Ovid vs. Hollywood

The last lines of The Metamorphoses of Ovid are “I shall have life”. Through these four words Ovid is saying that his human self and body may not live forever but his writing will survive him for centuries to come, and that is what it has done. Not only are college students reading his writings, but books and movies are constantly coming out with different modern variations of his stories. For example, his famous story and one of the few that have a happy ending, Pygmalion. It tells the story of a young sculptor who ignores women until he sculpts a beautiful 'Ivory Girl' with whom he falls in love. This story has been made into several movies such as the 1964 film, My Fair Lady, and the 1990 film, Pretty Woman. In Ovid's other story, Pyramus and Thisbe, it tells the story of two lovers who are forbidden to be together in life so they kill themselves to be together in death. The most famous recreation of this story is Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare's story has been made into movies countless times, but one story that is even older than Romeo and Juliet and that is also based on Pyramus and Thisbe is Tristan and Isolde which was made into a movie in 2006. One other famous story of Ovid's was Apollo and Daphne, it tells the story of the god, Apollo, who fell in love with the nymph, Daphne, who ran away from him when he pursued her and her father turned her into a laurel tree to save her. Despite the fact that Ovid lived almost 2,000 years ago, his stories have become modernized by new recreations in the form of books and movies.

  In Ovid's version of Pygmalion, a young sculptor ignores women because of the way he sees them act in public. “Pygmalion had seen the shameless lives of Cyprus' women; and disgusted by the many sins to which the the female mind had been inclined by nature, he resigned himself: for years he lived alone, without a spouse: he chose no wife to share his couch”, (p. 335). It wasn't until he began to sculpt a woman out of ivory that he fell in love. He made her beautiful and to add to her, he gave her jewelry to wear. Pygmalion went to Venus' temple and asked her if she would turn the statue into a real woman for him. Venus grants him his request and the Ivory Girl turns into the woman of his dreams. In the movie, My Fair Lady, Dr. Henry Higgins is perfectly content being a bachelor until he takes on the challenge of teaching Miss Eliza Doolittle to speak proper English without the extreme Cockney accent that she speaks with. As the teaching of linguistics continues, both Henry and Eliza refuse to admit that they like each other and they end up falling in love. Throughout the several months that Henry is teaching Eliza, they are supervised by Colonel Pickering who also is well learned in linguistics. Pygmalion and Henry Higgins are very similar in a lot of ways, they both fall in love when they both figured they never would, and they both fall in love with girls that they have worked with; Pygmalion while he sculpted the Ivory Girl and Henry while he improved Eliza's speech. It says in The Metamorphoses of Ovid that Pygmalion and his Ivory Girl get married, but it is just assumed that Henry and Eliza get married just by the way he was moping after she had left him and how subtly happy he seemed when she came back. “The young girl feels these kisses; blushing, she lifts up her timid eyes; she seeks the light; and even as she sees the sky, she sees her lover. Venus graces with her presence the wedding she has brought about. And when the moon shows not as a crescent but as an orb for the ninth time, Pygmalion's wife gives birth to Paphos-and in honor of that child, Cyprus has since been called the Paphian Isle”, (p. 337). The few differences between the two stories is that Pygmalion physically made his Ivory Girl while Henry Higgins just altered the way that Eliza was. The Ivory Girl that Pygmalion made is depicted by Ovid as delicate and beautiful, Eliza Doolittle isn't very delicate in the beginning of the movie because she is poor and was raised on the streets of London, she later turns into a lovely and delicate woman who can speak proper English. There is no love goddess that anyone can see in My Fair Lady like there is in Pygmalion, but Colonel Pickering, in a way, helps Henry see that Eliza is not just a 'street rat' but she is a lovely girl with a great personality under her horrible Cockney accent. 

  Ovid's story, Pyramus and Thisbe tells the story of two lovers who are forbidden by their families to marry. They would talk to each other through a crack in between their houses; even though talking helped, it was not the same as meeting face to face. In desperation they agreed to meet by a nearby tree. While she was going to the place where they would meet, a lion had just finished eating a recent kill and was cleaning itself when Thisbe saw it, she ran into a cave to hide but her shawl fell off and the lion attacked it. Pyramus had just walked by and saw the bloodstained shawl which he knew to be Thisbe's. He killed himself because he thought that she was dead. When Thisbe came out of hiding she saw Pyramus dying and killed herself to be with him. A similar story that has recently become a movie is called Tristan and Isolde. This story has many different endings depending on the author; it was originally a German opera written by Richard Wagner. It is based off of Pyramus and Thisbe, Wagner's version ended with Tristan killing himself because he thinks Isolde is dead, Isolde dies from what seems to be a broken heart after she sees Tristan dead. A different version involves both of them living and having a happy ending, the 2006 movie is similar to Ovid's version except that only Tristan dies, not Isolde. It starts off in Ireland, where Isolde is from, and she nurses Tristan back to health after he was fatally wounded in a battle in his native country, England. While she helps him gain his strength back they end up falling in love. Tristan returns to England where his uncle, the king, raised him as his own son, he asks Tristan to duel for the hand of the Princess of Ireland and Tristan agrees not knowing that Isolde is actually the Princess. He wins and she marries the King of England while secretly having an affair with Tristan. The movie ends with a battle and Tristan dies in Isolde's arms, she does not die in the movie. Some similarities between these two stories is that there are two fighting parties, Pyramus' family versus Thisbe's family and England versus Ireland. Both Pyramus and Thisbe and Tristan and Isolde are madly in love and have to keep it secret; one couple kept it from their families, the other couple kept it from their families and the people of their country. Tristan and Isolde have more intense consequences because if they are found it will most likely mean war between their two home countries. The most important difference between Pyramus and Thisbe and Tristan and Isolde is that in Ovid's tale both Pyramus and Thisbe die because they cannot be together in life. Tristan and Isolde can be together, it just has to be in secret because she is married to his uncle. However, in the movie, Tristan dies and Isolde supposedly continues to help reign England with Tristan's uncle. 

  Apollo and Daphne is another famous story of Ovid's. It is one of his many stories that involve a god chasing a human; in this case it is for love. The god, Cupid, shoots Daphne with one of his arrows that creates love at first sight, the problem is that he shot her with a dull arrow so she does not fall in love with the first man she sees. The god, Apollo, however is shot with a very sharp arrow and the first woman he sees is Daphne, whom he falls instantly in love with. He attempts to show his affection to her but she ignores him, it gets to the point that he is so much in love with her that he begins to chase her. Daphne runs away but when Apollo advances she asks her father, who is the river god Peneus, to turn her into a tree, so while she is still running she turns into a laurel tree. Apollo is upset but continues to love the laurel tree that was once Daphne. A very popular movie that has elements similar to Apollo and Daphne is The Sound of Music. It tells the story of a nun, Maria, who has not been sworn into the convent she lives in. She is assigned the task of becoming the governess for Captain von Trapp's children, she soon becomes close with his seven children and eventually falls in love with the Captain. Unfortunately, he is engaged to a Baroness but soon after he begins to fall in love with Maria. Maria is frightened by the feelings that she has for the Captain and runs back to the convent to hide. The head nun, Mother Abbess knows that Maria is in love and encourages her to go back to the Captain, she does and they get married. These two stories are similar in many ways and different in others, for example, Captain von Trapp holds quite a bit of power like Apollo does, they both can influence others by their power, to a degree. Maria is like Daphne, they both want their freedom and they love the outdoors. Maria may live in a convent, but she is able to leave and venture out into the surrounding Alps. Daphne loves to hunt and be in the woods like the goddess Diana, “she wants deep woods and spoils of animals she hunts; it is Diana, Phoebus' virgin sister, whom she would emulate. Around her hair-in disarray-she wears a simple band. Though many suitors seek her, she spurns them all; she wants to roam uncurbed; she needs no man she pays no heed to marriage, love or husbands”, (p. 21). Maria doesn't hunt nor does she 'spurn' men but she does enjoy her freedom as much as Daphne. Another similarity between the two stories is that Maria runs away from the Captain's love like Daphne runs away from Apollo's love. Apollo is chasing her for love, but Daphne is running away because she does not love him back. The reason that Maria runs away is because since she is a nun she cannot marry, however, she has not become a sworn nun so she can leave if she so wishes. She is also scared because she has probably never been in love before and is unsure of what will happen if she accepts it. Some differences between The Sound of Music and Apollo and Daphne is that Maria doesn't despise the Captain like Daphne despises Apollo. It is doubtful that Daphne would have fallen in love with Apollo, she loves her freedom and the woods too much to fall in love, also the arrow that Cupid shot at her prevented her from falling in love with Apollo. Captain von Trapp has seven children and they all live with him in his house, Apollo has about five children but he does not live with all of them, they are half mortal and half god so they usually live on Earth. The Captain seems to have a stronger relationship with his children than Apollo does, or he does after Maria teaches him to show affection to his children. 

  These great stories could not have been created and replicated had it not been for Ovid who wrote them. Many of his other stories have been recreated into books and movies, such as Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981). Three of his most famous stories became very popular movies. Pygmalion has been recreated into My Fair Lady and Pretty Woman, both of these movies have been very successful and popular since they first hit the theaters. Pyramus and Thisbe has been recreated into two popular stories which are very similar, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. Tristan and Isolde is older than Romeo and Juliet but it is hard to pinpoint when exactly it was written in relation to Pyramus and Thisbe and Romeo and Juliet. There are many different endings to Tristan and Isolde depending on the version, but in general it is based off of Ovid's story. Lastly, Apollo and Daphne is another famous story of Ovid's, even though The Sound of Music doesn't follow the original exactly, many of the elements in the movie are very similar to the ancient story. Making new versions of stories, especially stories as old as Ovid's, helps keep the story and the author alive and bridges the difference in age from 50 BC to 2006. As Ovid said, “I shall have life”, his words have been carried on for the past 2,000 years.