Ovid and Apollodorus's Creation Tales: A Comparison

Ovid begins Metamorphoses, like Apollodorus does in The Library of Greek Mythology with a version of the creation myth. Apollodorus’s account appropriately opens his informative but plain narrative. The story of how the heavens and earth were formed does not, however, fit as neatly into the general patterning of plot in Metamorphoses. Ovid, in fact, has greater intentions to begin his book in such a way than to simply abide by tradition.

Ovid indulges in much more detail that does Apollodorus, writing in a style that is clearly creative but also scientific. He elaborates ion men’s understanding o nature and the beginning of the world almost to a boastful effect. What Apollodorus spends but a few lines on (most of which provides lists of names) in Ovid’s hands turns into a grandiose tale of the beginning of time. Ovid describes how the density of ether, air and earth and water is caused by their order in the atmosphere, how the earth was made round so every direction is identical, and how the seas’ movements are caused by the wind. Ovid can be viewed as more eager to account for the conventions and innovations of men rather than to create a mere denealogy of the divines. His narrative clearly tries to quantify what people knew about the world around them more so than the birth of deities.

For the same reason, he underwrites the role of the divine in his tale by referring to the creator god as “the god, whichever of the gods he was,” whereas in Apollodorus’s version, the personified Sky (Oranos) is known to readers as the most powerful deity at least until the birth of his children. Ovid’s reluctance to even name a deity for the birth of the universe, in contrast, signify a readiness to rely on mankind for a more appropriate explanation. Ovid’s narrative, also, does not depend on constructing complex relationships that will account for every single known divinity in the common Greek or Latin myths. The same is not to be said of Apollodorus, whose narrative depends on genealogy and names. Ovid’s work places greater emphasis on the effects which the gods have on men, than on the gods themselves.

Thus, instead of simply recounting the events which have caused power to change hands in the heaves, Ovid describes each reign as it affected the lives of men on Earth. The rule of Oranos he dubbed the Golden Age for it was a harmonious timeout without harm done from the hands of men. The reign of Jove he called the Silver Age in which seasons came into being and men no longer lived simply in the open, and the domestication of animals and plantation began, which Ovid thought was unfortunate. It is not clear in his relation who ruled the universe during the ages of bronze and iron, each of lesser quality than its predecessor. In these times, men became more and more violent and prone to warfare.

Ovid can be seen as attempting to tell a humanized version of these tales. Placing more emphasis on how men feel, how they function, and how they think, Ovid’s collection of myths more readily reflects what we think of as myth in the modern context. In other words, he added to his retelling of these stories the social element. Men who lived and told these tales do not seek to incorporate themselves into the plotline as does Ovid. For this reason, Ovid often introduces the narrator before he begins retelling a story. It is since Ovid that we can read myth as an exercise and experience of social norms and beliefs. To answer the question “what service does myth perform for men” based on Ovid’s writing, one could make the case that myth serves to validate their understanding of self, other and world. He reconciled the gap between the men and the tales that helped shape their being.

It is, in the end, reasonable to see Ovid’s narrative of the great beginning as befitting of introducing a collection of tales on the metamorphosis experienced by men. The creation tale is in another sense the transformation of ages, which are lived by men. More so than being religious and concerning himself with understanding the divine, Ovid appears to be in love with the human race. Eager to quantify and document the knowledge and beliefs common to his time, Ovid weaves into beautiful and fantasized narration, pieces of human understanding about the world.