Reading Notes: Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Part B

Jupiter and Juno fight over who enjoys the pleasures of love more, men or women? and this is settled by Tiresias because he had been both. He ends up agreeing with Jupiter saying women do.
Echo the nymph sees Narcissus roaming through the fields and she was immediately set aflame. She followed him all throughout the woods waiting to hear words she could echo back to him.
Echo's normal speech had been taken away by Juno because she had upset Juno with her distracting babbling and could only repeat the last words out of many.
Narcissus hears her following him and calls out to her to show herself, once she does she wraps her arms around him and he runs from her.

Narcissus drinks from a foundation, and see himself in the reflection of the water, and he is immediately astonished by himself.
Unknowingly he desires himself, obsessed.
He kept looking at his reflection in the water trying to embrace himself by plunging his arms into the water, but he could not catch himself. He desired himself.
He's upset by his unrequited love.
Narcissus weathers away in front of the fountain, loving his reflection and being able to do nothing about it.
Narcissus ended up turning into a flower.

Pyramus and Thisbe knew each other from a young age and fell in love but their families forbid them to see one another.
One night Pyramus and Thisbe planned to sneak out and leave the city together.
Thisbe gets to their agreed meeting spot and sees a lioness and runs, accidentally leaving her veil behind. The lioness goes to the veil and shakes it, getting blood from her fresh kill on it.
It's at this moment Pyramus shows up and seeing the scene in front of him, and believed the lioness had killed his Thisbe.
Upset, Pyramus kills himself with his sword.
Finding Pyramus bleeding out and dying, Thisbe decides to take her own life as well.

Vulcan discovers his wife Venus having an affair with Mars
He turned to his metalwork in anger planning revenge
He spun a net, so finely spun that it would deceive the eye, and would cling to the smallest of movements. He placed this net over the bed.
When Venus and Mars came together again, they found themselves entangled in their imprisonment
Vulcan then opened the doors and let all the gods laugh at them in their shame.

Perseus, the son of Jupiter, kills Medusa and leaves with her head.
He runs into the god Atlas and then offers him a gift but ends up turning him into a mountain instead.
Perseus finds Andromeda chained up and crying and he is completely awed by her.
Seeing her and her parents in distress, Perseus says he will help if her parents give her to him, and they do.

Now that Perseus has struck a deal with Andromeda's parents, he now has to fight the sea monster.
He cuts and slashes the beast and wins.
He is then given his prize, Andromeda and things are great.
He continues to tell the story of himself and Medusa, spouting his victory

Story Source: Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000).

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