Down with the Cycnus

For being such a minor story, I thought that the fight between Achilles and Cycnus was a really interesting inclusion. Achilles is probably most famous for being completely invulnerable, except for his heel, since his mom held him by his heel when she dipped him in the river Styx as a baby. The Met doesn’t …

Is Minerva Arachne-phobic?

Arachne is my favorite character and she did nothing wrong. Most retellings of the Arachne myth try to make it out to be a straightforward tale of hubris. A morality lesson on why it’s bad to be arrogant. The article from Colby College argues that the version of this myth in the Met shows Arachne …

Why Metamorphosize?

I’ve been thinking about why Ovid decided to name his poem the Metamorphoses, and why so many of his characters get turned into plants and animals. It happens all the time, sometimes for no apparent reason, and there’s not really much that connects the different transformations. He paints some of the victims of transformation in …