a whole library of love stories, murder stories, horror stories, fairy stories, and adventure stories… Humphries’s version… has the sound merits of directness, unpretentiousness and integrity… [His English is] swift, lucid … and admirably suited to its general purpose, the telling of a story.

So easy to read that one may have to think twice to realize these tales are nearly 2000 years old.

It is very much alive, fresh, racy, and above all, vivid… .Humphries reproduces most successfully the speed and animation of Ovid’s narrative, its modernity, its gaiety, and its tenderness.

Joseph Reed’s annotation of Rolfe Humphries’ translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses strikes an impressive balance between accessibility for general readers with no Latin and detailed analysis for advanced Classics students and researchers.

Poet and critic Rolfe Humphries (1894–1969) also translated Virgil’s Aeneid, Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things, Ovid’s Art of Love, and Juvenal’s Satires.

Joseph D. Reed is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Brown University. He is the author of Virgil’s Gaze: Nation and Poetry in the Aeneid.

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