Ovid's Metamorphoses - Short Questions & Answers

 Metamorphoses

- Ovid

(European Classical Literature)

Short Questions & Answers

1. Which meter does Ovid use in the poem, Metamorphoses? How many books are there in Metamorphoses?

Answer: Ovid’s Latin Metamorphoses uses the dactylic hexameter. There are total of 15 books in Metamorphoses.

2. What did Phoebus ask Cadmus to do after the letter followed the cow? What name did Phoebus ask Cadmus to give to the city he founded?

Answer: Phoebus asked Cadmus to follow the cow and follow its direction. He asked him to settle down to the place that the cow would indicate and found a city. He further insisted that the city should be named Boetia after the cow.

3. Briefly describe the dragon that Cadmus met inside the cave.

Answer: The dragon that Cadmus met inside the cave had an appearance nothing short of hideous. It had a golden crest, three sets of teeth and a forked tongue. Its appearance was as deadly as its intention which was nothing short of murderous.

4. What are the weapons that Cadmus had taken to fight the Dragon?

Answer: Cadmus used a number of weapons to fight the dragon and finally killed it. He used a boulder to hit it, a javelin was thrown between its scale to cause intense pain. That was followed by a gullet with which its jaws were held open, and finally a spear was used to pin its head to an oak tree, which fell without being able to bear its immense weight.

5. Name four nymphs that prepared Diana for her bath.

Answer: Nephele, Hyale, Rhamis, Pdecas and Phiale are names of the nymphs that prepare Diana for her bath.

6. Which metaphor does Ovid apply to describe the blushing Diana? Who turns into a stag in her curse?

Answer: Ovid uses the metaphor of the crimson glow on the clouds when struck by the rays of the setting sun to describe the blushing of Diana. He complements it with the stock Homeric simile of rosy-fingered dawn.

7.Who was Semele? What made Juno angry with her?

Answer: Semele was Cadmus' daughter who was impregnated by Jupiter in the form of a thunderbolt. Juno was angry because Semele, ostensibly enamoured by her beauty, entered into a liaition with Jupiter with the hope of being united with him sexually and in getting son sired by the king of gods.

8.How does Juno disguise herself when she meets Semele?

Answer: Juno descended to Semele's home behind the veil of a yellowish cloud and approached her in the form of a crone with whiten temple,  wrinkles lining her skin, back bent with age, and tottering legs. She also assumed an old cracking voice. Everything was perfectly adapted to resemble the form of Beroe, Semele's old Epidaurian nurse.

9. How did Semele’s baby survive? Who reared him after Semele’s death?

Answer: The baby was torn away from her womb and stitched to Jupiter’s thigh. This was how the baby was saved. He was brought up by the nymphs of Nysa, who reared him in a private cave and fed him on milk.

10. Which incident leads to Tieresias’ transformation from a man into woman? How many years did he spend in that form?

Answer: Tieresias once witnessed a pair of enormous serpents engaged in copulation in a leafy forest. He dealt them with a blow from his staff and was immediately magically changed into a woman. He spent in that form for seven years. On the eighth he saw them again and recalling their magical quality, hit them again and was changed back into a man – the sex he was born with.

11. What made Juno angry with Tieresias and what was her curse?

Answer: Once, at a moment of quiet repast, Jupiter jocularly commented to Juno that woman enjoyed sex more than men. Juno disputed that. Tieresias was summoned to settle the dispute. Tieresias supported Jupiter and this enraged Juno. She cursed him to perpetual blindness, which Jupiter compensated by granting him the gift of clairvoyance.

12. which Greek city maintains the formal connection between all the stories of Book 3 in Metamorphoses?

Answer: Thebes maintains the formal connection between all the stories of Book 3 in Metamorphoses.

13. What caused the destruction of Semele?

Answer: Semele was provoked and instigated by Juno to plead to Jupiter to arrive to her in the way he approaches Juno in bed. Jupiter, who was already bound to her by the vow of granting her whatever she wished for, understood that she has been tricked into asking this favour, but could do nothing about it. Although she approached her with the least powerful of his thunderbolt, yet even that was too much more for a mortal to endure. Semele died almost immediately after Jupiter approached her.

14. Which metaphor does Ovid apply to describe Echo's hopeless passion for Narcissus?

Answer: Ovid uses the metaphor of sulphur, which once smeared on the tip of a pine torch quickly catches fire when another is brought to close proximity to describe Echo’s hopeless passion for Narcissus.

15. How did Narcissus fall in love? Name the object of his love.

Answer: Narcissus, tired and exhausted from a day of hunting approached a spring to douse his discomfort, but once he saw his reflection, the manner of his thirst changed. He fell in love with his own reflection towards which he turned with abject hope mistaking a shadow for substance.

16. How did Pantheus describe Bacchus in his speech to his countrymen?

Answer: Pantheus stresses on the aspect of femininity in Bacchus’ attributes when he tries to arouse his countryman’s vigour, which he equates with virile masculinity, in his speech to them. He describes Bacchus  as one whose armour is his perfumed locks and womanish garlands, and who wears purple dresses woven with golden embroidery- which so much vitiates the principles of frugality and moderation that early Doric states like Thebes were expected to follow.

17. How did Bacchus appear to the Lydian sailors? Who killed Pantheus?

Answer: Bacchus stood on the ship that resisted movement since the keel was overgrown with Ivy. His forehead was adorned with a garland of ripening bunches of grape lets, waving a spear emblazoned with vine leaves; lying around him a mirage of savage tigers, lynxes and spotted Panthers. This was the form in which Bacchus appeared to the Lydian sailors. Pantheus was killed by his mother Agave and her sister Autonoe.

18. Did Pantheus come to his sense after hearing the story of Acoetes? What was his order to his soldier?

Answer: Acoetes’ story had no impact on Pantheus. He did not come to his senses, but ordered his soldiers to carry Acoetes to the torture chamber and there to place his body to tracks, and finally cast it down the Stygian darkness.

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