Gods & Men: An Exploration of Gods and Mortals in Ovid's Metamorphoses and Greco-Roman Mythology

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Gods & Men An Exploration of Gods and Mortals in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Greco-Roman Mythology

Sara Chopra


table of contents Editor’s Introduction and Background Notes “Infidelity” by Yusef Komunkyakaa Diana and Actaeon ‣

Excerpt from Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Diane et Actaeon by Cesari Giuseppe, c. 1604, Musee du Louvre

Diana and Actaeon by Tom Hunter, 2008, privately owned

“A Call” by Don Paterson

“The Change” by Christopher Reid

Diana and Actaeon by Titian, c. 1559, The National Gallery, London

Diana and Actaeon by Zygmunt Waliszewski, 1935, n.p.

“Actaeon” by Seamus Heaney

“Diana and Actaeon” by Simon Armitage


table of contents ‣

Diana and Actaeon by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1518, Wadsworth Atheneum

Diana and Actaeon by Katherine Doyle, n.d., privately owned

“Actaeon” by George Szirtes

Apollo and Daphne ‣

Apollo and Daphne by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, c. 1625, Galleria Borghese

Excerpt from Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Apollo and Daphne by Pontormo, 1513, Bowdoin College Museum of Art

“Daphne and Apollo” by Ross Cohen

Excerpt from Apocalypse and/or Metamorphoses by Norman O. Brown

Apollo and Daphne (Apollo’s Song to Dryads and Fauns) by Alexandre Benois, 1908, The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

“Apollo and Daphne” by Robert Bags

Apollo and Daphne by Hal Nymen, 2013, n.p.


table of contents Pygmalion and Galatea ‣

Excerpt from Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Pygmalion and Galatea by Jean-Leon Gerome, 1890, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pygmalion and Galatea by Ettiene-Maurice Falconet, 1763, The Walters Museum

“Pygmalion to Galatea” by Robert Graves

“Galatea and Pygmalion” by Robert Graves

Pygmalion by Paul Devaux, 1939, The Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium

Pygmalion and Galatea by Louis Gauffier, n.d., Manchester Art Gallery

Daedalus and Icarus ‣

Excerpt from Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Daedalus and Icarus by Giulio Romano, n.d., Art Institute Chicago

“Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by William Carlos Williams


table of contents ‣

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Bruegel, 1558, Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium

Excerpt from “Icarus” by R3hab from single Icarus

The Fall of Icarus by Joos de Momper, n.d., National Museum, Stockholm

The Sun, or the Fall of Icarus by Merry-Joseph Blondel, 1819, Musee du Louvre

“To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph” by Anne Sexton

“Icarus in Love” by David Jones

Dream of Icarus by Sergey Solomko, n.d., n.p.

Daedalus and Icarus by Rafaello Guidi, 1600, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco

Excerpt from “Icarus” by Bastille from album Bad Blood

The Judgement of Paris ‣

El Juicio De Paris by Enrique Simonet, 1904, Museo de Malaga

Excerpt from Euripides’ Helen


table of contents ‣

The Judgement of Paris by Paul Cezanne, 1864, privately owned

“The Judgement of Paris” by W.S. Merwin

“Paris and Helen” by Judy Grahn

Judgement of Paris by Charles Bell, 1986, Louis K. Meisel Gallery

Excerpt from “Helen” by George Seferis

The Judgement of Paris by Harald Giersing, 1909, Statens Museum for Kunst

The Return of Persephone by Frederic Leighton, c. 1891, City Art Museum, Leeds “Memento” by Sara Chopra Bibliographies of Art and Writing


editor’s introduction When I learned about the anthology project during the first week of Art and Literature, I immediately knew that I wanted my anthology to focus on the ancient Greco-Roman world. The study of classics, my deepest passion and most enduring interest, came to mind at once, and I started thinking about how to whittle down such a broad category into a theme for my project. Eventually, I decided upon the topic of Greco-Roman myth. Specifically, I chose to center my work around Ovid’s Metamorphoses, including the stories of Diana and Actaeon, Apollo and Daphne, Pygmalion and Galatea, and Daedalus and Icarus; in addition to Ovid’s work, I also decided to include the Judgement of Paris, a myth stitched together by a variety of stories and authors.


editor’s introduction I chose to focus on these excerpts from Metamorphoses and the myth of Judgement of Paris because I think that their stories, both in oral and written tradition, leave enough to the imagination of their audiences. Though they are descriptive, they allow room for artists and writers alike to experiment with original thought and interpretation. Some artworks or literary pieces based on the same myth may seem similar to one another, but the varying styles and artistic decisions of their different creators set each work apart. As I compiled my anthology and looked at different pieces, I found it interesting to see which aspects of each myth stayed constant throughout its inspired works, and which aspects differed.


editor’s introduction

I hope you enjoy each writer’s interpretation and each artist’s depiction of the myths. As you read my anthology, Gods & Men: An Exploration of Gods and Mortals in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Greco-Roman Mythology, I encourage you to view each myth as a prompt and each piece as a creative exploration. Legas laete! Happy reading!


background notes I know that some readers may not be familiar with the stories featured in this anthology, so here is a brief description of each myth. Diana and Actaeon: Actaeon, a hunter, is walking in the woods with his hunting dogs when he sees the modest goddess Diana (Artemis) bathing nude in a spring. Angered, Diana turns him into a deer, and he is attacked and killed by his dogs, who don’t recognize him anymore. Apollo and Daphne: Apollo lusts after chaste nymph Daphne, who pushes away his advances. When Apollo is about to seize her, Daphne prays to escape him, and her father answers her prayer by turning her into a laurel tree. Pygmalion and Galatea: Pygmalion is a sculptor who sees only faults in women. Upset by the vices of womankind, he sculpts his dream woman, Galatea. He loves her so much that he prays to Venus (Aphrodite) to make her real, and the goddess grants his wishes by turning Galatea into a living woman.


background notes Daedalus and Icarus: Daedalus makes wax wings for himself and his son, Icarus, so that they can fly away from the island of Crete. He tells Icarus not to fly too high or too low, but Icarus ignores him and flies too close to the sun, causing his wings to melt. He falls into the ocean and drowns. The Judgement of Paris: Three goddesses, Hera (Juno), Athena (Minerva), and Aphrodite (Venus), ask a Trojan man, Paris, which one of them is most beautiful, each offering him a different prize. Athena offers wisdom and Hera offers to make him a king, but he chooses Aphrodite because she promises him Helen of Sparta, the most beautiful woman. Thus, by having Aphrodite abduct Helen from her husband Menelaus, Paris incites the Trojan war between the Greeks and Trojans.


Gods & Men


gods & men Infidelity Zeus always introduces himself As one who needs stitching Back together with kisses. Like a rock star in leather & sapphires—conflagration & a trick of silk falling Between lost chances & never Again. His disguises are almost Mathematical, as Io & Europa Pass from their dreams into his. This lord of storm clouds Is also a sun god crooning desire & dalliance in a garden of nymphs. Some days, he loves gloxinia, & others, craves garlic blooms— Hera, Aegina, & Callisto in the same song. — Yusef Komunkyakaa


Diana and Actaeon Diana et Actaeon

And while they bathed Diana in their streams, Actaeon, wandering through the unknown woods, entered the precincts of that sacred grove; with steps uncertain wandered he as fate directed, for his sport must wait till morn. [The] nymphs, now ready for the bath, beheld the man, smote on their breasts, and made the woods resound, suddenly shrieking. Quickly gathered they to shield Diana with their naked forms, but she stood head and shoulders taller than her guards. [She] fixed the horns of a great stag firm on his sprinkled brows; she lengthened out his neck; she made his ears sharp at the top; she changed his hands and feet; made long legs of his arms, and covered him with dappled hair—his courage turned to fear. from Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Diane et Actaeon by Cesari Giuseppe.


Diana and Actaeon

Diana and Actaeon by Tom Hunter.

A Call A winter train. A gale, a poacher’s moon. The black glass. Do I honestly still blame the wrong turn in the changing rooms I took when I was six, and stood too long to look? The scream Miss Venner loosed at me. ‘The nerve!’ I was ablaze. And it was worth the shame, I thought; of course I did. It was too soon to tell the dream from what I’d paid for it. Then soon too late. Two sides of the same door. So was it the recoil or the release That lashed the world so out of shape? Tonight I stare right through the face that I deserve as all my ghost dogs gather at the shore, behind them the whole sea like the police. — Don Paterson


Diana and Actaeon The Change The goddess with her killer glare: no problem there. I’ve seen that look myself often enough, aimed straight at me, and it wasn’t hard to swivel it through ninety degrees and fix it in profile. (That dinky quiver, wrong size for the bow, I’ll adjust later.) The dogs, too, I can handle, if I can keep the brushwork fluent: less a pack of them than a flood, a torrent, of muscular flanks and backs and squabbling yelps and scent-maddened muzzles dragging your man down. Now, he’s the trouble, which is why I’ve put him in the middle distance, an arrow’s flight away. He’s turning into a stag. But how do you do that, exactly? Head first, as I’ve tried here, following Ovid? Ping! – he’s got antlers and a long neck, but the rest of his body’s slow on the uptake, so he’s left looking less like prey brought low than some tipsy idiot taking a spill at a carnival? Forget it. What I want is the change itself, when he’s neither man nor beast, or somehow both at once, and you don’t just see but feel the combined horror and justice of his fate. Some way to go. Never mind, I’ll be patient. It can wait.

— Christopher Reid

Diana and Actaeon by Titian.


Diana and Actaeon

Diana and Actaeon by Zygmunt Waliszewski

Actaeon High burdened brow, the antlers that astound, Arms that end now in two hardened feet, His nifty haunches, pointed ears and fleet Four-legged run ‌ In the pool he saw a crowned Stag's head and heard something that groaned When he tried to speak. And it was no human sweat That steamed off him: he was like a beast in heat, As if he'd prowled and stalked until he found The grove, the grotto and the bathing place Of the goddess and her nymphs, as if he'd sought That virgin nook deliberately, as if His desires were hounds that had quickened pace On Diana's scent before his own pack wrought Her vengeance on him, at bay beneath the leaflit woodland. There his branchy antlers caught When he faced the hounds That couldn't know him as they bayed and fought And tore out mouthfuls of hide and flesh and blood from what he was, while his companions stood Impatient for the kill, assessing wounds. — Seamus Heaney


Diana and Actaeon

Diana and Actaeon The whole hillside being smeared and daubed with the blood of the hunt, I dropped down to a stream whose water ran clear and cool, and followed its thread through a wooded fold, among branches dressed with pelts and skulls. Then stumbled headlong into that sacred grove. That’s when the universe pitched and groaned, and I shrank from cloud-coloured flesh, from calf and hip, curve and cleft, from a writhing feast of fruit and meat: salmon, silverside, redcurrant, peach; from fingers worming for gowns and robes, from eel and oyster, ankle and lip, from bulb, bud, honeycomb, nest... And flinched from Diana’s arm bent back like a bow, and flinched from Diana’s naked glare – a death-stare arrowed from eye to eye. All seen in a blink but burnt on the mind. The pink-red curtain of noon, drawn back, unleashes the white wolves of the moon. — Simon Armitage

Diana and Actaeon by Lucas Cranach the Elder.


Diana and Actaeon

Diana and Actaeon by Katherine Doyle.

Actaeon
 O, my America, my Newfoundland
 — John Donne, "Elegy 20” O, my America, discovered by slim chance,

behind, as it seemed, a washing line
 I shoved aside without thinking –
 does desire have thoughts or define
 its object, consuming all in a glance?

You, with your several flesh sinking
 upon itself in attitudes of hurt, while the dogs at my heels
 growl at the strange red shirt
 under a horned moon, you, drinking night water – tell me what the eye steals
 or borrows. What can't we let go
 without protest? My own body turns
 against me as I sense it grow
 contrary. Whatever night reveals is dangerously toothed. And so the body burns
 as if torn by sheer profusion of skin
 and cry. It wears its ragged dress
 like something it once found comfort in,
 the kind of comfort even a dog learns by scent. So flesh falls away, ever less
 human, like desire itself, though pain
 still registers in the terrible balance
 the mind seems so reluctant to retain,
 o, my America, my nakedness! — George Szirtes


Apollo and Daphne Apollo and Daphne by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Apollo et Daphne

“Help me, my father, if thy flowing streams have virtue! Cover me, O mother Earth! Destroy the beauty that has injured me, or change the body that destroys my life.” Before her prayer was ended, torpor seized on all her body, and a thin bark closed around her gentle bosom, and her hair became as moving leaves; her arms were changed to waving branches, and her active feet as clinging roots were fastened to the ground— her face was hidden with encircling leaves.— Apollo admired and loved the graceful tree, (For still, though changed, her slender form remained) and with his right hand lingering on the trunk he felt her bosom throbbing in the bark. He clung to trunk and branch as though to twine. His form with hers, and fondly kissed the wood that shrank from every kiss. from Ovid’s Metamorphoses


Daphne and Apollo

Daphne and Apollo I could never compete with you Lightfoot, skipping across the moss and stone. I crashed through tangled woods, Ripping roots from the earth, Snapping branches, clearing a path by force. You were a speck in my eye, Just visible behind the vines; A mirage on an empty plain. I could never see you directly, I could never sleep where you had lain.

Apollo and Daphne by Pontormo.

I had grown accustomed to the dip And dive of your back cutting Through the clearing where, Panting and parched, we stopped For a fatal moment.

You turned. The war Between flame and stream, Between you and me, Swelled to crisis: Your skin cracks and grays Like cooling embers; the ground surrenders To toe-roots; thighs stiffen and petrify; Bark works its way up To the bole-knot in your stomach. Shoulders and arms explode Into clouds of flickering green and gold. Soft shrapnel litters the ground. Sitting beneath the sole tree In the forest’s barren place, I sift through the leaves For the memory of your face. — Ross Cohen


Daphne and Apollo

1 Bark, be my limbs, my hair be leaf. 2 Daphne, the spiritualization of nature, an invisible spirit in a tree. 3 Metamorphoses into a tree The sublimation is at the same time a fall, into a lower order of creation; an incarnation. The way up is the way down. 4 The final metamorphosis is the humanization of the nature. It is a question of love: the transformation of the Bear into the Prince, the moment the Bear is loved. The identification is a change of identity; the magic is love. 5 The meaning of the myth of Apollo and Daphne suddenly flashed upon me...."happy, thought I, the man who can clasp in one and the same embrace the laurel and the object of his love." from Apocalypse and/or Metamorphoses by Norman O. Brown

Apollo and Daphne (Apollo’s Song to Dryads and Fauns) by Alexandre Benois


Daphne and Apollo

Apollo and Daphne Only a poet could be moved by her nervous charm He dreamed, but she took Hollywood by storm. What good is spoken or sexual valor Once her hair’s enhanced by technicolor? She wished it, thought. Sarcastic as the good Apollo, he watched the screen, chainsmoking, crazy With high laughter. As lithely praying Daphne Comes true, what can he do but knock on wood? — Robert Bagg

Apollo and Daphne by Hal Nymen


Pygmalion and Galatea Pygmalion et Galatea

Again he kissed her; and he felt her breast; the ivory seemed to soften at the touch, and its firm texture yielded to his hand, as honey-wax of Mount Hymettus turns to many shapes when handled in the sun, and surely softens from each gentle touch. He is amazed; but stands rejoicing in his doubt; while fearful there is some mistake, again and yet again, gives trial to his hopes by touching with his hand. It must be flesh! [The] astonished hero poured out lavish thanks to Venus; pressing with his raptured lips his statue's lips. Now real, true to life— the maiden felt the kisses given to her, and blushing, lifted up her timid eyes, so that she saw the light and sky above, as well as her rapt lover while he leaned gazing beside her. from Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Pygmalion and Galatea by Jean-Léon Gérôme


Pygmalion and Galatea

Pygmalion to Galatea As you are woman, so be lovely: Fine hair afloat and eyes irradiate, Long crafty fingers, fearless carriage, And body lissom, neither short nor tall. So be lovely! Ay you are lovely, so be merciful: Yet must your mercy abstain from pity: Prize your self-honour, leaving me with mine. Love if you will; or stay stonefrozen. So be merciful!

Pygmalion and Galatea by Ettiene-Maurice Falconet

As you are merciful, so be constant: I ask not you should mask your comeliness, Yet keep our love aloof and strange, Keep it from gluttonous eyes, from stairway gossip.

So be constant! As you are constant, so be various: Love comes to sloth without variety. Within the limits of our fairpaved garden Let fancy like a Proteus range and change. So be various! As you are various, so be woman: Graceful in going as well armed in doing. Be witty, kind, enduring, unsubjected: Without you I keep heavy house. So be woman! As you are woman, so be lovely: As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various. So be mine, as I yours for ever. — Robert Graves


Pygmalion and Galatea

Galatea and Pygmalion Galatea, whom his furious chisel From Parian stone had by greed enchanted Fulfilled, so they say, Pygmalion’s longings: Stepped from the pedestal on which she stood, Bare in his bed laid her down, lubricious. With low responses to his drunken raptures, Enroyalled his body with her demon blood. Alas, Pygmalion had so well plotted The articulations of his woman monster That schools of eager connoisseurs beset Her single person with perennial suit; Whom she (a judgement on the jealous artist) Admitted rankly to a comprehension Of themes that crowned her own, not his repute. — Robert Graves

Pygmalion by Paul Devaux.


Pygmalion and Galatea

Pygmalion and Galatea by Louis Gauffier


Daedalus and Icarus Daedalus et Icarus

Upon the left they passed by Samos, Juno's sacred isle; Delos and Paros too, were left behind; and on the right Lebinthus and Calymne, fruitful in honey. Proud of his success, the foolish Icarus forsook his guide, and, bold in vanity, began to soar, rising upon his wings to touch the skies; but as he neared the scorching sun, its heat softened the fragrant wax that held his plumes; and heat increasing melted the soft wax— he waved his naked arms instead of wings, with no more feathers to sustain his flight. And as he called upon his father's name his voice was smothered in the dark blue sea. from Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Daedalus and Icarus by Giulio Romano


Daedalus and Icarus

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus According to Bruegel when Icarus fell it was spring a farmer was ploughing his field the whole pageantry

concerned with itself sweating in the sun that melted the wings’ wax unsignificantly off the coast there was

a splash quite unnoticed this was of the year was awake tingling Icarus drowning near — William Carlos the edge of the Williams

sea

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Bruegel


Daedalus and Icarus

from “Icarus� by R3hab All my dreams are just some fragile things That people wish and I don't think they'll care in my wake 'Cause I've been falling for days To the sea, to the sea, yeah Tried to breathe but I've been drowning in waves Of jealously and anyone could see that I'm lost Through the seas I've been tossed And I'm not free, I'm not free, yeah So I open my eyes And I fall through the sky While the day turns to night I have burned for my love Flown too close to the sun Falling like Icarus Now the damage is done I have burned for my love The Fall of Icarus by Joos de Momper


Daedalus and Icarus

The Sun, or the Fall of Icarus by Merry-Joseph Blondel

To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wings on, testing that strange little tug at his shoulder blade, and think of that first flawless moment over the lawn of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made! There below are the trees, as awkward as camels; and here are the shocked starlings pumping past and think of innocent Icarus who is doing quite well. Larger than a sail, over the fog and the blast of the plushy ocean, he goes. Admire his wings! Feel the fire at his neck and see how casually he glances up and is caught, wondrously tunneling into that hot eye. Who cares that he fell back to the sea? See him acclaiming the sun and come plunging down while his sensible daddy goes straight into town. — Anne Sexton


Daedalus and Icarus

Icarus in Love I loved you as Icarus loved The sun – Too close, Too much. — David Jones

Dream of Icarus by Sergey Solomko


Daedalus and Icarus

from “Icarus� by Bastille Your hands protect the flames From the wild winds around you Icarus is flying too close to the sun And Icarus's life, it has only just begun And this is how it feels to take a fall Icarus is flying towards an early grave

Daedalus and Icarus by Rafaello Guidi


The Judgement of Paris Helen: I have wept bitterly, and my eyes are wet with tears; the wife of Zeus ruined me. Menelaus: Hera? Why did she want to bring trouble to the two of us? Helen: Alas for my terrible fate, the baths and springs, where the goddesses brightened the beauty from which the judgment came. Menelaus: Regarding the judgement, Hera made it a cause of these troubles for you? Helen: To take me away from Paris— Menelaus: How? Tell me. Helen: To whom Aphrodite had promised me. El Juicio De Paris by Enrique Simonet

from Euripides’ Helen


The Judgement of Paris by Paul Cezanne

The Judgement of Paris


The Judgement of Paris Long afterwards
 the intelligent could deduce what had been offered
 and not recognized
 and they suggest that bitterness should be confined
 to the fact that the gods chose for their arbiter
 a mind and character so ordinary 
 albeit a prince and brought up as a shepherd 
 a calling he must have liked 
 for he had returned to it when they stood before him 
 the three
 naked feminine deathless
 and he realized that he was clothed 
 in nothing but mortality
 the strap of his quiver of arrows crossing 
 between his nipples
 making it seem stranger and he knew he must choose
 and on that day the one with the gray eyes spoke first 
 and whatever she said he kept
 thinking he remembered
 but remembered it woven with confusion and fear 
 the two faces that he called father
 the first sight of the palace
 where the brothers were strangers
 and the dogs watched him and refused to know him 
 she made everything clear she was dazzling

The Judgement of Paris

she
 offered it to him
 to have for his own but what he saw
 was the scorn above her eyes
 and her words of which he understood few 
 all said to him Take wisdom
 take power 
 you will forget anyway the one with the dark eyes spoke 
 and everything she said 
 he imagined he had once wished for 
 but in confusion and cowardice 
 the crown
 of his father the crowns the crowns bowing to him 
 his name everywhere like grass
 only he and the sea 
 triumphant
 she made everything sound possible she was
 dazzling she offered it to him
 to hold high but what he saw 
 was the cruelty around her mouth
 and her words of which he understood more 
 all said to him Take pride
 take glory 
 you will suffer anyway the third one the color of whose eyes 
 later he could not remember 
 spoke last and slowly and
 of desire and it was his 
 though up until then he had been 
 happy with his river nymph 
 here was his mind 
 filled utterly with one girl gathering

yellow flowers
 and no one like her 
 the words 
 made everything seem present 
 almost present 
 present
 they said to him Take 
 her
 you will lose her anyway it was only when he reached out to the voice 
 as though he could take the speaker 
 herself
 that his hand filled with 
 something to give 
 but to give to only one of the three 
 an apple as it is told 
 discord itself in a single fruit its skin 
 already carved
 To the fairest then a mason working above the gates of Troy 
 in the sunlight thought he felt the stone 
 shiver in the quiver on Paris’s back the head 
 of the arrow for Achilles’ heel 
 smiled in its sleep and Helen stepped from the palace to gather 
 as she would do every day in that season 
 from the grove the yellow ray flowers tall 
 as herself whose roots are said to dispel pain — W.S. Merwin


Paris and Helen He called her: golden dawn She called him: the wind whistles

The Judgement of Paris

He called her: heart of the sky She called him: message bringer He called her: mother of pearl barley woman, rice provider, millet basket, corn maid, flax princess, all-maker, weef She called him: fawn, roebuck, stag, courage, thunderman, all-in-green, mountain strider keeper of forests, my-love-rides He called her: the tree is She called him: bird dancing He called her: who stands, has stood, will always stand She called him: arriver He called her: the heart and the womb are similar She called him: arrow in my heart. — Judy Grahn

Judgement of Paris by Charles Bell


The Judgement of Paris

excerpt from “Helen” by George Seferis Tearful bird, on sea-kissed Cyprus consecrated to remind me of my country, I moored alone with this fable, if it’s true that it is a fable, if it’s true that mortals will not again take up the old deceit of the gods; if it’s true that in future years some other Teucer, or some Ajax or Priam or Hecuba, or someone unknown and nameless who nevertheless saw

The Judgement of Paris by Harald Giersing

a Scamander overflow with corpses, isn’t fated to hear messengers coming to tell him that so much suffering, so much life, went into the abyss all for an empty tunic, all for a Helen.


gods & men Memento When waxy suns drip titian rays and thrushes sing their bright noon fugues, do not be tempted by the golden nectar of late July peaches. Do not crave the cool, sweet juice that runs from your palm down your arm, flooding the barren earth. You will taste it again when the wind carries ashes to mix with the clouds; suns will set as daylight wanes, its rays carried away by a blue-evening zephyr. Look behind you, and remember you are mortal: it is not what you made. The Return of Persephone by Frederic Leighton

— Sara Chopra


bibliography of writing Armitage, Simon. “Diana and Actaeon.” Metamorphosis: Poems Inspired by Titian. London: The National Gallery (UK), 2012. Bagg, Robert. "Apollo and Daphne by Robert Bagg." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 27 May 2017. Brown, Norman O. Excerpts from Apocalypse and/or Metamorphoses. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Print. Cohen, Ross. "Daphne and Apollo." PoemHunter.com. PoemHunter.com, 23 Oct. 2009. Web. 25 May 2017. Chopra, Sara. “Memento.” Unpublished; written 2016. El Ghoul, Fadil. “Icarus.” Icarus. R3hab. R3hab Music, 2016. MP3. Euripides. Helen, translated by E. P. Coleridge. New York. Random House. 1938. Grahn, Judy. “Paris and Helen.” love belongs to those who do the feeling: New & Selected Poems (1966-2006). Red Hen Press, 2008. Print. Heaney, Seamus. “Actaeon.” Metamorphosis: Poems Inspired by Titian. London: The National Gallery (UK), 2012. Jones, David. “Icarus in Love.” Love & Space Dust. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014. Print. Komunkyakaa, Yusef. “Infidelity.” Talking Dirty to the Gods. Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2000. Print. Merwin, W. S. “The Judgment of Paris.” The Second Four Books of Poems. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1970. Print.


bibliography of writing Ovid. Metamorphoses. Brookes More. Boston. Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Paterson, Don. “A Call.” Metamorphosis: Poems Inspired by Titian. London: The National Gallery (UK), 2012. Reid, Christopher. “The Change.” Metamorphosis: Poems Inspired by Titian. London: The National Gallery (UK), 2012. Rumens, Carol, and George Szirtes. "Poem of the week: Actaeon by George Szirtes." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 22 July 2013. Web. 28 May 2017. Seferis, George. “Helen.” Collected Poems. Princeton University Press, 1995. Print. Sexton, Anne. “To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph.” The Complete Poems. Boston: Mariner/ Houghton Mifflin Co., 1999. Print. Smith, Dan. “Icarus.” Bad Blood. Bastille. Virgin Records, 2013. MP3. "Two poems by Robert Graves: ‘Pygmalion to Galatea’ and ‘Galatea and Pygmalion.’" TheInkBrain. 10 Feb. 2012. Web. 27 May 2017. Williams, William Carlos. “Landscape with Fall of Icarus.” Collected Poems: 1939-1962, Vol. II. New Directions Publishing Corp., 1962. Print.


bibliography of art Bell, Charles. Judgement of Paris. 1986. Oil on Canvas. Louis K. Meisel Gallery. Benois, Alexandre. Apollo and Daphne (Apollo’s Song to Dryads and Fauns). 1908. Gouache on cardboard. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg. Bernini, Gian Lorenzo. Apollo and Daphne. 1622-1625. Marble. Galleria Borghese. Blondel, Merry-Joseph. The Sun, or the Fall of Icarus. 1819. Fresco. Musée Du Louvre. Bruegel, Pieter. Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. 1558. Oil on Canvas. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Cezanne, Paul. The Judgement of Paris. 1864. Oil on Canvas. Privately Owned, n.p. Wordpress.com Devaux, Paul. Pygmalion. 1939. Oil on Wood. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. Doyle, Katherine. Diana and Actaeon. N.d. Oil on Canvas. Privately Owned, n.p. Wordpress.com. Falconet, Etienne-Maurice. Pygmalion and Galatea. 1763. Marble. The Walters Museum. Gauffier, Louis. Pygmalion and Galatea. N.d. Oil on Canvas. Manchester Art Gallery. Gérôme, Jean-Léon. Pygmalion and Galatea. 1890. Oil on Canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Giuseppe, Cesari. Diane Et Actéon. 1603-1604. Oil on Canvas. Musée Du Louvre. Giersing, Harald. The Judgement of Paris. 1909. Oil on Compoboard. Statens Museum for Kunst.


bibliography of art Guidi, Rafaello. Daedalus and Icarus. 1600. Engraving. Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. Hunter, Tom. Diana and Actaeon. 2008. Photograph. Privately Owned. BBC.co.uk. Leighton, Frederic. The Return of Persephone. 1890-1891. City Art Museum, Leeds. Lucas Cranach the Elder. Diana and Actaeon. 1518. Oil on Wood. Wadsworth Atheneum. De Momper, Joos. The Fall of Icarus. N.d. National Museum, Stockholm. Nymen, Hal. Apollo and Daphne. 2013. Digital Art. Wordpress.com. Pontormo. Apollo and Daphne. 1513. Oil in Canvas. Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Romano, Giulio. Daedalus and Icarus. N.d. Engraving. Art Institute Chicago. Simonet, Enrique. El Juicio De Paris. 1904. Oil on Canvas. Museo De Málaga. Solomko, Sergey. Dream of Icarus. N.d. Owner Unknown, Artblc.com. Titian. Diana and Actaeon. 1556-1559. Oil on Canvas. The National Gallery, London. Waliszewski, Zygmunt. Diana and Actaeon, 1935. N.p. Artble.com


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