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Pride In Ovid's Metamorphoses

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Metamorphoses is a ancient Roman epic poem (originally written in Latin) attributed to Ovid. It is a collection of stories with a common theme of transformation. Ovid represents pride as a negative emotion. One of the most prominent examples of pride is the story of Arachne, who pridefully claims superiority to the goddess of weaving, and is transformed into a spider because of it. Likewise, the story of Niobe also represents the negativity of pride. Niobe is extremely prideful in her ancestry and her children, mocks and disrespects the goddess Latona (the mother of Phoebus and Phoebe), and is therefore punished with the death of her children. Ovid uses these two stories to depict the danger of hubris. Arachne, full of hubris, challenges …show more content…
Regardless of her skill, Arachne’s mockery and disrespect towards Minerva and the other gods could not go unpunished. To allow her to live freely without retribution would lessen the respect and power the gods command. Without making an example of her, people would believe that the gods are not so powerful at all and would lead to more and more people disrespecting and mocking them. Arachne’s impertinence towards Minerva and her disrespect of the other gods caused Minerva to turn her into a spider. Similarly, the story of Niobe presents hubris as a negative emotion. Niobe is the queen of Thebes and is extremely prideful of both her ancestry and her children. Ovid states that “[Niobe’s] pride had many sources, but...none of these gave her such pleasure...as did her progeny. All would have hailed her as the most fortunate of mothers had she not gotten there ahead of them.” Later, Niobe tells some Theban women
My lineage is highly worshipful: only one man has ever been permitted to lie among the gods at their high table: my father, Tantalus. And Dione, my mother, is a sister of the famous Pleiades; my grandfather on her side is mighty Atlas, who bears heaven’s weight upon his shoulders; and on my father’s side, why my grandfather is Jupiter …show more content…
Why cultivate Latona’s altars and deny me mine? My lineage is highly worshipful...I am a queen in the line that traces its descent from Cadmus... I have seven daughters and seven sons, all soon to multiply my holdings by their spouses when they marry—and you still ask what cause I have for pride? Then dare prefer Latona’s cult to mine, that daughter of the Titan Coeus, whoever he’s supposed to be! Latona, denied the barest spot for giving birth! There was no place in heaven nor on earth nor on the sea that would receive your goddess, an exile driven over the wide world...she became the parent of—just two! One seventh of the yield of our

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