Ovid's Ceyx and Alcyone
The Metamorphosis of a Myth
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3939504 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elaine Fantham (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1979 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 330 |
| Publication date | 1979-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Phoenix (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8299 • E-ISSN: 1929-4883 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1087189 |
| OpenAlex | W2326548353 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
W HILE MANY OF THE LOVE STORIES in Ovid's Metamorphoses are spiced with the Hellenistic seasoning of incest, treason, rape, and violence, there are a few narratives of mutual love, even married love, which the poet has treated with a special sensitivity. As Brooks Otis has noted,' these increase in scale and seriousness from the brief tragedy of errors of Pyramus and Thisbe through the fatal jealousies of Cephalus and Procris, to the ripe devotion of Philemon and Baucis (a counterpart of Deucalion and his Pyrrha); but the longest and most tender of these love-stories is that of Ceyx and Alcyone.2 And yet as Ovid tells their story, it is in many ways extraordinary. There are precedents enough for the tragic separation of a loving couple. Already in the Iliad there is the tender scene at the last parting of Hector and Andromache, a prototype which may have influenced Ovid's portrayal of the departure of Ceyx and of Alcyone waiting in innocent expectation of his return. Xenophon's Cyropaedia depicts the love of Panthea for her husband Abradatas and her grief and suicide at his death in battle, and Parthenius includes two such tragedies among his more lurid tales of unnatural passion.3 Hellenistic tales often complicated the course of true love with misunderstandings such as the misplaced
Ancient history · Art · Battle · Grief · Literature · Mythology · Narrative · Passion · Psychoanalysis · Seriousness · Tragedy (event · Classical Antiquity Studies · History · Philosophy · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,45 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2023 (9) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |