Every now and then I'm moved to let friends know what I'm reading especially when it's a significant experience and one I think others may want to enjoy for themselves. This month I opened two books, one and impressive favorite, the other its original source.
We start by going back sixty years to a survey course in western civilization that introduced me to Elizabeth Hamilton's landmark work, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. It became an instant favorite reinforced a few years later by an in-depth study of the book in a graduate course.
Since then I returned to the book to answer my own questions as well as those from my three children whose interests in history and western civilization have closely parallelled those of Mom and Dad. Earlier this summer some videos on Greco-Roman themes revived my interest in Hamilton's work and I decided to read it one more time. Neither a hasty nor detailed search of the library - I feel like I live in one - led to the book. Good books have a habit of disappearing but I don't mind when they've gone on to enrich someone's knowledge and reading experience. Not to worry. My tattered and browned paperback was soon replaced with a beautiful hardbound copy of the 75th anniversary illustrated edition published in 2017. Revisiting Mythology was nothing less than a conversation with an old friend whose presence was long overdue.
Shortly after finishing Hamilton's book I began thinking about reading more than a synopsis of the 250 myths. Finding the original stories would be easy because Hamilton used Ovid's Metamorphoses as the foundation for most of her book. My quest was to find a highly appreciated interpretation soon ended with Stanley Lombardo's 2010 translation written as a most readable, lyrical poem.
Ovid, a Roman poet, wrote his 12,000 line verse in Latin around 8 CE. He wrote it as a continuos narrative of transformation and change in the Greco-Roman world from the creation of the world itself through the life of Julius Caesar (44 BCE). It is considered the first application of the concept of history to a people, place, and time. Essentially it is western civilization's first history book and one that has exercised profound influence on western art, literature and culture in general to this very day.
Revisiting Mythology and reading Metamorphoses for the first time led me to add a few more Greco-Roman classics to my reading list. Better yet I'm adding a few novels both old and new and a poetry book or two. For the most part, reading novels will be a new direction for me. If you're interested in reading something different you may want to consider Mythology and Metamorphoses as a starting point. They definitely led me in new directions and reinforced familiar territory in my reading habits. I'm looking forward to the journey. Perhaps you too will find some new paths as well.
Sources
Text:
title quote, first line of Ovid's invocation to Metamorphoses
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