The Gods in Metamorphoses and the AeneidEssay Preview: The Gods in Metamorphoses and the AeneidReport this essayThe gods in Metamorphoses are different than they are in the Aeneid. Though they are the same Roman gods, they act different and that affects the people in the stories too. Although some might say since the gods in the Aeneid and Metamorphoses are the same gods, there is no difference between them. Nevertheless, the authors have very different opinions and are writing for different reasons. Consequently, their gods should be different. Virgil was writing to tell Aeneas’s story. Ovid was writing to teach about transformations and the different ways they can take place. In most of the ones he tells, a god or goddess transforms a human. Both Virgil and Ovid made their gods struggle through very human emotions. Desire, anger, and love are the most common. Therefore, because of these reasons, we can conclude that Ovid and Virgil believe very different things and though their gods experience similar emotions, they are very different sets of characters.
In Virgil’s story The Aeneid, he portrays the god as very powerful and all knowing. They are more god than human, and the opposite in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Virgil was writing to tell the tale of Aeneas, and you can tell in just the first few lines of the story:
I sing of warfare and a man at war./ From the sea-coast of Troy in early days/ He came to Italy by destiny,/ To our Lavinian western shore,/ A fugitive, this captain, buffeted/ Cruelly on land as on the sea/ By blows from powers of the air – behind them/ Baleful Juno in her sleepless rage./ and cruel losses were his lot in war,/ Till he could found a city and bring home/ His gods to Latium, land of the Latin race (I. 1-11).
The first few lines of epic poems are usually a preview of the story, and the Aeneid is no exception. The gods in the Aeneid are more powerful and more in control of everything than they are in Metamorphoses. This is mostly because of the authors’ opinions and beliefs and how they think these events happened.
In all of Ovid’s stories about change, most of them have to do with the gods or goddesses transforming humans into plants or animals. They also lie to a great extent, especially to spouses or lovers, usually in order to be with someone else. An example of this is when Jupiter turns Io into a cow and lies to Juno about it: “Having intuited his wife’s approach,/ Jove had already metamorphosed Io/ into a gleaming heifer – a beauty still,/ even as a cow.” (I. 846-9). Though the gods are known for doing things that aren’t considered “good” in today’s society, that is how they are portrayed in most all of Greek and Roman stories. They tell of people who accomplished great things, but they would not be who they are without the gods.
The Greeks, and Roman Christians, did not see a deity that was not important or important enough to fulfill all their requirements, but that their people would have more rights and protections if they were able to worship the one deity. Thus, the Roman gods had to take some of the burdens onto themselves, while the Greek gods had to take some of the responsibilities on their own. But this does not mean they stopped worshiping people that are not important or important enough to fulfill all their requirements. Instead, since these men had to keep their feet on the ground and wait for their wives, no one should feel pressured to be a part of their lives through faith in the gods that they worshipped. They were more likely to think they were worthy of worship.
This in itself is not to say that there was no other version of mythology. While most of the stories we are familiar with were myths of the gods themselves, there were also at the time many stories of those gods whose very existence we don’t know. Such gods, like the ones mentioned above, had many other uses, all of which were more or less tied in to the mythologies in the Greek tradition. When the stories of Zeus and his wife and the goddess Amyrrhora were told, it was often portrayed as they were bringing about the goddess’ wrath, which led to various incidents that were told in this story where the man’s wife or the woman’s lover were murdered. The men’s deaths were not mentioned nor did the events depicted even hint that the people themselves had been killed. Yet these stories may have had a power that was a force to be reckoned with in that story, and it was this power that encouraged the stories (both written and non-written) that have made history with us.
The myth of Poseidon in Odysseus’ poem of “Vapirios and Prologia” was also a myth of gods. When Poseidon’s name is first invoked it is with one’s best intentions, but later the name-dropping is very intentional. For example, while Odysseus was speaking to Zeus about the goddess Olympias when he spoke through an instrument, he was speaking about the god’s role in world events, and he mentioned to him a poem about a goddess that was also a poem about a god. However, when Odysseus called his wife and told Athena to say good night to her, he didn’t even call her any more, rather she simply said, “Diana”. It is difficult to pick out a single time when Odysseus chose to use his name or not. Perhaps, he intended to avoid the ambiguity of the context, since this could have been his personal preference. But it