Vertumnus
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| - | + | '''Vortumnus''' or '''Vertimnus''' — is the god of seasons, change and plant growth, as well as gardens and fruit trees. He could change his form at will; using this power, according to [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' (xiv), he tricked [[Pomona]] into talking to him by disguising himself as an old woman and gaining entry to her orchard, then using a narrative warning of the dangers of rejecting a suitor (the embedded tale of [[Iphis]] and [[Anaxarete]]) to seduce her. The tale of Vertumnus and Pomona was the only purely Latin tale in Ovid's ''[[Metamorphoses]]''. | |
| - | Shapeshifting, transformations and metamorphoses serve a wide variety of purposes in classical mythology. | + | |
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| - | Examples of shapeshifting in [[classical literature]] include many examples in [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Metamorphoses (poem)|Metamorphoses]]'', [[Circe]]'s transforming of [[Odysseus]]' men to pigs in [[Homer]]'s ''[[The Odyssey]]'', and [[Apuleius]]'s Lucius becoming a donkey in ''[[The Golden Ass]]''. | + | |
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| - | [[Proteus]] among the gods was particularly noted for his shape-shifting; both [[Menelaus]] and [[Aristaeus]] seized him to win information from him, and succeeded only because they held on during his manifold shape changes. | + | |
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| - | While the Greek gods could use transformation punitively — as for [[Arachne]], turned to a spider for her pride in her weaving, and [[Medusa]], turned to a monster for having sexual intercourse with [[Poseidon]] in [[Athena]]'s temple — even more frequently, the tales using it are of amorous adventure. [[Zeus]] repeatedly transformed himself to approach mortal women, both as a means of gaining access: | + | |
| - | *[[Danaë]] as a shower of gold | + | |
| - | *[[Europa (mythology)|Europa]] as a bull | + | |
| - | *[[Leda (mythology)|Leda]] as a swan | + | |
| - | *[[Alcmene]] as her husband | + | |
| - | or to attempt to conceal his affair from [[Hera]] | + | |
| - | *[[Io (mythology)|Io]], as a cloud, and Io herself as a white heifer. | + | |
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| - | More innocently, [[Vertumnus]] transformed himself into an old woman in order to gain entry to [[Pomona]]'s orchard; there, he persuaded her to marry him. | + | |
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| - | In other tales, the woman appealed to other gods to protect her from [[rape]], and was transformed ([[Daphne]] into laurel, [[Cornix]] into a crow). Unlike Zeus and other god's shape-shifting, these women were permanently metamorphosed. | + | |
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| - | In one tale, [[Demeter#Demeter and Poseidon|Demeter]] transformed herself into a mare to escape [[Poseidon#Lovers|Poseidon]], but Poseidon counter-transformed himself into a stallion to pursue her, and succeeded in the rape. | + | |
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| - | Humans were also transformed, for many reasons. | + | |
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| - | [[Tiresias]] once saw two snakes mating and struck the female with his staff; this transformed him into a woman, and he lived as such for many years. At the end, he saw the snakes again, and this time was careful to hit the male, which restored him to male form. | + | |
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| - | [[Caenis]], having been raped by [[Poseidon]], demanded of him that she be changed to a man. He agreed, and she became [[Caeneus]], a form he never lost, except, in some versions, upon death. | + | |
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| - | As a final reward from the gods for their hospitality, [[Baucis and Philemon]] were transformed, at their deaths, into a pair of trees. | + | |
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| - | [[Pygmalion (mythology)|Pygmalion]] having fallen in love with a statue he had made, [[Venus]] had pity on him and transformed the stone to a living woman. | + | |
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| - | In some variants of the tale of [[Narcissus (mythology)|Narcissus]], he is turned into a flower. | + | |
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| - | After [[Tereus]] raped [[Philomela]] and cut out her tongue to silence her, she wove her story into a tapestry for her sister, Tereus's wife [[Procne]], and the sisters murdered his son and fed him to his father. When he discovered this, he tried to kill them, but the gods changed them all into birds. | + | |
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| - | Sometimes metamorphoses transformed objects into humans. In the myths of both [[Jason]] and [[Cadmus]], one task set to the hero was to sow [[Dragon's teeth (mythology)|dragon's teeth]]; on being sown, they would metamorphose into belligerent warriors, and both heroes had to trick them into fighting each other to survive. [[Deucalion]] and [[Pyrrha]] repopulated the world after a flood by throwing stones behind them; they were transformed into people. [[Cadmus]] is also known to have transformed into a dragon or serpent towards the end of his life. | + | |
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Revision as of 19:38, 20 September 2009
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Vortumnus or Vertimnus — is the god of seasons, change and plant growth, as well as gardens and fruit trees. He could change his form at will; using this power, according to Ovid's Metamorphoses (xiv), he tricked Pomona into talking to him by disguising himself as an old woman and gaining entry to her orchard, then using a narrative warning of the dangers of rejecting a suitor (the embedded tale of Iphis and Anaxarete) to seduce her. The tale of Vertumnus and Pomona was the only purely Latin tale in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
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