Bodies changed into something else, as punishment, rescue or memorial: Narcissus, Arachne, Actaeon, Cyparissus, Hyacinthus, Lot’s wife, Bilulu turned into a waterskin, Cadmus and Harmonia turned into serpents.
Arachne weaves what Athena’s tapestry leaves out, and the goddess tears it rather than answer it. A reading of Ovid’s weaving contest through the disguises of the gods, the looms of Penelope and Philomela, and the spider of the Upanishads.
Epaphus tells Phaethon that his father is a picture his mother made up, and the boy goes to the Sun for proof. Read beside Herod’s oath, the chariots of the sun that Josiah burned, Plato’s Egyptian priest and Peter’s fire, with Lucian’s boatmen on the Eridanus, who had never heard of him.
Narcissus comes to the water thirsty. A reading of Ovid’s myth through Echo, Conon’s rejected lover Ameinias, the twin sister Pausanias records, Hegel on beauty, and the flower that keeps his name.
