Ovid’s Metamorphoses #009/111: “The Pipes of Pan”

What this project is about.  

This one is from Book 1.

How long it took to read this (aloud): 4 mins 45secs

What it’s “about”: Argos the 100 eyed-beast gets disposed off. Juno is mad-jealous and makes life for Io-Cow miserable. Jove calms her down, and Io is de-cowed.

Words I didn’t know: none

Quotable quotes

So Argos perished: fires

All forest that were his glancing sight put out;

A single darkness filled his hundred eyes

AND

“Pity Io, Juno

That child shall never haunt my mind or bed

I swear by Death that what I say is true.”

AndStygian waters splashed a benediction!

How it lands to my eco-sensibility: Humans to animals and back again – I like the liminality (but gods really are assholes)

Obvious allusions, ways it was used (that I am aware of already) : xx

What I know I didn’t ‘get’: xx

To my knowledge, who’s used it why/how (RACC): xx

Further research questions: xx

Anything else: xx

And via the magic of Google I find someone else was doing a “Monday Metamorphoses” thing, but this Jove/Juno/Io thing was – understandably – too much for him.

You might’ve read my message yesterday about ending this Monday Metamorphoses thing. To be honest, this story about Jupiter, Io, and Juno was the real culprit behind that decision. Not that its distasteful aspects convinced me on their own. After reading it and posting it, I scanned ahead and found at least 16 other stories about rape. That averages out to just over one a book, never mind the many other cases of misogyny in the poem.

Again, I’m not saying the poem shouldn’t be read. I’ll likely keep reading it myself. But the part of Monday Metamorphoses I got excited about the most was the responses—writing mine and reading yours. I know I would feel the need to acknowledge this issue, the sexism, every time it came up. And it’s just going to come up too often for this exercise to be any fun.

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