Praise for Tales from Ovid:
‘A breathtaking book…To compare his versions with the Latin is to be awestruck again and again by the range and ingenuity of his poetic intelligence…He rescues the old gods and goddesses from the classical dictionaries and gives them back their terror. There should be a copy of his book in every school’. John Carey Sunday Times
Taken from Tales from Ovid, 24 Passages from the Metamorphoses, published by Faber and Faber Ltd 1997. Copyright Ted Hughes, 1930 -1998
One time, Jupiter, happy to be idle,
Swept the cosmic mystery aside
And draining another goblet of ambrosia
Teased Juno, who drowned in bliss beside him:
‘This love of male and female’s a strange business.
Fifty-fifty investment in the madness,
Yet she ends up with nine-tenths of the pleasure.’
Juno’s answer was: ‘A man might think so
It needs more than a mushroom in your cup
To wake a wisdom that can fathom which
Enjoys the deeper pleasure, man or woman.
It needs the solid knowledge of a soul
Who having lived and loved in a woman’s body
Has also lived and loved in the body of a man.’
Jupiter laughed aloud: ‘We have the answer.
There is a fellow called Tiresias.
Strolling to watch the birds and hear the bees
He came across two serpents copulating.
He took the opportunity to kill
Both with a single blow, but merely to hurt them –
And found himself transformed into a woman.
‘After the seventh year of womanhood,
Strolling to ponder on what women ponder
She saw in that same place the same two serpents
Knotted as before in copulation.
“If your pain can still change your attacker
Just as you once changed me, then change me back.”
She hit the couple with a handy stick,
‘And there he stood as male as any man.’
‘He’ll explain,’ cried Juno, ‘why you are
Slave to your irresistible addiction
While the poor nymphs you force to share it with you
Do all they can to shun it.’ Jupiter
Asked Tiresias: ‘In their act of love
Who takes the greater pleasure, man or woman?’
‘Woman,’ replied Tiresias, ‘takes nine-tenths.’
Juno was so angry – angrier
Than is easily understandable –
She struck Tiresias and blinded him.
‘You’ve seen your last pretty snake, for ever.’
But Jove consoled him: ‘That same blow,’ he said,
‘Has opened your inner eye, like a nightscope. See:
‘The secrets of the future – they are yours.’
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