Pygmalion
from Ovid's Metamorphoses
Translation by Brookes More (1922)
Pygmalion saw these women waste their lives
in wretched shame, and critical of faults
which nature had so deeply planted through
their female hearts, he lived in preference,
for many years unmarried.—But while he
was single, with consummate skill, he carved
a statue out of snow-white ivory,
and gave to it exquisite beauty, which
no woman of the world has ever equaled:
she was so beautiful, he fell in love
with his creation. It appeared in truth
a perfect virgin with the grace of life,
but in the expression of such modesty
all motion was restrained—and so his art
concealed his art. Pygmalion gazed, inflamed
with love and admiration for the form,
in semblance of a woman, he had carved.
He lifts up both his hands to feel the work,
and wonders if it can be ivory,
because it seems to him more truly flesh. —
his mind refusing to conceive of it
as ivory, he kisses it and feels
his kisses are returned. And speaking love,
caresses it with loving hands that seem
to make an impress, on the parts they touch,
so real that he fears he then may bruise
her by his eager pressing. Softest tones
are used each time he speaks to her. He brings
to her such presents as are surely prized
by sweet girls; such as smooth round pebbles, shells,
and birds, and fragrant flowers of thousand tints,
lilies, and painted balls, and amber tears
of Heliads, which distill from far off trees.—
he drapes her in rich clothing and in gems:
rings on her fingers, a rich necklace round
her neck, pearl pendants on her graceful ears;
and golden ornaments adorn her breast.
All these are beautiful—and she appears
most lovable, if carefully attired,—
or perfect as a statue, unadorned.
He lays her on a bed luxurious, spread
with coverlets of Tyrian purple dye,
and naming her the consort of his couch,
lays her reclining head on the most soft
and downy pillows, trusting she could feel.
The festal day of Venus, known throughout
all Cyprus, now had come, and throngs were there
to celebrate. Heifers with spreading horns,
all gold-tipped, fell when given the stroke of death
upon their snow-white necks; and frankincense
was smoking on the altars. There, intent,
Pygmalion stood before an altar, when
his offering had been made; and although he
feared the result, he prayed: “If it is true,
O Gods, that you can give all things, I pray
to have as my wife—” but, he did not dare
to add “my ivory statue-maid,” and said,
“One like my ivory—.” Golden Venus heard,
for she was present at her festival,
and she knew clearly what the prayer had meant.
She gave a sign that her Divinity
favored his plea: three times the flame leaped high
and brightly in the air.
When he returned,
he went directly to his image-maid,
bent over her, and kissed her many times,
while she was on her couch; and as he kissed,
she seemed to gather some warmth from his lips.
Again he kissed her; and he felt her breast;
the ivory seemed to soften at the touch,
and its firm texture yielded to his hand,
as honey-wax of Mount Hymettus turns
to many shapes when handled in the sun,
and surely softens from each gentle touch.
He is amazed; but stands rejoicing in his doubt;
while fearful there is some mistake, again
and yet again, gives trial to his hopes
by touching with his hand. It must be flesh!
The veins pulsate beneath the careful test
of his directed finger. Then, indeed,
the astonished hero poured out lavish thanks
to Venus; pressing with his raptured lips
his statue's lips. Now real, true to life—
the maiden felt the kisses given to her,
and blushing, lifted up her timid eyes,
so that she saw the light and sky above,
as well as her rapt lover while he leaned
gazing beside her—and all this at once—
the goddess graced the marriage she had willed,
and when nine times a crescent moon had changed,
increasing to the full, the statue-bride
gave birth to her dear daughter Paphos. From
which famed event the island takes its name.
10:243 'Quas quia Pygmalion aevum per crimen agentis
10:244 viderat, offensus vitiis, quae plurima menti
10:245 femineae natura dedit, sine coniuge caelebs
10:246 vivebat thalamique diu consorte carebat.
10:247 interea niveum mira feliciter arte
10:248 sculpsit ebur formamque dedit, qua femina nasci
10:249 nulla potest, operisque sui concepit amorem.
10:250 virginis est verae facies, quam vivere credas,
10:251 et, si non obstet reverentia, velle moveri:
10:252 ars adeo latet arte sua. miratur et haurit
10:253 pectore Pygmalion simulati corporis ignes.
10:254 saepe manus operi temptantes admovet, an sit
10:255 corpus an illud ebur, nec adhuc ebur esse fatetur.
10:256 oscula dat reddique putat loquiturque tenetque
10:257 et credit tactis digitos insidere membris
10:258 et metuit, pressos veniat ne livor in artus,
10:259 et modo blanditias adhibet, modo grata puellis
10:260 munera fert illi conchas teretesque lapillos
10:261 et parvas volucres et flores mille colorum
10:262 liliaque pictasque pilas et ab arbore lapsas
10:263 Heliadum lacrimas; ornat quoque vestibus artus,
10:264 dat digitis gemmas, dat longa monilia collo,
10:265 aure leves bacae, redimicula pectore pendent:
10:266 cuncta decent; nec nuda minus formosa videtur.
10:267 conlocat hanc stratis concha Sidonide tinctis
10:268 adpellatque tori sociam adclinataque colla
10:269 mollibus in plumis, tamquam sensura, reponit.
10:270 'Festa dies Veneris tota celeberrima Cypro
10:271 venerat, et pandis inductae cornibus aurum
10:272 conciderant ictae nivea cervice iuvencae,
10:273 turaque fumabant, cum munere functus ad aras
10:274 constitit et timide "si, di, dare cuncta potestis,
10:275 sit coniunx, opto," non ausus "eburnea virgo"
10:276 dicere, Pygmalion "similis mea" dixit "eburnae."
10:277 sensit, ut ipsa suis aderat Venus aurea festis,
10:278 vota quid illa velint et, amici numinis omen,
10:279 flamma ter accensa est apicemque per aera duxit.
10:280 ut rediit, simulacra suae petit ille puellae
10:281 incumbensque toro dedit oscula: visa tepere est;
10:282 admovet os iterum, manibus quoque pectora temptat:
10:283 temptatum mollescit ebur positoque rigore
10:284 subsidit digitis ceditque, ut Hymettia sole
10:285 cera remollescit tractataque pollice multas
10:286 flectitur in facies ipsoque fit utilis usu.
10:287 dum stupet et dubie gaudet fallique veretur,
10:288 rursus amans rursusque manu sua vota retractat.
10:289 corpus erat! saliunt temptatae pollice venae.
10:290 tum vero Paphius plenissima concipit heros
10:291 verba, quibus Veneri grates agat, oraque tandem
10:292 ore suo non falsa premit, dataque oscula virgo
10:293 sensit et erubuit timidumque ad lumina lumen
10:294 attollens pariter cum caelo vidit amantem.
10:295 coniugio, quod fecit, adest dea, iamque coactis
10:296 cornibus in plenum noviens lunaribus orbem
10:297 illa Paphon genuit, de qua tenet insula nomen.
[Pygmalion, by Franz Stuck]
Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BCE-17/18 CE), known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus banished him (for reasons which never have been clarified) to a remote province on the Black Sea, where he remained until his death. Besides the Metamorphoses, Ovid is known for works in elegiac couplets such as Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love").
[Pygmalion and Galathea, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1890)]
The Metamorphoses consists of 15 books, a continuous mythological narrative written in epic meter. It contains almost 12,000 lines of poetry and addresses 150 myths. We find such famous stories as Io, Phaeton, Pyramus and Thisbe, Perseus and Andromeda, Medea and Jason, the Minotaur, Daedalus and Icarus, Hercules, Orpheus and Eurydice, Ganymede, Hyacinth, Pygmalion, Venus and Adonis, Atalanta, and so on... via the destruction of Troy all the way to Julius Caesar in the age in which Ovid lived.
Ovid's
account is the major (if not only) source for a particular story, one which has been
picked up and embellished and re-embellished throughout European
literature. Take the one I have quoted above, the story of the sculptor Pygmalion who fell in love with a statue he had sculpted, after which it became a living woman (called Galathea by later authors). The story is echoed and copied in the many works from the Romantic period in which dolls or automatons come to life, as in E. T. A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman"; Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (1883), in which a wooden puppet is transformed into a "real boy"; and most famously of all, George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, a modern variant of the myth in which flower-girl Eliza Doolittle is metaphorically "brought to life" by a phonetics professor, Henry Higgins, who teaches her to refine her accent and conversation and conduct herself with upper-class manners in social situations. This play inspired the 1938 film Pygmalion, as well as the 1956 musical (and 1964 film) My Fair Lady starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn.
Many famous paintings and poems were also based on the myｔh. In classical music, the first Pygmalion operas date from the late 18th c. (Rameau, Benda); the most famous ones are Franz von Suppe's operetta Die schöne Galathée and the ballet Coppélia by Leo Delibes, about an inventor who makes a life-sized dancing doll. The story about the doll by Hoffmann is taken up in Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann.
Many famous paintings and poems were also based on the myｔh. In classical music, the first Pygmalion operas date from the late 18th c. (Rameau, Benda); the most famous ones are Franz von Suppe's operetta Die schöne Galathée and the ballet Coppélia by Leo Delibes, about an inventor who makes a life-sized dancing doll. The story about the doll by Hoffmann is taken up in Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann.
And so Ovid's humorous and erotic "Pygmalion" has reverberated through the ages...
Translation:
I have cited from the 1922 blank verse translation by Brookes More (1859-1942), which is in the public domain. Cited from Perseus Digital Library.
Original Latin text at Wikisource.
A good modern verse translation by David Raeburn is available in Penguin Classics.
Photos: via Wikimedia Commons
Lyric Poetry Around the World Index