Prima ab origine mundi, ad mea perpetuum… tempora carmen, “from the very beginning of the world, in an unbroken poem, to my own time” (Metamorphoses 1.3-4). Publius Ovidius Naso also known as Ovid wrote Metamorphoses, which combines hundreds of stories from Greek mythology and Roman traditions. He stitched many of them together in a very peculiar epic poem in fifteen books. The central theme of the book is transformation “from the earliest beginnings of the …showed first 75 words of 1097 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1097 total…of Caesar becoming a star at the end of the work, had won him the favor of the emperor Augustus. His work also provided a source from which the entire western European literatures have derived inspiration, among them, Shakespeare. The story ends with two very confident statements about the work and about Ovid himself. He writes, “If there be any truth in poets’ prophecies, I shall live to all eternity, immortalized by fame.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**