Z. presents a subtle and stimulating analysis of Ovid's reception of Hesiod, with emphasis, as indicated in the title, on the transformation of the Catalogue of Women. Following ‘a growing scholarly interest in the Catalogue of Women and the reception of Hesiod in antiquity’ (p. ix), he puts forward the claim that Hesiod's poetry is the ‘host’ genre of the Metamorphoses and that specific structural and thematic preoccupations of the Ovidian work record, in general, tales that belong to the epic tradition of Hesiod's Catalogue of Women. This monograph also discusses the well-known rivalry between Hesiodic and Homeric poetry, recast as a certamen between Ovid's Metamorphoses and Virgil's Aeneid. The analysis of the issues raised, divided into five chapters, is the result of a thorough and lucid examination of a considerable number of passages. Each chapter ends with a conclusion in which valuable insights are underlined.
In Chapter 1, ‘Helen: the Intertext of Illusion’, Z. first presents a comparison between the Hesiodic catalogue of Helen's suitors (frr. 196–204 M-W) and the Homeric catalogue of ships, and argues that ‘the Catalogue reduces the heroes of the Iliad to a footnote’ (p. 27). Then the discussion turns to Paris’ Ovidian letter to Helen (Heroides 16); the parallel examination of specific passages lends support to the claim that the Catalogue of Women should be read as an essential, though particularly understudied, intertext. In an attempt to address the issue of Paris’ manipulation of poetic tradition and language of flattery, Z. propounds the view that the Ovidian hero turns conventional epic diction into powerful rhetoric.
Chapter 2, ‘Cosmos and Eros: from Chaos to Divine Loves’, first treats the Hesiodic background to Silenus’ song in Eclogue 6 and then focuses on Ovid's trajectory in the Metamorphoses, from the Theogony and the Works and Days to the Catalogue of Women, suggesting a unified reading of Hesiod's epics. Chapter 2 includes a compelling presentation of Perseus as a Hesiodic poet (Met. 4.765–803), with emphasis on the Ovidian hero's interest in the genealogical sequence of the Theogony. This chapter is completed by the illustration of ‘another Hesiodic artist in the Metamorphoses’ (p. 96), namely Arachne; the issue under scrutiny is the dynamic tension between the Aeneid and the Ovidian work, displayed in the microcosmic versions of the two different epic poems that Minerva's and Arachne's tapestries artfully sketch.
Chapter 3, ‘Coronis and Mestra: Bringing the Women Back to the Catalogue of Women’, presents Coronis’ story in the Metamorphoses (2.531–632) as an aetiological tale drawing on the Hecale (fr. 74 Hollis), and shows that, when structuring his tale as Coronis-Ehoie, Ovid reconstructs Callimachus’ work. A second main subject of this chapter is a similar dialogue between Hesiod and Callimachus in Metamorphoses 8: the story of Erysichthon and Mestra (8.738–878) is told by an anti-Callimachean narrator in the Ovidian epos, and thus suggests a subversion of Ovid's Hellenistic predecessor. In a final subchapter, it is convincingly demonstrated that Ovid recasts Erysichthon in the framework of a Mestra-ehoie.
Chapter 4, ‘Atalanta: Literal and Literary Races’, first examines Orpheus’ Hesiodic trajectory that treats the gods’ passions for mortal boys and thereby suggests a subversion of the main motif of the Ehoiai, which implies Ovid's affiliation with the Hellenistic adaptations of ehoie-poetry. Naturally, a great part of this chapter concerns the analysis of Atalanta's tale and there is ample support to the claim that ‘[b]y setting his Atalanta against the background of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Ovid activates an intergeneric discourse between ehoie-poetry and martial epic’ (p. 164). Cast as ‘a female Achilles’ (p. 167), Atalanta generates a fascinating interplay between the Iliad and the Catalogue of Women, which is reflected in Ovid's work as a contrast between the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses.
The final chapter, ‘Caenis and Periclymenus: Hesiod at Achilles’ Party’, discusses Ovid's ‘Little Iliad’ and presents Nestor as an intergenerational narrator of tales from the Catalogue of Women. The structure of his story of Caenis/Caeneus, told ‘from her birth to his death’ (p. 188) as an ehoie, reveals the abrupt shift from the glorious deeds of men to female renown. Z. successfully interprets the gendered and generic dynamics of the Ehoiai as opposed to heroic epic and underlines the intertextual dimension of Ovid's method of source manipulation.
Several qualities of this volume deserve to be highlighted. First, the focus is on aspects, views and approaches to which scholars have given relatively little attention or often have entirely overlooked and on which the proposed reading, marked with originality, sheds new light. The virtues of this work are detailed analysis and clear presentation, and perhaps most obviously, coherence and comprehensiveness. The technical terms used, for instance, ‘future reflexive’, ‘window reference’, ‘female renown’ and ‘Alexandrian footnote’, are attentively defined and carefully explained. The objectives and parameters are clearly set in both the introduction and the five chapters, and these are followed by a rich bibliography, an index of passages discussed and a general index. The overall impression is of a work attentively redacted and expertly fashioned.
Particular high points include the study of Paris’ Ovidian letter and its intertextual dialogue with the Hesiodic text. Nevertheless, one would have expected to be reminded of the significance of Hesiodic stories in the examination of other Ovidian epistles. The focus, naturally enough, is on specific myths; however, Atalanta's tale, for instance, invites us to read carefully Ovid's double letter of Acontius and Cydippe (Heroides 20–1), not only because of the obvious similar issues raised (the symbolism of the apple, the importance of the oracle, the word play on escaping death and/or avoiding marriage), but because Cydippe requests to be compared to Atalanta ‘herself’ (Letter 21.125–6). In a different form of ‘race’, namely a controuersia, her Achillean nature and Hesiodic character could be put to the test, yet again.
Additionally, the study of the Ovidian transitions that seem to reflect the shifts identified within the Hesiodic corpus, well discussed in various passages, would have been far more convincing if Z. had considered Ovid's ‘Catalogue of Women’ in its unity. The study of women's trajectory, presented in the Metamorphoses, may imply a progressive transition from powerful masculine figures and weak female victims to antiheroic illustrations of men and ‘untouchable’ women, and would have further enriched Z.’s argumentation on the Ovidian reflexions of Hesiod's work.
More details, such as page numbers on specific internal references (see, for instance, p. 154 n. 22; p. 172 n. 76; p. 197 n. 45), and more bibliographical references on ‘Ovid and Intertextuality’ would have been welcome, for instance, Allusion et fiction épistolaire dans les Heroides: Recherches sur l'intertextualité ovidienne, by J.-C. Jolivet (2001). One omission would be La poétique d'Ovide, de l'élégie à l'épopée des Métamorphoses: Essai sur un style dans l'histoire, by A. Videau (2010), but the book might have appeared too late for the author to have been aware of it.
The quality of the volume is unquestionably high; it will certainly stimulate further work and I recommend it to classicists. Z.’s book is a considerable success, and forms a significant contribution to an area of research which shows no sign of exhaustion. This volume will serve as an indispensable reference point for the future study of Hesiod and Ovid.
