Metamorphoses by Ovid

My reading of Metamorphoses was an example of the old proverb, "Slow and steady wins the race." Inspired by my experience with 100 Days of Dante in which I read through Purgatorio, Inferno and Paradiso (twice!) by the very simple practice of reading 15 minutes per day, 3 times per week, I plunged into another reading project, this time self-formulated.

With Dante, I had not only discovered that reading a hard book was doable, I had learned that, with the right teachers, it could also be enjoyable. I wondered if it would it be possible for me to read the works of Shakespeare the same way. I found a Shakespeare enthusiast (Jake) on Goodreads who had written an extensive list of books to read before ever attempting Shakespeare. I knew that if I read all the books on his list, it would be years before I ever got to the actual plays so I decided to take his top six suggestions. (Ovid, Montaigne's Essays, Nicomachean Ethics,The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Greek and Roman Myths).

It took seven months to get through Metamorphoses, but it was relatively painless. My version by Henry T. Riley was 99 cents for Kindle and had helpful intros to each fable as well as extensive footnotes. (Unfortunately, the maneuverabilty between the text and the footnotes in the appendix was not very smooth.) Even with those helps, I was sometimes clueless, and was happy to discover Ian Johnston's translation online, which was much more accessible. Often Ovid will mention a person or god without using their name ("girl from Arcady, descendent of Abas, son of Apollo," etc.); Johnston's version fills in the god's/person's actual name to simplify things for the modern reader.

I took extensive notes on each fable, which slowed me down even more, but I felt it was worth it to sharpen my focus and to help me remember what I'd just read. (If you know anything about Charlotte Mason's teaching methods, it was the equivalent of narration.)

Translations can be rough and Riley's was full of the archaic language of his day. (The benefit of reading the 1899 version was that all the hanky panky between gods and mortals was described in euphemisms.) But I loved some his poetic turns of phrase such as when he describes Cadmus as loaded with woes and with years, or when another man flees the bustling city to be alone in unambitious fields. It was fun to see the source of Romeo and Juliet in the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. 

I look forward to continuing this journey over the next few years. 

Has anyone else tried to make it through the Shakespearean canon? Any tips for me?

Blessings,