The tales in The Metamorphoses of Ovid deal with the transformation of humans into other form of beings or nonbeings. Almost one hundred percent of the time, human beings transform into gods, plants, beasts, or stones as a result of the catalyst: desire. Ovid defines each transformation as either a form of escape or a form of punishment. In order to distinguish between the two, a code of ethics is applied.
In one sense, transformations protect guiltless humans from wicked godly appetites. Humans who utilize immoral schemes to try and breach the borders between god and man are also punished through alterations.On the other hand, gods are punished to a much lesser degree because of their higher status. Instead of being transformed, the gods generally lose what they are trying to covert. Although both the divine and the mortals fall prey to the same immoral desires and wants, the gods are punished by becoming the deprived ones while the humans are punished by become the degraded ones.
Ovid shows that mankind's ill motivated desire to become gods always ends in tragedy. Phaeton, the son of Phoebus and Clymene destroys himself, his sisters and his lover because of his wish to join take on the role of a god.In his desire to gain proof of his father's godliness and preserve his mother's virtue, Phaeton pleads with his mother for confirmation of his high birth, "I am mortified-ashamed / that I could be insulted in this way- / yet not rebut the charge! So, if in truth / my lineage is heavenly, provide the / proof of my high birth, and justify my claim / to have a father in the sky! " (Book I, 33). Phaeton requests verification of his true identity only because he wants to best his friend, not because he truly believes that he come from partial divine roots.On the other hand, Ovid illustrates that Phaeton also possesses a self-less reason for his quest, "his own life and the life of Merops, whom she'd married now, and by his sisters' nuptial torches (Book I, 34).
His sisters' reputations and his relationship with his reputed father, Merops, also prompt Phaeton to find out if Phoebus is his real father. Ovid paints Phaeton as an immature and rash, young boy desperate in his desire to prove that Clymene really had an affair with Phoebus. Motivated by his uncontrollable desires, Phaeton asks Phoebus for proof and Phoebus "set aside the dazzling rays... and] had his son draw near" (Book II, 38).
Carried away by the poignancy of his reunion with his son, Phoebus vows to give his son anything that he wishes (Book II, 38). It is when Phaeton asks to drive his father's chariot for a day that the boundary between god and human is pierced. Suffering must affect both god and human because the human tried to possess something only meant for one god, and the god transgressed his limits by breaking his vow to mankind. Using Ovid's ethics of desire, Ovid shows that any reason for breaking of boundary between gods and humans are forbidden.
As a result, Phaeton must die and Phoebus must suffer a father's loss. While familial dealings are an important example of wrongdoings between the divine and the mortals, abundant metamorphoses also result because of sexual craving for an innocent virgin. One of the most well known examples is Jove's rape of Io. To hide his infidelity from his wife, Jove turns Io into a cow after raping her (Book I, 26-27). Eventually transformed into a goddess, Io is now forever protected from Jove's rape.
Surprisingly, after changing into a cow, Io is protected from potential rapes only after Jove is robbed of his sinful lust by an unbreakable oath he made at the river Styx. Only when the god is deprived was Io able to gain human freedom. By the ethics of desire used by Ovid, Jove's wants are promoted by lust and is unwanted. Due to his godly rank, he is only hindered in his desires while Io was degraded into animal status.
On the other hand, the female gods have the capability of punishing the mortal men who desire them pervertedly.Diana, the virgin goddess of the hunt, transforms an innocent Actaeon into a stag because he caught her while she was bathing. An unfortunate Actaeon dies for Diana's innocent chastity while his friends cheer on and his own dogs tear his apart (Book III, 86). Ovid questions how much guilt should be placed on Actaeon's shoulders, "for the one to fault is Fate-there is no crime in making a mistake" (Book III, 82). It is true that Actaeon was changed because Diana wished to retain her virtuous virginity, but his actual death is a consequence of his own lust for hunting and animal killing.
Even Ovid finds the morals of Diana's desire to preserve her chastity controversial. He points out that, "Men heard his fate-and disagreed; some thought / Diana was too cruel, too unjust; / while others said her actions, though severe, / was worthy of a virgin so austere" (Book III, 86). After all, Diana is in the right because she has the right to protect herself and her virginity from others. Similar to Io's case, Diana transforms Actaeon to save her own integrity.
In the end, Actaeon's death was not her fault because she personally did not cause it.As Ovid hints, elements such as poor fortune, destiny, and the hunter's own desire to hunt led to his demise. Not only is his overpowering craving to hunt immoral, so are the motives behind this consuming desire. Desire serves as a catalyst of metamorphoses in Ovid's classic group of tales about Phaeton, Io, and Actaeon. In his Metamorphoses, Ovid shows the clear ethics of desire that every character much follow and obey.
The innocent humans are transformed for their protection while the immoral humans are transformed for punishment.For the immoral gods, they are deprived of their desires when the object the lust after is transformed. Although it seems that the gods receive a lighter punishment than the mortals, upon closer analysis, the degree of the punishment is the same. The lowest state a human can reach is to lose his or her humanity. For the gods, the lowest state is to be forbidden from something one truly desires. In the end, Ovid illustrates that no matter how powerful one is, morals are morals, and once disobeyed must be punished.
