First Entry

Hi! My name is Rachel Davis, and I'm excited to start my second year of college. My major is anthropology. I don't have a copy of The Golden Bough yet, but I will share a excerpt from The Metamorphoses of Ovid. This is my first time using a blog, so hopefully it will work!

From Apollo and Daphne, pages 21-22:

"Though many suitors seek her, she spurns them all;
she wants to roam uncurbed; she needs no man;
she pays no to heed marriage, love, or husbands.
Her father often said: "You're in my debt:
a son-in-law is owed me." And he said:
"You owe my grandsons." But his daughter scorns,
as things quite criminal, the marriage torch
and matrimony, with a modest blush
on her fair face..."

In the times that Ovid lived, it was expected that a woman would marry, take care of the house and her husband and have children. Women were not taught how to read or write or encouraged to have a further education other than what is important to know in the household. In this excerpt, Diana (whom Daphne looks up to) is 'free' of any of those restraints. Daphne would rather hunt and explore the wilderness, like Diana, than deal with the many suitors lined up for her. Her father, on the other hand, demands that she marry because she owes him a son-in-law and grandsons- not granddaughters. It would almost seem that Daphne's father would prefer a son over his own daughter-and demands in the same line, "You owe me grandsons". At least, this is the impression I got out of the excerpt. In some cultures having a son, or many sons, is preferred over having daughters because the son can work, take over the family business, and pass the family name on. This line caught my attention for not only the context, but for the bluntness the father used and how callused it sounded. This book is written so beautifully that anything so straightforward as that catches the attention. Other than that, I really like the Metamorphoses of Ovid so far, and I'm looking forward to getting more in depth with it!
-RD