Ovid’s Metamorphoses #091/111: “Glaucus”

What this project is about.  

This one is from Book 13.

Bartholomeus Spranger (1546–1611), Glaucus and Scylla (1580-82), oil on canvas, 110 × 81 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Wikimedia Commons. 

How long it took to read this (aloud): 4 mins 30s

What it’s “about”: Scylla on the beach, ‘wooed’ by Glaucus unsuccessfully.

Changing Stories: Ovid’s Metamorphoses on canvas, 71 – Glaucus and Scylla – The Eclectic Light Company 

Words I didn’t know: none

Quotable quotes: 

Then suddenly the fish began to swim, 

To be as lively as they were at sea, 

And as I looked, I saw them leap the meadow 

To vanish in the sea. This kept me thinking, 

What touch of magic made fish misbehave? 

Was there some god at work or these strange herbs? 

I stooped to pick the herbs, to see what happened; 

I took a leaf to test it with my teeth — 

Then my heart churned and all my body thirsted 

To leap toward water. I could not resist it; 

I cried, “Good-bye to everything on land, 

Tree, field, or flower; I won’t be back forever!”

AND

Then Oceanus 

And Tethys were invoked to wash me clean 

Of what I was before; they chanted rhymes, 

Nine times around me singing guilt away, 

And bathed me in a hundred sheets of water, 

Until I felt all rivers pour upon me, 

The voice of waters rushing through my head:

AND

How it lands to my eco-sensibility: xx

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