Neo-Metamorphoses: A Cyclical Study. Comparative Transformations In Ovidian Myth And Modern Literature

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Content N E O - M E T A M O R P H O S E S : A C Y C L I C A L S T U D Y
C O M P A R A T IV E T R A N S F O R M A T IO N S
IN O V ID IA N M Y T H A N D M O D E R N L IT E R A T U R E
by
Anne P e a rc e K r a m e r
A D is s e rta tio n P re s e n te d to the
F A C U L T Y O F T H E G R A D U A T E S C H O O L
U N IV E R S IT Y O F S O U T H E R N C A L IF O R N IA
In P a r t ia l F u lfillm e n t of the
R e q u ire m e n ts fo r the D e g re e
D O C T O R O F P H IL O S O P H Y
(C om pa r a tiv e L ite r a tu r e )
F e b ru a ry 1972
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KRAMER, Anne Pearce, 1926-
NEO-METAMORPHOSES: A CYCLICAL STUDY.
COMPARATIVE TRANSFORMATIONS IN OVIDIAN
MYTH AND MODERN LITERATURE.
University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1971
Language and Literature, general
University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
C o p y rig h t © by
A N N E P E A R C E K R A M E R
1972
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFIIJVED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED.
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LOS A N G E LE S . C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, w ritten by
Anne _ P e a r c e_. K r ajm e r .......................
under the direction of fiS X . Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The G radu
ate School, in p artial fu lfillm en t of require
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D O C T O R O F P H IL O S O P H Y
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Tinfp February 1972
T A T IO N DL
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The work of a man does not consist in the truth
he possesses, but in the pains he has taken to ob
tain that truth. For his powers are extended not
through possession but through the search for
truth. . . .
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
It is in the spirit of these words that I address
these all too cursory acknowledgments to the men and
women who have played such major roles in enabling me
to offer this initial investigation into the nature of
"metamorphosis1 1 in literature. It is in the same tradi
tion, so gently instilled in me by these men and women
(who have made possible my own personal and professional
metamorphosis) that the results of this investigation are
herewith set forth. The research is presented not as the
end of a quest but in continuance of a search for any
truth which might be inherent in the validation of "meta
morphosis" as a literary archetype, a concept which my
chairman, Dr. David H. Malone, at first encouraged as
being original, then nourished, allowed to expand, and
gently pruned. For his rare kind of critical help and
guidance I am most thankful.
ii
To Dr. Harold von Hofe, teacher, friend, qualifying
and dissertation committee member, a very particular para
graph. Not only was he one of my most seminal under
graduate professors, but had it not been for his later
aid, encouragement and friendship during most difficult
times, I should neither have pursued, nor been able to
pursue, a graduate career.
I am sincerely grateful also to four other inspir
ing gentlemen whose humanity, intellect, and wit certainly
had a great deal to do with my continuation of graduate
work in the field to which I have always been most drawn:
to those special professors of Comparative Literature,
Dr. Gerhardus Holwerda (whose undergraduate assistant I
was), Dr. Rend Belld, Dr. Aerol Arnold, and Dean Paul H.
Hadley.
To Dean Hadley, also, a special thank-you for his
interest and guidance as my initial graduate advisor,
and for his continuing critical efforts upon my behalf as
a member of my qualifying committee. To those other com
mittee members who so kindly and gently guided me through,
I am most grateful: Dr. Aerol Arnold, Dr. Rend Belld,
Dr. Harold von Hofe, and my chairman, Dr. David H. Malone.
For providing teaching opportunities, financial
assistance, and warm encouragement, special thanks to
Dr. Bernard Kantor, Professor Irwin Blacker, and to
iii
Dr. David H. Malone, who also gave me the welcome oppor
tunity to teach, and to learn from my own students. To
these students I have endeavored to transmit some of the
warmth, fire, and intellectual and human curiosity which
my professors sparked and fanned in me (in particular
Drs. Malone, von Hofe, and Arnold).
For her inspiration and unique and original draw
ings I thank Georgia Angus. For his support, patience,
and insightful criticism, gratitude also to Mr. Peter
Arnold. And a most special thank-you to Miss Erna
Lemberger, not only for arduous and painstaking hours of
labor as editor-typist, but also for her critical stimula
tion and inspiring friendship. A word of thanks to fellow
graduate students at the University of Southern California
for their friendship and understanding, most especially to
Drs. Anne Daghistany, Ruth Levinsky, and Conrad Barrett.
Very special thanks go to my dissertation committee.
It is indeed owing to their patience, critical comments,
and constant inspiration if my efforts have evolved from
somewhat unsteady beginnings to any meaningful end. Thus,
to these gentlemen the strongest yet most tender thoughts
for a rare and unique experience.
To Dr. David H. Malone, who has managed to be
separately and together advisor and scholar, chairman
and employer, teacher and friend, to Dr. Aerol Arnold,
iv
Dr. Harold von Hofe, and Dr. Milton Wexler— to these four
gentlemen, whose vision of and for me never flickered
for a moment, I gratefully dedicate this dissertation in
the spirit of these final words, again of Lessing, words
which apply to them alls
If God held all truth in his right hand and
in his left, the everlasting striving after
truth, so that I should always and everlastingly
be mistaken, and said to me, "Choose," with
humility I will pick on the left hand and say,
"Father, grant me that. Absolute truth is for
thee alone!"
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................... ii
PROLOGUE .............................................. 1
THE CYCLE
I. CREATION....................................... 7
Metamorphoses
God Creates:
M a n ..................................... 13
"A Tree That Is Pleasant to the Sight" . 19
"The Tree of Knowledge"................ 27
"A Fowl of the A i r " ..................... 37
"A Beast of the Field".................... 42
II. FALL........................................... 62
Metamorphoses
Man Becomes:
S e x e d ................................... 69
Mortal................................... 79
Alienated.............................. 84
Inhuman................................. 99
Subhuman................................... 104
III. E X I L E ............................................124
Metamorphoses
Man Descends to:
Wolf........................................135
Bear........................................144
A s s ........................................163
B a t ........................................171
Insect..................................... 178
vi
Page
IV. ESCHATOLOGY......................................199
Metamorphoses
Man Ascends through:
Restoration............................... 204
Resurgence................................. 216
Redemption................................. 224
Resurrection ............................ 232
Transfiguration ........................ 246
EPILOGUE.................................................262
FOOTNOTES.............................................. 275
BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................... 322
vii

PROLOGUE
My intention is to tell of bodies changed
To different forms; the gods, who made the changes,
Will help me— or I hope so— with a poem
That runs from the world's beginning to our own days, j
. i i
Ovid, Metamorphoses j
i
In this dissertation it is my objective to establish!
I
metamorphosis as a literary archetype worthy of inclusion |
in the body of literary criticism, specifically mythic !
criticism, i.e., "criticism which explores the nature and |
i
significance of archetypes and/or archetypal patterns in a j
2
work of art."
To my knowledge, there is no critical investigation
of metamorphosis as a literary archetype, not in the works
of such mythic or literary critics as Eliade, Frye, Langer
or Bodkin, nor among those critics who might be considered
more interdisciplinary, such as Gaster, Arnheim, Levi-
Strauss, or Cassirer. There are occasional references to
the metamorphic process itself, or to metamorphosis as an
evolutionary, geological, or theological theme, such as
Frye's brief reference to a possible metamorphosis arche
type:
2
Identifications of gods and humans with animals
or plants and of those again with human society
form the basis of totemic symbolism. Certain
types of etiological folktale, the stories of
how supernatural beings were turned into the
animals and plants that we know, represent an
attenuated form of the same type of metaphor,
and survive as the metamorphosis archetype
familiar from Ovid.3
But there are no detailed analyses of metamorphosis as
symbol, image or metaphor, and no comparative studies
which seek to establish it as a literary archetype.
For clarification, the terms metamorphosis and arche
type, as utilized throughout the dissertation, are here
with defined.
Metamorphosis means a "complete transformation of
4
character, purpose, circumstance"; a "change from one
5
form, shape, or substance into another by any means."
Metamorphosis and transformation, in general English usage
and in this dissertation, are regarded as interchangeable
terms. There is a distinction, however, between change
and metamorphosis, which Cassirer explains thusly;
When scientific thinking considers the fact
of change, it is not essentially concerned
with the transformation of a single given
thing into another; on the contrary, it regards
this transformation as possible and admissible
only insofar as a universal law is expressed in
it. . . . Mythical "metamorphosis," on the other
hand, is always the record of an individual event—
a change from one individual and [/or] concrete
material form to another.6
Archetype has been discussed by Thrall and Hibbard
as a term brought into literary criticism by Carl Jung:
3
behind each individual's "unconscious" lies the "collec
tive" unconscious of the human race, the blocked-off
memory of our racial past, even of our pre-human experi
ence. This collective unconscious consists of primordial
images shaped by the repeated experience of our ancestors
and expressed often in myths, religion, dreams, fantasies I
i
and, very powerfully, in literature. The "primordial j
1
image" which taps our "pre-logical mentality" is called j
|
the archetype. The literary critic applies the term arche-j
i
type to an image, a descriptive detail, or a plot pattern j
i
i
that occurs frequently in literature, myth, religion, or
I
!
folklore. This image, descriptive detail, or plot
i
i
pattern is believed to evoke profound emotions in the |
reader, because a primordial image in his unconscious
7
memory has been awakened. The preceding definition is
complemented by another offered by Frye. He writes of
archetype as "a symbol, usually an image, which recurs
often enough in literature to be recognizable as an
8
element of one's literary experience as a whole."
The objective of establishing metamorphosis as a
literary archetype was pursued by means of examining ex
amples of metamorphosis in works belonging to two diverse
areas of literature— myth and modern literature.
The work selected as representative of myth, and
as paradigmatic throughout this study, is the classic
compendium of ancient mythology, Ovid's Metamorphoses.
4
Today, the word [myth] is employed both in the
sense of "fiction" or "illusion" and in that
familiar especially to ethnologists, sociol
ogists, and historians of religions, the sense
of "sacred tradition, primordial revelation,
exemplary model."9
Ovid's great work may also be classified under a more
specific definition of myth— "Myth narrates a sacred
history, it relates an event that took place in primordial
Time, the fabled time of the 'beginnings'."^ That is to j
i
say, myth tells how a reality came into existence, be it !
j
the whole of reality— the cosmos— or only a fragment— a i
I
I
body of water, a species of plant or animal, or a par- i
ticular kind of human behavior or institution. j
i
Modern literature was searched for parallels to the |
metamorphic images found in Ovid. Appropriate examples
were found in works by such writers as Franz Kafka, Mary
Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, Virginia
Woolf, Richard Mattheson, Nikos Kazantzakis, Jean
Giraudoux, George Orwell, Arthur C. Clarke, and others.
In addition to works of fiction, a few pertinent examples
from other literary genres, such as the drama and the
ballet, are utilized; for, if the metamorphoses to be dis
cussed are indeed archetypal, we should find them in
various types of literature throughout time. The uni
versal nature of metamorphosis, the "'escape from Time'
. . . connects the function of literature with that of
mythologies. . . . In both cases alike, one 'escapes'
5
from historical and personal time and is submerged in a
time that is fabulous and trans-historical.
The attitude and methodology adopted in this dis
sertation are the comparatist's. More specifically, with
in each chapter each section is composed of (1) a specific
example of metamorphosis from the Metamorphoses of Ovid; ;
(2) an example of a similar metamorphosis from a modern j
work of literature; (3) a parallel comparison of the two
metamorphoses and a critical discussion of their literary
function; and (4) an investigation of the specific meta- j
morphosis for any deeper literary or psychological sig- J
I
nificance. The study of these parallel metamorphoses is j
i
organized around the larger established archetypal patterns!
j
of Creation, Fall, Exile, and Eschatology. Birth, the in
stinctual struggle of life, death, and afterlife are the
central preoccupations of man and the central themes of
his literature. The archetypes of Creation, Fall, Exile,
and Eschatology deal with these deepest questions and
psychological struggles of man, though these questions may
remain forever unresolved. Essentially, the universal
and archetypal presentations of the various metamorphoses
provide a series of images which trace man's voyage from
birth through his downfall and death to his resurrection
as immortal spirit.

CHAPTER I
CREATION
So God created man in his own image, . . .
male and female created he them.
And the LORD GOD planted a garden eastward
in Eden; . . .
And out of the ground made the LORD GOD to grow
every tree that is pleasant to the sight, . . .
the tree of life also . . . and the tree of knowl
edge of good and evil.
And the LORD GOD took the man, and put him
into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it.
• • • • • « • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • *
And out of the ground the LORD GOD formed
every beast. . . .
And Adam gave names . . . to the fowl of the
air, and to every beast of the field; . . .
Genesis 1:27; 2:8,15,19,20
The creation of man and the universe, the in
stinctual struggle! for life and its continuation, death,
and the possibility of an afterlife are questions which
have intensely preoccupied man's mind and been the central
themes of his literature. One way of viewing these
questions is to view them within an organizational frame
work, such as is suggested by the archetypes of Creation,
Fall, Exile, and Eschatology. Essentially, the meta
morphoses selected for discussion in this dissertation
7
8
illustrate facets of these universal and archetypal lit
erary categories and trace man's voyage from birth through
his downfall and death to his resurrection as an immortal
spirit.
Some critics might say that metamorphosis as a
symbol or process is simply a vehicle of escape from the
limits of human knowledge or from the mystery of the human
condition itself. However, to withdraw from reality is
one thing; to seek to understand it from a higher vantage
point, quite another. The metamorphoses concerning
various aspects of the Creation of man and his world ab
origine attempt to do just that. When writers try to
transform, transcend, or unify the discordant elements
of their beliefs or experiences through the symbol of
metamorphosis, I feel they are trying to comprehend those
elements, not escape them. To understand, explain, or
even through a poetic symbol such as metamorphosis, to
escape momentarily the limitations of human fallibility
and knowledge is not necessarily to leave this condition,
but rather to view these limitations from a perspective
which makes them tolerable. Metamorphosis is a part of
the human condition and the complexity of life itself and
enables man to discern without the aid of revelation some
rational and cosmic order in the complex phenomenal world
in which he lives.
9
The archetypal category of Creation concerns one
of man's deepest, most beautiful, and most powerful
mysteries. The urge to explain to himself just how he
and his cosmos came to be has ever been strong, and
answers are sought to this archetypal question in the j
! !
realms of religion, science, or the arts. J
One kind of explanation, for example, is found in j
j
Genesis (cited at the head of this chapter), and it is i
|
around the basic Creation concepts therein employed in i
i
metamorphic imagery that this chapter has been organized. i
Thus, the Table of Contents symbolically lists the meta- j
i
l
! morphoses discussed under "God creates:" first, "Man" and j
| then the other components of not only man's world but of |
I
the other realms which, in a perfect world of "the begin
nings" embody the coexistence (in perfect harmony) of the
divine, the human, and the natural orders: a Golden Age,
a Garden of Eden, a pantheistic Paradise— all concepts
which have helped to explain the "how" of man's Creation,
if not the "why," to himself.
The mystery of original Creation is so impenetrable
to the human intelligence that the explanation is often
sought in a variety of metamorphic images that symbolize
one or more of the components of the mystery: of the
beginning of life out of some other form of life, of the
appearance of Being as a product of Destruction, of the
10
Beginning which can occur only because of an Ending, and
so on. The mystery of God's infinitude making itself
finite in Creation can hardly be represented or understood
through one image, however rich. Something of the mystery
is, however, expressed in the metamorphic patterns in
volving the change of man into certain other forms of
life— which in a sense are then "created" not so much out
of the infinitude of God, but out of the immortal life
implicit in man himself. Such metamorphic patterns are
manifestations of the basic Creation Myth— not so much
because of the specific terms of the metamorphosis, but
because of the accretions of meaning that cover the
imagery employed in myth or literature. For example, the
stories of Hyacinthus, Philemon and Baucis, and others
are symbolic, not so much of a descent from the human
state, but rather a component of what it is to be human,
a component that was part of the creation of man. Thus,
many versions of the "man into tree" myth are so in
timately related to man's acquisition of knowledge reserved
for God only that they adumbrate a part of what was created
when man actually did begin to exist independently of his
Creator.
The specific metamorphoses which I have selected
from Ovid‘ S stand for both birth and re-birth— creation
and re-creation— thus illustrating a powerful human
11
desire. Usually Creation and Re-creation are the ultimate
symbols which are illustrative of more than just one
facet of man's concept about the world ab origine. For
example, this Creation chapter might be considered one of
stasis— for that is what a "perfect" world or garden would
be; that is to say, it holds within it the seeds for j
i
Chapter II, Fall; but in this garden, shifting metamorphic |
relationships are possible between the various realms of !
|
nature: human and divine, animal and vegetable. All are j
|
possible and are contained in this chapter, !
i
i
This coexistence will not be possible in the j
chapters dealing with man's Fall and Exile, and will only
begin to be re-established, through eschatological imagery,!
in the final chapter, Eschatology. I mention this here
because, in attempting to match Ovidian and modern meta
morphoses, in each case great care has been taken not to
be repetitive, so that the divine-natural metamorphic
images of Chapter IV, Eschatology, are totally different
in concept from those presented in the Creation chapter.
I have utilized this schematology also because I view the
four archetypal categories under which this cycle is
organized as forming a rhythmic pattern. Metamorphosis as
a process begins and ends with a concrete symbol, but the
concept itself is not one of stasis, but of the dynamics
of the life process itself. Therefore, Chapter I, Creatiorv
12
and Chapter III, Exile, are chapters containing more
static images than do Chapters II, Fall, and Chapters IV,
Eschatology, which deal with the dynamic processes of man
descending and ascending.
In discussing metamorphoses representative of
Creation, I have chosen to follow the sequence contained
in Genesis, since it is close to that of the Ovidian
Creation story (and Golden Age), and also to many of the
other literary works which concern themselves with this
archetype.
All great literatures attempt some explanation of
how and why and where the Creation of the universe and
man took place. Whether pagan, Judean, Christian, or
Darwinian, literatures attribute Creation to a god, to
some magical force, or to the processes of Nature.
Egyptian and Indie myths attribute Creation to primal
waters. The primordial wind is the Creator for the Hindus.
And for the Judeo-Christian world, the First Cause is God:
2
by fiat, He created the universe, and then man, whose
transformation from matter is the subject of the section
to follow.
According to the Genesis Creation schematology—
"... God created man in his own image, . . . male and
female created he them." (1:27)— it is natural and most
human that many of man's first literary and mythic images
13
would involve metamorphic concepts which would help to
explain to him his deep concerns and natural curiosity
concerning the marvelous mystery of his own Creation.
The wonder and awe which still surround the Creation and
conception of man as a thinking, rational and still evolv
ing being capable of creative wonders of his own making
must of necessity place him first in the series of meta
morphic images which form part of the vast associative
cluster of literary images (often metamorphic in nature)
which contribute to the Creation archetype. Thus, even
with all of the other transformative wonders which the
I Creator placed in the Garden of Eden, as Ovid simply
states, "[still] something else was needed, a finer
being,/More capable of mind, a sage, a ruler,/So Man [is]
3
born, ..." (Humphries, 1.5)
God Creates Man
Ovid: "The Story of Pygmalion" (Humphries, X.241-43;
Miller, X.80.243-84.297)
Mary W. Shelley: Frankenstein (New York: New American
Library, Inc., 1965)
Every people has an explanation for the Creation
of the first man. Among the Greeks, Prometheus was said
to have molded the first man out of clay mixed with the
water of the river Penopeus. In the literatures of many
other peoples (the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, the
14
Australian blacks, the Maoris of New Zealand, and the
Tahitians, to cite but a few), the first man is said to
have been created out of the earth by a god or goddess,
known in the various mythologies by various names.
The Bible gives two different explanations.
Genesis 1 tells us that on the sixth day God creates all
terrestrial animals. Last of all, God created man, whom
He fashioned in His own image, both male and female. We
|
thus infer that man was the last being to be created and
that man and woman were created simultaneously and/or
androgynously, more or less by fiat. But in Genesis 2
we learn that God created man first, from the earth,
blowing life into him through the nostrils;^ the lower
animals next; and last of all, He metamorphosed Eve from
5
one of Adam's ribs. Thus, in Genesis 1 God creates man
and woman by fiat, without transformation from matter;
in Genesis 2 the creation is achieved through such trans
formation.
Unlike the Bible, Ovid does not discuss in detail
the Creation of the first man. After Ovid records the
myths about the Creation of heaven and of the earth with
its birds, beasts, and fish, he simply states: "But
something else was needed, a finer being/ More capable of
mind, a sage, a ruler/ So man was born. . ." (Humphries,
1.5). ^ Ovid then develops the idea that perhaps earth,
15
newly separated from the old fire of heaven, still re
tained some seed of a celestial force which, after having
fashioned the gods out of living clay and water, now
produced also a man, who, in contrast to all other animals,
which look downward, alone erect, can raise his face
toward heaven.
Ovid offers a specific myth of man striving not
only to know himself but to rival his Creator. The story
has become a literary archetype and can be found through
out most of modern literature in one form or another.
Ovid's story is simply and beautifully told. A
sculptor, Pygmalion, creates a magnificent ivory statue
and falls in love with his own creation, his Galatea.
He kisses his statue, talks to her, and fancies that she
talks back. So impassioned does Pygmalion become that
he begs Venus:
"If you can give j
All things, 0 Gods, I pray my wife may be— . . .
One like my ivory girl." And golden Venus
Was there, and understood the prayer's intention,
. . . And Pygmalion
Wonders and doubts, is dubious and happy,
Plays lover again, and over and over touches
The body with his hand. It is a body!
The veins throb under the thumb. . . .
The lips he kisses :
Are real indeed, the ivory girl can feel them,
And blushes and responds, and the eyes open
At once on lover and heaven, and Venus blesses
The marriage she has made. (Humphries, X.243)'
The physical transformation is described in a manner both
sensuous and loving, playful and joyful.
16
In the more modern examples, however, we find the
same metamorphic image used satirically or ironically as
O
in the works of Barth and Vercors; or we find, in stark
contrast to Ovid, that in the parallel modern examples
both the cause and the effect of the metamorphoses are
depressing and foreboding.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a grimly Gothic
case in point. Like Pygmalion, Dr. Frankenstein attempts
to form a human being. Yet, although the metamorphic
image in Ovid and Shelley is that of matter transformed
into man, the result and the mood are dramatically dif
ferent. Anguished, Dr. Frankenstein contemplates his
creation:
. . . With an anxiety that almost amounted
to agony, I collected the instruments of life
around me, that I might infuse a spark of being
into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.
It was already one in the morning; the rain
pattered dismally against the panes, and my
candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer
of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull
yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed
hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its
limbs. . . . (p. 56)
The Ovidian myth of Pygmalion is far more hopeful
for man than the experiment of Dr. Frankenstein in Mary
Shelley's novel. Pygmalion is an artist trying to create
a sculpture of the perfect woman. The combination of the
sculptor's love for his creation and for the process it
has involved, plus a goddess' pity and admiration for him,
17
cause the ivory to melt into warm human flesh. He is
therefore like the creative artist whose devotion to his
god causes happiness. This is not the case with
Dr. Frankenstein, the scientist-sculptor who uses matter,
chemicals, and electricity to create his human being.
More important, he acts not out of love but in an arrogant
passion for power. Consequently, Dr. Frankenstein creates
not a loving human but a tortured being that later,
because of the inhuman treatment it receives first from
its maker and then from society, turns into a monster.
Mary Shelley's treatment of her characters remains
within the confines of Old Testament theology. The sub
title of her work, The Modern Prometheus, might be con
sidered a satiric or ironic reference to her husband's
work, Prometheus Unbound. The ill-formed, kindly-disposed
creation fired from the brain of a compulsive Franken
stein ends up as a monstrous homunculus. However, when
first created, he has the same potential for perfect-
ability as the Galatea of Pygmalion. Indeed, Dr. Franken
stein's creature, just after his metamorphosis from
diverse matters, is made to seem more human than most
of the race surrounding him.
It is also of interest that the Pygmalion myth
concerns the metamorphosis of a woman from matter, while
Frankenstein details the creation of an asexual being.
18
Pygmalion is directly concerned, not only with the creation
of an object of art, but also with the personification of
human life and perfectability (Galatea represents the
"perfect" woman). Dr. Frankenstein thinks of his creature
not as a man or as a woman but as an object. But he wants
to create life, while Pygmalion prays that life be created,
9
similarly as in the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha.
Frankenstein's point of view is perverted. He
notices the skin, which barely covers a very complicated j
work of muscles and arteries he himself has created. The
being's hair is lustrous, black, and flowing. Its teeth
are of a pearly whiteness. This is similar to the images
called up by Ovid in his Pygmalion story, but these same
images in Dr. Frankenstein's mind are terrifying. He
wanted a being just like himself or like the other
creatures of his race. When he sees what he has created,
he says: "Now that I had finished, the beauty of the
dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled
my heart" (p. 56).
The metamorphosis of matter into a living being
functions in both stories literally. Neither story would
be the same without it. In Ovid it functions morally as
a symbol of man's love for the creative process and the
end of that process itself. In Shelley it is a literal
warning against playing with fire unless one can take
19
the responsibility for the fire itself. As concrete
symbols, however, both are overdrawn.
The metamorphosis of matter into man appears
throughout the literatures of the world and in all re
ligions (e.g., transubstantiation). Archetypically, the
concept of the metamorphosis of matter into man, of egg
and sperm into a unique human being, has always aroused in
man the profoundest emotions— those of awe and wonder.
Likewise, stories of a metamorphosis of man into flower,
such as the story discussed in the section to follow,
arouse deep and usually joyous emotions in the reader.
! The identification of man with the life-giving properties
of the flower, and with its beauty, has been treated in
literature with great empathy and expresses man's desire
to be part of that particular realm of nature.
"A Tree That Is Pleasant to the Sight"
Ovid: "The Story of Apollo and Hyacinthus" (Humphries,
X. 239-41; Miller, X.74.162-78.219)
Le Spectre de la Rose. Ballet in one act. Music by Carl
Maria von Weber. Choreography by Michel Fokine.
Book by Jean Louis Vaudoyer. Dicussed in Romola
Nijinsky, Nijinsky (New York: Simon and Schuster,
Inc., 1934)
A wondrous world of flora— bushes, berries, trees
and flowers— surrounded man in the paradisiacal garden
that God had created for him. One of the trees created
by God which was"pleasant to the sight" could be inferred
to be the flower.
20
The flower is ephemeral as a physcial being, but
an eternal image as a spiritual concept. Generally, it
stands for beauty, love, and hope, and often serves as a
symbol for a virginal girl or a beautifully fulfilled
woman. The rose particularly has been accepted as a
symbol for love, beauty, man's soul and his ultimate
union with God, and thus may be regarded as the archetypal
flower. Many other flowers as well have acquired specific
I
symbolic meanings in myth, folklore, and literature.'*''*'
Some of the most enduring and endearing plant meta
morphoses found in Ovid are those of humans transformed
12
into flowers. Apollo's love for, and great sorrow at
the loss of, Hyacinthus have been immortalized by Ovid
through his poetic explanation of the origin of the
hyacinth, still grown and loved today.
Apollo and Hyacinthus are trying their skill at
discus-throwing. Apollo sends the missile through the
air and Hyacinthus rushes to pick it up before it settles
to the ground. The discus bounces once, then catches
Hyacinthus in the face, killing him. Apollo considers
himself the murderer, yet feels he cannot die with
Hyacinthus. Mournfully, he avows:
". . . the law of Fate
Keeps us apart: it shall not! You will be
With me forever, and my songs and music
Will tell you, and you will be reborn
As a new flower whose markings will spell out
My cries of grief, ..." So Apollo spoke,
And it was truth he told, for on the ground
The blood was blood no longer; in its place
A flower grew, brighter than any crimson,
Like lilies with their silver changed to crimson.
(Humphries, X . 24)^3
Though today the hyacinth is more of a purplish
blue in color, its form exists exactly as in Ovid's trans
formation story. The cause of this metamorphosis was the
fervent wish of a god. The ancient myth was highly pop
ular, but the symbol was used only for very special lovers
and/or exceptional men.^
A fascinating image is created by Ovid's poetic
transference of plant movement to a human: Hyacinthus'
head droops "flower-like" to the ground. A similar
artistic transference occurs in a modern fictional example
presented in a ballet libretto. While ballet is hardly
a form of literature, it does make special use of meta
morphic language, often telling the stories of physical
transformation in beautiful and vivid movements.
The ballet libretto is the correlative form in
the dance world to the short story in the literary world.
In one way or another, most of the short classical ballets
contain short story elements: they usually have the tight
structure of a beginning, a middle, and an end; and they
describe a character, mood, place or theme with minimal
narrative, or none at all, except for a slight pantomimic
15
or musical addition where absolutely necessary. The
22
terminology of dance is correlative to that used in nature
and myth, and almost all of the classical ballets have
their origins in myth and legend. In their written form,
in length comparable to the short story, ballets almost
16
always represent a metamorphosis. Examples of short
j
dance stories involving such transformations are
Petrouchka, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Coppellia, and
two of the author's favorites, L'Apres-midi d'un Faune
I
and the following exquisite story of a flower meta
morphosis, Le Spectre de la Rose.
After returning from her first ball, a young girl
dreamily recalls the impressions of the evening and
kisses the rose her idol gave her. Intoxicated by the
spring air and the scent of the rose, she falls asleep.
. . . Suddenly the soul of the rose, a,n in
tangible, dreamlike apparition, emerges from
the moonlit window, in a single leap behind
the dreaming girl, as if blown by a soft
caressing wind. Is it the scent of the rose,
or the echo of a promising love? We do not
know. A slender sexless being, ethereal, soft,
enfolding, stands before us. Not a flower, not
a human being. Both. . . . You cannot tell
whether it is a youth or a maiden, a dream, or
a wish, . . . Slender and beautiful, like an
unfolding rose, the warm smoothness of the
velvety purple petals, sensuous and pure at
the same time. With infinite tenderness a
full moment it stands. . . . Then in its
glorious lightness it whirls through space.
It is not dancing, nor yet a dream. We feel
everything pure, lovely, beautiful. Here,
reality and vision meet.
With one single leap he crosses the entire
stage, bringing us the fulfilment of our dreams;
.
23
the scent of a blossoming garden on a June
night, moonlight, mysterious but so infinitely
restful. There he is floating, floating en-
chantingly. Suddenly he stands behind the
girl and awakens her to a dazed, semi-conscious
state, where she finds her wishes, her dreams,
her love itself, in beauty. . . . With one soft
kiss he gives her a part of the unattainable and
then forever leaps into the infinite. (p. 133 f.)
The story itself is lovely, mistily adolescent,
and simply and economically written. The spectre is
Hyacinthus, Ajax, and the dream rose-man of all romantic
women's imaginations. Nijinsky as the rose-man-spirit
looked and moved like a being half God, half exotic-
animal-human. As the rose, the dancer's face was made
up to look like that of a celestial insect, his eye
brows suggesting some beautiful beetle which one might
expect to find closest to the heart of a rose, and his
mouth was like rose petals. The late Adolph Bolm, famed
choreographer and premier dancer of the Diaghilev ballet,
remarked that the man himself was a rose, not a human
w ■ 17
being.
The function of the metamorphic image of the flower
as utilized in the stories of Apollo and Hyacinthus and
Le Spectre de la Rose differ in mood, treatment, cause
and effect. Yet the wide range of the metamorphic image
encompasses both.
It is out of godly grief that the divine Apollo
transforms Hyacinthus into a flower which renews itself
24
seasonally. Unable (as god) to die along with the mortal
Hyacinthus, Apollo metamorphoses him into a new flower
(a symbol of dine "creative" power), "whose markings will
spell out/ [Apollo's] • cries of grief." The transformation
in Spectre is an expression not of grief but of the joy of
love, thus associated with the Creation Myth. Whereas
Apollo has lost something dear to him, the rose-man
apparition in the ballet gives the girl "a part of the
unattainable," that love usually reserved only for the
gods. This is in marked contrast to Ovid's myth wherein
Apollo has lost what was, heretofore, within his grasp,
and then proceeds to recreate it in an ever-lasting
symbolic form— "a tree pleasant to the sight."
The treatment and the cause and effect are handled
in a straightforward and objective style in the Apollo-
Hyacinthus myth, while Spectre tells a dreamy, impression
istic and subjective story. The discus thrown by Apollo
crushes into Hyacinthus and causes his death. The god
then proceeds to transform the mortal youth into an
eternal image of himself— a "hyacinthus." But Spectre
does not relate such concrete actions; instead it poses
questions: "Is it [the apparition] the scent of a rose
or an echo of a promised love?" And then it answers, "We
do not know.""Is the man-rose real or a spectre?" The
answer: " Here, reality and vision meet." Indeed, we
25
are not truly sure what evoked the metamorphosis: was it
the air of spring, the scent of the rose, or the dreams of
love of the fragile young girl? What we do know, however,
is that, in spite of the "dazed, semi-conscious state" of
the girl (which is in contrast to Apollo's wide-awake per
ception) , both stories are beautiful expressions of love
as a divine force, and that, furthermore, there is a great
similarity between the two examples as regards the meta
morphoses themselves. Hyacinthus is transformed from man
into flower, a beautiful image of himself as an appealing
and golden youth; in Spectre, "Slender and beautiful, . .
an unfolding rose" emerges from the window. "Not a flower,
not a human being. Both. ..." This apparition is "the
soul of the rose." It is an image which combines rose
and man, and it is this idea that provides the basic
similarity between the two stories.
The deeper significance of the flower as a meta
morphic image illustrative of the Creation archetype is
vast. Elements pertaining to the Creation Myth and to the
two specific examples discussed include the following:
1. The botanical kingdom (Mother Nature) and the
forms which it contains establish visual
patterns and relations for the human world which
suggest or imitate harmonious, beautiful images
linking imaginatively realms human, vegetable,
and divine.
26
2. The specific stories contain deeper psycho-sexual
meanings (e.g. defloration, the sexual union it
self) and meanings attached to the mythic facets
of Creation.
3. Flowers are often utilized as ritualistic symbols
of the human cycle of birth, life, and death
(thus sent at births, weddings, times of illness,
or at funerals).
4. Flowers also serve as symbols (often as trans
formative images or models) for social organisms,
artistry of every kind, and religions— with
erotic, mystical, or theological connotations.
Aristotle has classed the flower as a type of or
ganic form which animates matter in such a way as to keep
the organism moving toward perfection. Pythagoras places
it in his matempsychotic cycle of existence. Christ has
said: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.
. . ." The Japanese consider both flower and tree as
vehicles whereby unwritten thoughts of Creation might be
expressed. Thus, as we move from the discussion of the
flower as a metamorphic image to that of the tree, we may
in transition mention two further aspects expressive of the
deeper significance of these metamorphoses representing the
Creation archetype: both flower and tree may be considered
not only as theomorphic, but as theophanies.
27
"The Tree of Knowledge"
Ovid: "Apollo and Daphne" (Humphries, 1.16-21; Miller,
1.34.452-42.58 7) and "The Story of Baucis and
Philemon" (Humphries, VIII.200-204; Miller, VIII.
448.620-456.737)
Amos Tutuola: The Palm-Wine Drinkard (New York: Grove
Press, Inc., 1953)
The flower and the tree are often considered
together as symbols not only in the Old Testament but
also in later literature. The mistletoe, which will not
be discussed here, simply mentioned because it is a
parasitical flower emanating from the tree, the oak, is
famous in all literature as "the golden bough," the title
18
j of an extensive work by Frazer.
In the midst of the Garden of Eden two trees stood
side by side: the golden Tree of Life, whose fruit con
ferred immortality on all who ate of it, and the Tree of
Knowledge of good and evil. Some have thought that in
the original story the two trees were only one tree and
that only later on the two trees became separated into
two parts representing man's desires, the desire for im
mortality and the desire of knowledge. Generally, too,
the tree has become a symbol of security and masculinity,
long life and endurance.
In Ovid, the two most important trees are the oak
and the laurel, the two famous trees from Greek and Roman
28
times which became symbols of victory and triumph. Ovid
relates how earth brought forth all kinds of creatures,
some of them strange and monstrous, among them a gigantic
serpent, Python by name. Apollo sent out "arrow after
arrow," till finally he brought the monster down.
In memory of this, the sacred games,
Called Pythian, were established, and Apollo
Ordained for all young winners in the races,
On foot or chariot, for victorious fighters,
The crown of oak. That was before the laurel,
That was before Apollo wreathed his forehead
With garlands from that tree, or any other.
(Humphries, 1.16)
Later on, laurel wreaths were given to the winners of
almost any game; to Roman emperors; or royal families.
A metamorphosis of a human into a laurel tree is
told charmingly by Ovid in his story of Apollo and Daphne.
Daphne is the first maiden with whom Apollo falls in love.
She is very shy and very beautiful. Much enamored, Apollo
chases after her. She runs away from him. He tells her
that she does not know what his fame is, that he is the
god who reveals the present, past, and future, that
through his power the harmony of the lyre and song are
made, that he has the power of healing (he is called the
healer), and that all of the herbs are subject to him.
Daphne is impressed, so much so that the idea of such
a god being in love with her and chasing her frightens
her even more. Beautiful as she is and glorious and
golden as Apollo appears to her, she runs even faster.
29
So ran the god and girl, one swift in hope,
The other in terror, but he ran more swiftly,
Borne on the wings of love, gave her no rest,
Shadowed her shoulder, breathed on her streaming hair.
Her strength was gone, worn out by the long effort
Of the long flight; she was deathly pale, and seeing
The river of her father, cried "0 help me,
If there is any power in the rivers,
Change and destroy the body which has given
Too much delight!" And hardly had she finished,
When her limbs grew numb and heavy, her soft breasts
Were closed with delicate bark, her hair was leaves,
Her arms were branches, and her speedy feet
Rooted and held, and her head became a tree top,
Everything gone except her grace, her shining.
Apollo loved her still. He placed his hand
Where he had hoped and felt the heart still beating
Under the bark; and he embraced the branches
As if they still were limbs, and kissed the wood,
And the wood shrank from his kisses, and the god
Exclaimed: "Since you can never be my bride,
My tree at least you shall be! Let the laurel
Adorn, henceforth, my hair, my lyre, my quiver:
Let Roman victors, in the long procession,
Wear laurel wreaths for triumph and ovation.
Beside Augustus' portals let the laurel
Guard and watch over the oak, and as my head
Is always youthful, let the laurel always 20
Be green and shining!" . . . (Humphries, 1.19-20)
The laurel, especially in the form of a wreath,
often presented as a gift by later Roman emperors, to
this day is used to symbolize outstanding creativity or
prowess and to express man's desire to identify and relate
with the "life-giving" or creative properties of the
laurel. Ovid's account of the metamorphosis of Daphne
makes of the laurel a "tree of life," an image representa
tive of the Creation Myth itself.
Another example of a metamorphosis from man into
tree is found in Ovid's lovely legend of Baucis and
30
Philemon. The story is a tribute to goodness in human
nature and employs the marvelous device of the gods who
come to visit in secret this old couple who give to them,
not knowing that they are gods, everything that they have,
and more. Their place is poor but clean, the food
meager but willingly shared, and the couple are as decent
as two human beings can be. They are good examples for
the golden race of humans the gods had wanted to create.
Because of this, the gods tell them finally who they are,
and as the couple near death, the gods tell them they
can have anything they ask for. Jupiter, in particular,
tells them that they are such good people, they can ask
any favor and it will be granted.
Very sweetly, Baucis and Philemon ask whether they
may talk it over. They do, and then Philemon speaks for
them both, saying that they would both like to serve as
priests guarding Jupiter's temple, spend their years
together and, more importantly, not ever have to live
apart, not even for an hour, and die together so that
neither would have to see the burial of the other.
The story of this gift of the gods, as told by
Ovid, is the story of the metamorphoses of Baucis and
Philemon into oak and linden tree, with the oak predominant.
. . . And the prayer was granted.
As long as life was given, they watched the temple,
And one day, as they stood before the portals,
31
Both very old, talking the old days over,
Each saw the other put forth leaves, Philemon
Watched Baucis changing, Baucis watched Philemon,
And as the foliage spread, they still had time
To say "Farewell, my dear!" and the bark closed over
Sealing their mouths. And even to this day
The peasants in that district show the stranger
The two trees close together, and the union
Of oak and linden in one. (Humphries, VIII.20 3-4)
This beautifully told story is one of the first
stories of the metamorphosis of man into the sacred oak
in a sacred grove, the moral being that the gods look
after good people and that "cherishers are cherished," as
Ovid puts it later.
In another story, Ovid discusses the tree further
as part of the sacred grove of Venus:
And in the field there stands a golden tree,
Shining with golden leaves and branches rustling
With the soft click of gold, and golden apples
Are the fruit of that golden tree. (Humphries, X:255)
That is the same oak as the one referred to earlier, only
transformed into a golden tree, the golden tree of Venus,
and the apples may be construed as either bark or leaves
or branches, or just as symbolic in themselves.
In both of Ovid's tales of metamorphosis of man
into tree, the significance of the image is related to
the Creation Myth: the laurel symbolizes life itself,
while the oak in the story of Philemon and Baucis is made
a symbol of immortality— or eternal life.
A modern example of a tree metamorphosis is found
in Tutuola's Palm-Wine Drinkard, an enchanting modern
32
African picaresque novel, the story of a couple in the
African bush. The metamorphosis here might be considered
as a kind of Baucis and Philemon story, the sacred oak in
both stories serving as a symbol of life, and as such
conceivably also of knowledge.
The couple in Tutuola's story are going through
the bush and are quite afraid. They witness a series of j
!
strange metamorphoses. They first see the tree, huge and j
i white; it turns into two large hands, which turn into a |
!
sigh saying: Stop there and come here. They stop and j
I
begin to see that the sign has turned back into the
hands and the hands have turned back into the tree. They
come closer because they do need help. The hands then
begin to talk and tell them that they are both wanted
inside the tree. They think about this amazing tree which
not only turns into hands but even into a voice, and they
think about running away, but, finally, as they are
starting to run away, the tree turns into a large pair of
hands again, seemingly stretching in an unending manner
from the tree. The hands pick them both up and draw them
back near the tree. As they nearly touch the tree, the
tree turns into a large door through which they are
pulled inside of the tree by the hands. The great white
tree then goes through another metamorphosis, a backward
metamorphosis, in one sense: from tree to the great
33
mother (earth) and then from mother to tree. It goes
somewhat like this:
. . . When we entered inside the white tree,
there we found ourselves inside a big house
which was turned into the center of a big and
beautiful town, then the hands directed us to
an old woman, and after the hands disappeared.
. . . [the tree then turned into] "FAITHFUL-
MOTHER" and she told us that she was only
helping those who were in difficulties and endur
ing punishments but not killing anybody.
Then she told us that the big hands' name was
called "FAITHFUL-HANDS," she said that the work
of Faithfu1-Hands was to watch out for those who
were passing or going about in their bush with
difficulties etc. and bring them to her. (p. 67)
Not only has the tree turned into the faithful
mother, but the faithful mother then turns into the
largest dancing hall possible, decorated with many images
including the images of the couple, and they are all the
color of white, which of course is unusual for Africans.
The faithful mother takes good care of them, she trans
forms the place into an orchestra, into food, into drink,
into musicians, dancers and into palm-wine drinkards and
all kinds of other fascinating objects or beings. They
spend a wonderful time with the faithful mother. When
they are perfectly all right, a similar, but reverse,
metamorphosis takes them outside of the tree and they are
on their way again.
After that she [Faithful-Mother] accompanied us,
but what made us very surprised was that we saw
34
the tree opened as a large door, and we simply
found ourselves inside the bush unexpectedly,
and the door closed at once and the tree seemed
as an ordinary tree which could not open like
that. But at the same time that we found our
selves at the foot of this white tree inside the
bush, both of us [my wife and I] said suddenly:
"We are in the bush again." Because it was just
as if a person slept in his or her room, but when
he woke up, he found himself or herself inside a
big bush. (p. 71)
Finally, when the couple lose their way, the earth
mother transforms out of the tree, walks with them, picks
up a small stick which looks like a matchstick, and throws
it on the ground near the river they were unable to cross
because it was too turbulent; at the same moment that
matchstick transforms into a narrow bridge. As they cross
and get to the other side, they look back to the earth
mother. They see the bridge has disappeared and trans
formed itself back into the stick in her hand.
The metamorphosis itself in the Ovid myth of
Baucis and Philemon is symbolic of immortality and of
the reward the gods give to people who live as human be
ings are meant to live. There is a similar import to the
story in the Drinkard, because the couple thereafter
obeying the earth mother and trusting in her are, through
the metamorphosis of the earth mother into a tree, also
taken care of, cherished, and finally sent on their way.
These metamorphoses recounted by Ovid and Tutuola
only emphasize the universality, indeed the archetypical-
ity, of the symbolic meaning of the transformation of man
35
into plant. So archetypal is the metamorphic image of the
transformation of man into plant, or of plant into man,
that it is basic to the Christian doctrine of transubstan-
tiation in which what God had metamorphosed Himself into
through Creation— the harvest and the vintage become bread
and vine— is metamorphosed in the Sacrament of Communion
back into the flesh and blood of God become man. The
idea of the Sacrament is similar to that of the tree con
taining man, or man containing the tree. Even in Plato
we find a similar image of Communion, and it would be hard
to find a simpler or more vivid image of human civiliza
tion than the sacramental meal itself, symbolizing man's
attempt to surround Nature and put it inside his social
body. The vegetable world is often "the Garden," while
symbolizing on another level the "Tree of Life."
Identification of humans with gods, animals
or plants and of those again with human
society form the basis of totemic symbolism.
Certain types of etiological folktale, the
stories of how supernatural beings were
turned into the animals and plants that we
know, represent an attenuated form of the
same type of metaphor and survive as the
metamorphosis archetype familiar from
Ovid.23'
Indeed, metamorphoses in which a tree— partic
ularly the oak tree— is transformed or results from
transformation symbolize for many different peoples the
metamorphosis of the Divine, or a way of suggesting the
36
Creation. It is a plausible theory that the connection
the ancient peoples of Europe traced between the tree
and their sky god was derived from the much greater fre
quency with which the oak appeared to be struck by
lightning than any other tree of the European forests,
i Because of this observation the primitive mind equated
the fire with the tree itself, then the tree with the
priest of Diana. The oak was viewed as the King of the
j
wood, and Frazer believes that as such it was equated with
the great Italian god of the sky, Jupiter, who had kindly
come down from heaven in a lightning flash to dwell among
I
men in the golden bough, which grew on the sacred oak in
24
the sacred wood at Nemi.
One could, of course, enumerate many additional
!
instances of the use of the metamorphic image of man
transformed into plant which are used in religion and myth
to suggest some aspect of the mystery of Creation itself.
Such an enumeration would only further emphasize the
symbolic meaning already suggested in the accounts of
metamorphosis cited from Ovid and Tutuola. And yet the
mystery of Creation is so vast that man's efforts to cope
with it demand additional patterns of metamorphic imagery
involving the transformation of animals: birds of the air
and beasts of the field.
37
"A Fowl of the Air"
Ovid: "Teachings of Pythagoras" (Humphries, XV.367-79;
Miller, XV.368.60-398.478)
Hermann Hesse: Demian (New York: Bantam Books, 1968)
Of all the tales of birds involved in some kind
of metamorphosis, certainly the story of the phoenix is
the most suggestive symbolically. The phoenix is con
sidered to be endowed with divine powers and believed to
be life-giving, capable of renewing itself. It is there- i
fore a symbol not only of Creation but of Recreation—
metamorphosing itself from its own ashes into a phoenix
reborn. Crimson and gold, this legendary bird partakes
of that divine chameleon-like color which only fire
possesses.
The sacred tree and fire metamorphoses discussed
in the preceding section are in some stories combined
with the metamorphic fire of the phoenix legend. (For
example, in the Firebird ballet, all three symbols— wood,
fire, and bird— are combined in the telling of the trans
formative tale, the fire being used as a purification
and creative symbol for the restoration of a human soul
to its original purified state of perfect love.)
The phoenix has been considered an archetypal
symbol by many literary critics. Northrop Frye validates
38
it as such in his definition of archetype: "A symbol,
usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature
to be recognizable as an element of one's literary experi-
25
ence as a whole." The fabulous bird has recurred
frequently as an image in many literary periods, in many
genres, and thus may be taken to stand, by extension, as
a symbol for a portion of one's total literary experience.
According to the legend, the phoenix lived in
Arabia. When it had lived to the end of its life
(500 years), it burned itself on a pyre of flames, and
J a new phoenix sprang from its ashes.
In the religions of the ancient Near Eastern
civilizations the phoenix and other fire images were
used in association with the worship of sun and fire,
the bird often representing the sun, which dies each night
and rises again each morning, attesting to the regularity
2 6
of the cosmic order. Sun and fire were recognized to
have a dual nature (beneficent or destructive), this
dualism applying also to many facets of the human con
dition and experience. Fire, for example, has often been
equated with human passion, a force capable of creating
life and beauty as well as destruction or death.
Ovid gives us his poetic version of the phoenix
myth in his "Teachings of Pythagoras."
39
. . . there is one bird which renews itself
Out of itself. The Assyrians call it the phoenix.
It does not live on seeds nor the green grasses,
But on the gum of frankincense and juices
Of cardamon. It lives five centuries,
. . . and then it builds itself
A nest in the highest branches of a palm-tree,
Using its talons and clean beak to cover
This nest with cassia and spikes of spikenard,
And cinnamon and yellow myrrh, and there
It dies among the fragrance, and from the body
A tiny phoenix springs to birth, whose years
Will be as long. (Humphries, XV.377)27
According to Ovid, the new phoenix is metamorphosed
from the carcass of the old. The transformation into the
new bird is often taken simply as a rebirth motif, a
symbol of death and resurrection, and thus a symbol of
eternal life.
An example of the phoenix in modern literature is
found in Hermann Hesse's Demian. The young man of the
title identifies himself and his own life process with
the bird. At one time he sends this note to a friend:
The bird fights its way out of the egg.
The egg is the world. Who would be born
must first destroy a world. The bird
flies to God. (p. 85)
Another time Demian sits with a companion and watches him
throw a piece of resin into the embers of a smoldering
fire. As the flames shoot up, Demian murmurs to himself:
"Fire worship was by no means the most foolish thing
ever invented. . . ." (p. 86) and lost in reveries, he
sees red and gold threads running together and he thinks
40
he recognizes "the bird with the yellow sparrow hawk's
head . . ." (p. 86).
Throughout the novel, Hesse transposes the arche
typal colors of Paradise, crimson and gold, into qual
ities representing two sides of Demian's conflicting
personality. His use of the phoenix metamorphosis is, j
therefore, socio-psychological. The metamorphosis lingers j
in the mind of Demian as a symbol of his conflicts within j
himself and his struggle within a society whose mores he j
rejects. j
Ovid uses the transformation purely in the legend- j
ary and mythic sense. The physical metamorphosis of the j
i
I
new, vibrant phoenix from the carcass (or ashes) of its
ancient self is the only level upon which Ovid's image
works within his context— birth and rebirth as the
underlying concept, which was totally accepted in his
time.
Hesse's psychological account is far more subtle.
The archetypal pattern of the phoenix's death and re
birth permeates Demian and represents both Demian's fear
of fate and his desire to conquer that same fate. The
daemon inside of Demian is killed by the hero also inside
of him. He achieves this victory by lighting a symbolic
fire inside himself——a fire of passion and of his desire
to conquer it, so that at the same time he is
41
intellectually confronting death,he is inside himself
secretly creating life. In creating his new life, he
envisages himself as the rising sun, or creative fire,
and feels triumphant, though aware that the fire may con
sume him in the process.
The phoenix legend has also been retold in the !
2 8
Firebird ballet, which presents the phoenix symbol in
.- j
the form of a fire goddess and, at the same time, a bird j
of paradise. The setting is a garden protected by a j
golden fence. We see trees with golden fruit and flowers j
of crimson gold, as we see them also in the Paradise of j
Dante and of Goethe. The firebird is represented here
as half-woman and half-bird, a fantastic creature: bright,j
glorious, and triumphant. She has the face and arms of
a charming young girl and a body covered with shimmering
feathers, all enveloped in orange-speckled flame, spar
kling with gold dust. The snake in the garden is repre
sented by the evil magician Kastchei.
The firebird can be metamorphosed from one of her
feathers. As in early myth, if you have one of her
feathers, you have the whole of her. In the ballet, the
metamorphosis is visualized through the dancer's move
ments, the movements of the other dancers, the lighting,
the sets and, of course, essentially the music.
42
In some legends, the phoenix was part bird, part
snake; its symbology, too, is mixed. This fabulous bird-
snake, or snake-bird, the Simurgh, will be discussed in
the introductory paragraphs of the following section.
"A Beast of the Field"
l
!
Ovid: "The Story of Cadmus" (Humphries, III.57-61; Miller,!
Ill.124.1-134.137) and "The End of Cadmus" !
(Humphries, IV.99-100; Miller, IV.218.563-220.603)
Nikos Kazantzakis: The Last Temptation of Christ (New
York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1960). j
j
The mythical Simurgh, immortal like the phoenix :
and looking like the phoenix but also very much like j
I
a snake, was said to nest in the branches of the Tree of !
!
Knowledge and to have knowledge of many things. In some
legends the Simurgh was said to make its nest in the
branches of the world tree Yggdrasill. It has been
described as having orange-colored feathers, similar to
the metallic scales of a serpent, a small silver-colored
head with a human face, talons like a vulture, and a
long, long tail. According to these legends, the Simurgh
dropped one of its feathers somewhere in the middle of
China. The other birds decided to seek the Simurgh and
set out on a perilous venture. They crossed seven valleys
or seas, the next to last bearing the name Bewilderment
and the last the name Annihilation. The journey took its
43
toll. Only a few of the birds survived. Finally they
reached the great peak of the Simurgh. They beheld it
at long last and they realized that they were the Simurgh
and that the Simurgh was each of them and all of them.
The serpent, like the phoenix, is a powerful lit
erary symbol, of both creation and recreation. The j
relevance of serpent metamorphoses to the Creation chapter i
|
and the cyclical structure of this dissertation is such j
that the subject must be dealt with at some length in the !
continuing discussion of metamorphosis as an archetype. j
In totemic symbolism, the serpent figures im- |
i
|
portantly. The yearly renewal of its skin has something j
|
of the phoenix appeal to the primitive, and in earlier
j times it was considered as a great and powerful and wise
animal-God. It is only around the Judaic and Christian
eras that the serpent seems to assume the terrifying and
archetypal duality of emotional connotation which it
carries to this day.
The serpent has been considered as prophetic,
partly divine and partly animal. Considered by many
people also as a Creation symbol because of its shape and
form, its physical closeness to the mother-earth and to
the god of water, it has carried also inversely a relation
ship to the Creation Myth because it was thought to have
a special knowledge and power over death. Critics such
44
Eliade, Gaster, Bodkin, and L£vi-Strauss include long
critical sections in their works on the function of the
serpent as symbol for birth and re-birth and on its eleva
tion in earlier societies to an often Godlike totem.
The conception of the serpent as part human, part
divine reoccurs also in myths of the dragon and in later
versions of legends of the serpent, when it becomes per
sonified as Satan or Mephistopheles.
29
In the I Chmg or Book of Changes, the dragon
signifies wisdom, much as the later serpent does in
Genesis before the Fall. This dragon has claws and
scales, and its color is a golden yellow. The Chinese
dragon-serpent was not thought of as sinister, as was the
primordial Python, which we have already met in Ovid's
version of the archetypal dragon and hero tale, that of
Apollo's contest and victory over the giant serpent.
The Western dragon is much closer to the serpent
image. It is a tall-standing, heavy serpent with claws
and wings. It may be black, and is always shining. This
description seems to correspond with its present image.
The Greeks applied the name dragon to any considerable
reptile. Pliny devotes quite a few chapters not only to
the various kinds of dragon considered by the Greeks but
also to remedies which could be obtained from different
parts of the dragon. In the West, the dragon has almost
45
always been thought of as an evil rather than a friendly
beast. One of the stock exploits of heroes in the myths
well known to the Western world was to overcome and slay
a dragon. Ovid follows this pattern in his account of the
primordial snake:
. . . When moisture
Unites with heat, life is conceived; all things
Come from this union. Fire may fight with water,
But heat and moisture generate all things,
Their discord being productive. So when earth,
After that flood, still muddy, took the heat,
Felt the warm fire of sunlight, she conceived,
Brought forth after their fashion, all the creatures,
Some old, some strange and monstrous.
One, for instance,
She bore unwanted, a gigantic serpent,
Python by name, whom the new people dreaded,
A huge bulk on the mountain-side.
(Humphries, 1.16)
To go into the many various levels of meaning and
symbology of serpent-lore would require a voluminous
study in itself. We will touch upon only those aspects
which are relevant to the dissertation.
Originally, the snake was considered as guardian
of treasure (in Genesis, of the sacred trees). So was
the dragon, really but a first cousin to the snake, as
31
intimated before.
The reptile is described as "subtil" in Genesis 2
and 3; this does not necessarily mean evil or even sly.
The word is used regularly in the Book of Proverbs for
the opposite of simple or stupid. Special sapience or
46
or intelligence was ascribed to the serpent because (1) it
lives near water, and water archetypally was considered
to be the seat of primordial wisdom and of creativity;
and (2) it creeps into the earth and frequents tomb
stones and thus was thought of as an embodiment of the
sapient dead. The serpent, therefore, is considered not
only wise but also mantic. The further we come in his- !
i
torical time, however, the more the serpent seems to take |
I
on evil characteristics. To the Biblical writer, the |
serpent was certainly sinister as well as wise and shrewd. |
i
A fascinating duality can be noted in serpent
symbology throughout mythic literature. The reptile
was thought of as a symbol of good and evil, of male and
female, and was often taken to represent the conflict
itself inherent in the human soul; that is, the serpent
may be said to represent the external forces which arouse
fear in man and, at the same time, also the internal
subconsciousness of man which, when fully awakened to a
consciousness of his self, is what really causes his Fall.
It is a well known literary theory that Adam would not
have been able to fall and be saved, had it not been for
the serpent. Eve, in this sense, would represent the
feminine side of Adam, and also the mother figure and
the serpent within Adam, that part of him which urged him
to continue to strive and not to rest within the Garden.
47
Often, and to this day, we also find the serpent
used as a symbol of the power to help or heal or, as in
32
Ovid's Aesculapius story, as an anti-death symbol.
Another facet of serpent lore, worthy of mention,
is contained in the lovely Grimm's fairy tale of the
white snake; when one of the characters eats a piece of
the snake, which is constantly renewing itself, he becomes
33
wise and knows all thxngs.
The dualistic elements of serpent symbology dis
cussed above are also present in the Ovidian story of
Cadmus selected for examination because it includes
specific Creation metamorphoses of man into snake and
34
from snake into man. These metamorphoses mark the
origin of one of the four great mythological families,
of a new race of man (those of the Iron Age, the men of
the Fall of Chapter II) and also the beginning of the
knowledge of evil necessary for man's Fall.
King Agenor sends his son Cadmus on a mission.
Cadmus and his men reach an ill-omened grove where a
great snake attacks them. All the men of Cadmus are
victims. Cadmus, wishing to avenge their death, engages
the serpent in a bloody battle. The monster succumbs.
Cadmus hears a voice coming from out of the air saying:
Why, 0 Cadmus
Stare at the serpent slain? You also, some day,
Will be a serpent for mortal men to stare at.
(Humphries, 111.60)^
48
But Minerva descends through the air to help Cadmus. She
orders him to sow the teeth of the serpent in the earth
and tells him that these teeth would become the seed of
a future people. Cadmus obeys.
The covered earth broke open, and the clods
Began to stir, and first the points of spears j
Rose from the ground, then colored plumes, and helmets,)
Shoulders of men, and chests, arms full of weapons, \
A very harvest of the shields of warriors, j
The opposite of the way of curtain rises, i
Showing feet first, then knees, and waists, and bodies !
And faces last of all. (Humphries, 111.60)36 j
Again Cadmus was frightened, not only by the strange meta- ;
I
morphosis itself from the serpent's teeth, but also by
this new menace— these men symbolizing a new breed who
engage in civil warfare. These new earth-born people
proceed to kill one another until only five of them are
left. With these, Cadmus sets about to build the city of
Thebes, and to raise a family.
Many troubles beset their house. Much further on,
in the episode entitled "The End of Cadmus," Ovid tells
the story of Cadmus's final metamorphosis from man into
serpent in this way:
"Was that a serpent
Slain by my spear so long ago," asked Cadmus,
"When I was fresh from Sidon? Did I sow
A serpent's teeth in the ground, to generate
New men? If this is what the gods are angry over,
May I become a serpent, with a body
Stretched full-length forward!" Even as he spoke
He stretched out full-length forward, felt his skin
Harden, and scales increase, and mottled markings
Sprinkle his blackening body. He fell forward,
49
Crawled on his belly, with his legs behind him
Drawn in, and tapering. He still had arms
And tried to reach them forward; his cheeks were
human,
And tears ran down them, as he cried: "Come nearer,
My poor dear wife, while there is something left
For you to come to; come and touch my hand
Before I have no hand, am wholly serpent."
He wanted to say more, but found his tongue
Suddenly forked; instead of words, a hissing
Spoke his lament: Nature had left him nothing
Save this one power. (Humphries, IV.99-100)37
It seems this metamorphosis was inflicted upon
Cadmus for a deed of his, long ago. The story is indica
tive of that of the human race after they have committed
the "original sin." The wife of Cadmus, witnessing his
horrible transformation, wants to share his fate and im
plores the gods:
"Why not transform me also,
Gods in Heaven, into another serpent?"
. . . the queen . . . stroked the serpent neck,
Crested by smooth, and suddenly there were only
Two serpents there, entwined about each other,
And gliding, after a while, to hiding-places
In the dark woods. Now as before, they never
Hurt men, nor fear them, for they both remember
What once they were; they are most gentle serpents.
38
(Humphries, IV.100)
This metamorphosis, it may be assumed, is to
punish Cadmus for having dared to be like the gods in
creating a new race of men; men who, because they come
from the evil serpent, end up as murderers. The gods,
however, change both him and his queen, not into vicious
serpents or symbols of evil, but into gentle serpents,
50
and it is interesting to note that Tiresias, later on
(in Chapter II), will be metamorphosed just because he
has watched these same two gentle serpents mate.
A few words on the concept of Lilith, another
serpent character, may fittingly preface the following
example of serpent metamorphosis in modern literature.
According to many early stories, Lilith was Adam's first
wife. It was later that God created Eve, and so Lilith,
! to revenge herself on Adam's more human wife, urged Eve
to taste of the forbidden fruit and to conceive a line
of murderers (cf. the Cadmus story). This Lilith myth
has found its way into many different forms of litera
ture. In the middle ages, the influence of the word
layal (Hebrew, for night) gave a new turn to the story.
Lilith is no longer a serpent; she is only an image of
the serpent and becomes an apparition of the night. At
times she is an angel who rules over the procreation of
mankind; at times, a serpent daemon who assaults people
in lonely places or dark woods (much as the woods of
paradise, once green, turned black and forbidding). In
popular imagination, and in many of the tales about her,
she is a tall silent woman with long black hair worn
loose. It is in this sense, then, that the modern
example of metamorphosis is to be considered, not only
as an expression of man's jealousy and his desire to usurp
51
the power of God, but also as an expression of the Lilith-
Eve-serpent concept, which implies that sexual energy or
force when used to excess creates only difficulty and
trouble. The metamorphosis as utilized by Kazantzakis
in The Last Temptation of Christ brings into more modern
focus, then, the Lilith-Eve-Magdalen imagery and the
concept, again, of the serpent as more female than male.
The book beautifully tells the story of Christ's
journey through life, not only physically but psycho
logically. Kazantzakis' Magdalen (similarly to Eve and
the serpent in Genesis) represents the fight or conflict
within man's self. We first get a physical description
of the temptress:
Magdalen lay on her back, stark naked, drenched
in sweat, her raven black hair spread out over
the pillow, and her arms entwined beneath her
head. Her face was turned toward the wall and
she was yawning. Wrestling with men on this bed
since dawn had tired her out. Her hair, nails,
and every inch of her body, exuded smells of all
nations, and her arms, neck and breasts were
covered with bites. (p. 88)
Jesus resists this first temptation by Magdalen
but finds her in his mind wherever he goes. In his
ears he hears her voice as a hissing voice, similar to
that of a serpent. He also sees her as being mired in
mud; then sees himself brought down alongside her. And
he remembers that, many times, she had called him not only
a pig but a hog, subjecting him to the same stream of
52
epithets she used when referring to God. As Kazantzakis
tells it, the metamorphosis from that Magdalen to the
serpent appears as real to Jesus as the actual figure
of the woman herself.
The story shows us Jesus alone, weeping, trying to
resist temptation, feeling that he is not worthy of the
burden that has been put upon him, and wishing to retreat
back into the garden of his house, much as Adam wished
to do.
And then while he was bowed over and weeping,
a pleasant breeze blew, and a sweet perfume
pervaded his world. The Eremite heard water,
bracelets, and laughter jingling in the
distance and approaching . . . on a stone in
front of him a snake with the eyes and breasts
of a woman was licking its lips and regarding
him. The Eremite stepped back, terrified. Was
this a snake, a woman, or a cunning daemon of the
desert? Such a serpent had wrapped itself around
the forbidden tree of Paradise and seduced the
first man and woman to unite and give birth to
sin. . . . He heard laughter and the sweet,
wiggling voice of a woman: "I felt sorry for
you, son of Mary, . . . I pitied you, and
came. What can I do for you?" (p. 255)
The serpent transforms more into half-serpent
than woman, and Jesus asks this enticing figure who she
is. She answers that she is his soul.
As an image, Magdalen stands for his reason, while
that part of her which is serpent represents his desires.
He finds himself in conflict and in quest of what every
human being feels compelled to keep serarching for, un
less he stays within the Garden of Eden as represented
53
also by the waters of death or the womb of the great
mother.
In the story, the seductress continues:
"Give me your hand. Don't look back, don't
recall anything. See how my breasts take the
lead. Follow them, my love. They know the
way perfectly.". . . "I am not coming. Mine
is another road." The serpent giggled derisively
and showed her sharp, poisonous teeth. "Do you
wish to follow God's tracks . . . you worm! You,
son of the carpenter, wish to bear the sins of
an entire race! Aren't your own sins enough for
you? What impudence to think that it is your
duty to save the world!" . . . "I have a
secret to tell you, dear son of Mary," said the
snake in a sweet voice, her eyes sparkling. She
slid down from the rock like water and began . . .
to roll toward him. She arrived at his feet,
climbed onto his knees, curled herself up and
with a spring, reached his thighs, loins, breast,
and finally leaned against his shoulder. . . .
"It's Magdalen you must save," the snake hissed
imperatively. "Not the Earth— forget about the
Earth. It's her, Magdalen [me]!"
Jesus tried to shake the serpent woman away
from his head, but she thrust herself forward
and vibrated her tongue into his ear. ". . .
Take her! God created man and woman to match,
like the key and the lock. Open her. . . .
Look how God married the whore of Jerusalem . . .
in the same way, God commands you to sleep with
Mary Magdalen, . . . ." The serpent had now
pressed its hard, cool, round breast against
Jesus' own and was slyly sliding slowly,
tortuous, wrapping itself around him. Jesus
grew pale, . . and he saw Magdalen's firm, high
humped body wriggling . . . saw her gaze toward
the river Jordan, and sigh. She extended her
hand— she was seeking him; . . . (pp. 256-57)
The imagery goes back and forth from half-serpent,
half-woman, to full woman, to serpent. The writing is
highly sensual, spiritual, and mystical. The images
54
continue to shift, until Jesus is wracked with pain,
desire, and conflict. His soul is in torment, his heart
keeps contracting and his mind going blank. Taking on
some semblance of consciousness again, he realizes that
his unconscious is warring with his consciousness, but,
also, that Magdalen is as real to him as that fight, and
is representative of it. He screams, "No, no, no," and
begins to cry in great sobs. Kazantzakis finishes this
sequence with two other metamorphoses:
All at once the serpent writhed, unglued her
self from him and with a muffled roar exploded.
The air was glutted with the stench. . . .
Jesus fell asleep; and as the eyes of his body
closed, those of his soul opened and he saw
the spectre of a serpent as thick as the body
of a man and extending in length from one end
of the night to the other. She was stretched
out on the sand with her wide, bright, red mouth
opened at his side. Opposite this mouth hopped
an ornate, trembling partridge, struggling in
vain to open its wings and escape. It staggered
forward uttering small, weak cries, its feathers
raised out of fear. . . . Jesus stood still
and watched, trembling like the partridge. The
bird had at last reached the gaping mouth. It
quivered for a moment, glanced quickly around as
though seeking aid; then suddenly stretched
forth its neck and entered head first, feet
together. The mouth closed. Jesus was able
to see the partridge, a ball of feathers and
meat and ruby-colored feet, descend little by
little toward the dragon's belly. (pp. 258-59)
The serpent seems to get even bigger, until it is begin
ning to encompass not only Jesus's mind but his body.
Jesus, terrified, finally realizes that this is not the
same serpent which had transformed itself back and forth
55
into Magdalen, but that this serpent is God, and the
partridge man's soul. Jesus sees himself not only as the
partridge but also as that image of his own soul devoured
by a serpent-like God. The last metamorphosis in this
particular story of woman into serpent, or symbolic woman
i
into symbolic serpent, leaves Jesus almost transfixed.
Both Magdalen and the serpent have disappeared, and Jesus
slowly regains his senses.
Time, within him, had become as small as a
heartbeat, as large as death. . . . his whole
soul had squeezed into his eyes. He saw— that
was all: he saw. But at precisely noon his
sight grew dim; the world vanished and trans
formed into a gigantic mouth which gaped some
where in front of him, its lower jaw the earth,
its upper jaw the skies. (p. 255)
Kazantzakis1 metamorphosis, woman to serpent,
i
represents the transformation in the consciousness of
Jesus from a state of peace to that of conflict. Mag
dalen, as serpent, is far more frightening to Jesus than
Magdalen as mere woman.
In Ovid, the Cadmus metamorphosis functions as
metaphor also, on two levels: (1) on the same level as
the metamorphosis in the story of Apollo's victory over
the Python; (2) Cadmus's victory over the serpent is the
prelude to his becoming a serpent himself. In avenging
the death of his men, he puts himself in conflict with
the gods, and even though his primary action was a moral
one, the overall implication of pride or arrogance is one
56
which he must suffer for. In Kazantzakis, both the process
of transformation and the final forms which it takes
represent the conflict in Jesus's consciousness and, on
a deeper level, the conflicts within the human race it
self. The image of the serpent here can be viewed in
different ways: as image of the evil inherent in Jesus j
himself and also that of the love for a serpent-like God, j
the extreme form of mystical love, to which Jesus is afraidj
to give himself over completely. j
In the Ovidian stories we see such mythical serpent j
i
beings as Erichthonius, Minerva's serpent child who repre- j
j . i
sents the ancient royal family of Athens; Medusa of the !
i
serpent locks, whose gaze turned men to stone; another
half-woman, half-serpent mythical figure was Echidne,
who performs a function much like that of Lilith's. She
was said to be related to Ladon, who was wholly a serpent,
although gifted with the power of forethought and of
speech, unlike Cadmus, who was reduced to the hissing of
a serpent as a means of expression. These serpent beings
of mythical times were considered oracular beings. They
were also considered, as mentioned earlier, symbols of re
birth and rejuvenation. Since early times they have had
a dual function as symbols of both good and evil, death
and life. This symbolism was carried into modern litera
ture. Satan, Mephistopheles, or Lucifer, in their serpent
57
form, would be considered as part of the devil archetype,
as discussed in Bodkin:
The image of the Devil, it was urged, moves us
powerfully in poetry when it expresses our tend
ency to represent in personal form the forces
within and without us that threaten our supreme
values . . . when Milton would show Satan as ab
horred devil, he first causes us to share emo
tionally the ordered, ideal vision won by the
poet through his relation to heavenly Powers. It
is within the harmony and vast perspectives of
this vision that he reveals the great author of
discord, naming him "serpent", and piling around
him terms of reprobation, "seduced", "foul", "in
fernal" .
. . . The infernal serpent seems to play the
part of the tribal enemy, the supposed evil-doer
upon whom in time of trouble the witch-doctor
directs the energy of the group's resentment.39
In other modern literatures the serpent, when con
sidered a Satan, performs the function then of the trans
ference of evil from an internal emotion to an external
symbol. In this way it performs the function of external
izing the good and evil in the society considered.
If viewed in the archetypal sense as discussed by
Bodkin, the devil thus appears as the enemy of positive
group values, and it is his ambition, his pride, and his
rebellion against the gods that help him to perform this
function.
Throughout all folklores and literatures we find
the story of a country infested by a serpent, dragon, or
monster which would destroy a whole people unless a human
victim, generally a virgin, be offered up to him.
58
The tale usually follows an archetypal pattern: a young
man of humble birth interposes in the virgin's behalf,
slays the monster, and receives the hand of the maiden
as his reward.
On a deeper level, the serpent as symbol calls
forth in the reader deep and primitive reactions, both ' ■
emotionally and intellectually. As will be recalled, the !
j
serpent is a guard for the treasure of life but also a j
symbol for the womb, in this sense representing the darker j
side of the mother. The treasure the hero of mythical j
stories fetches from the dark cavern is life. The hero
who clings to the mother is the dragon, and when he is
reborn from the mother he becomes the conqueror of the
dragon. He shares this paradoxical nature with the snake.
The serpent is used, then, equally as a symbol of good
and of bad daemons of Christ and of the devil. Among the
gnostics it was regarded as an emblem of the brain stem
and spinal cord. It is an excellent symbol for the un
conscious, perfectly expressing the latter's sudden and
unexpected manifestations, its painful and dangerous
intervention in our affairs and its frightening effects.
Carl Jung has stated:
Taken purely as a psychologem the hero
represents the positive, favorable action
of the unconscious . . . while the dragon
is its negative and unfavorable action—
not birth, but a devouring; not a beneficial
and constructive deed, but greedy retention
and destruction.
59
Every psychological extreme secretly con
tains its own opposite or stands in some sort
of intimate and essential relation to it.
Indeed it is from this tension that it derives
its peculiar dynamism. There is no hallowed
custom that cannot on occasion turn into its
opposite, and the more extreme a position is,
the more easily may we expect . . . a conversion
of something into its opposite. The best is the
most threatened with some devilish perversion
just because it has done the most to suppress
evil. . . .40
The unconscious insinuates itself in the form
of a snake if the conscious mind is afraid of
the compensating tendency of the unconscious,
as is generally the case in regression. But if
the compensation is accepted in principle, there
is no regression, and the unconscious can be met
half-way through introversion.41
In this sense we might consider that the hero is himself
the snake, the sacrificer, and the sacrificed. Man is
divided within himself, and his ensuing Fall, descent,
I
and approaching Exile therefore seem to him like evil
designs over which he has no control. Yet it is this
striving toward life, this desperate energy not only to
exist but to live that for me represents the most ideal
forms of the serpent symbol, a cyclical symbol of both
good and evil, negation and affirmation of life, a spur
to man’s turning inward leading to internal knowledge,
arrived at by means of his perceptions of an external
world— perceptions through intellect, soul, and senses;
and a symbol of this knowledge which, however tortuous,
however conflicting, however divisive it may be, will lead
him to some understanding of himself, not only as just a
living soul, as he is considered in Genesis, but also as
a striving human being with the urge to fulfill himself
through both flesh and spirit. In this sense, then, the
serpent, biting its own tail or, as it were, beginning at
the end of its tail, graphically symbolizes the endless
quest of the human personality. Heraclitus has said that
in the circumference the beginning and the end are at a
single point. This concept appears to find its reflection
in the metamorphosis of man into serpent and serpent into
man. Perhaps, too, man's end is his beginning.
To conclude: the serpent metamorphoses were meant
to serve several purposes, that is, to symbolize birth
and re-birth and yet also that spur in man's personality
which starts his search and struggle into, rather than
away from, life. The serpent in himself is that power
which leads him from the stasis of the perfection of a
life (out of time) into the beginning of his search, which
starts with his Fall; it serves as an image for the
knowledge which man usurps from "the tree," and which
causes him to end his life in Eden with his Creator and
to stand apart as he begins his Fall. In this sense, the
metamorphosis of man into serpent may be taken to symbol
ize both the end to his grace and a beginning to his
humanity.
,\v.* • •
AV.O’ *
61
CHAPTER II
FALL
And the LORD God commanded the man, . . .
. . . of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, thou shalt not eat . . . for in the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die.
NOW the serpent was more subtil than any
beast of the field. . . . And he said unto
the woman, . . .
. . . Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat
thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and
ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
. . . the woman . . . took of the [tree] . . .
and gave also unto her husband with her; . . .
And the eyes of them both were opened, . . .
Genesis 2.27.17; 3.1.4.5.6.7
Every race and culture has explained some funda
mental aspect of its present as a function of a historical,
or more often primordial, fall from grace, expulsion from
heaven, loss of the Golden Age, or some other descent from
perfection or happiness or divinity to imperfection,
suffering, and mortality. The archetypal Myth of the Fall
is so fundamental a part of cultural experience that it
is inevitable that it would be reflected in a wide variety
of metamorphic images, each of which embodies some element
62
63
of the actual consequences of the Fall and symbolizes some
aspect of the meaning of the Fall for man's present con
dition.
In this chapter, metamorphoses will be discussed
within this larger archetypal category of the Fall. As
man moves from the golden light of Eden through a shadowy
limbo to a darker purgatory, he becomes sexed, mortal,
alienated, inhuman, subhuman. His subsequent exile to j
bestiality and the triumph of sin will be discussed in 1
i
Chapter III, Exile. j
Many are the myths in Ovid's Metamorphoses sym- j
I
bolizing man's Fall. Among the modern authors who furnish j
appropriate examples for comparison with characteristic
examples from Ovid are Virginia Woolf, Robert Nathan,
Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, George Orwell, and
Aldous Huxley.
The Fall of Adam and Eve represents the Fall of
the human order as established by God, and also the Fall
of the natural order. The idea of the Fall itself as
symbolized through the eating of the apple implies an
action, not a stasis. An act is the expression of the
energy of a free and conscious being. Adam, by eating of
the forbidden fruit, actually demonstrated his surrender
of his ability to act, the implication being that man is
free to lose his freedom, but if he chooses to do so,
64
then obviously his freedom stops. The typically fallen
human act, then, is a pseudo act, one of disobedience,
and in this sense is really a refusal to act at all. Here
we have a negative viewpoint of the Fall. What at first
is simply disobedience will lead to rebellion, to rivalry
with God, to destructiveness— to the splitting apart or
fragmentation of an already created whole. Obedience,
endurance, and fortitude require a different kind of
I
i courage, perhaps a more divine kind than does the courage
of rebellion associated with the Fall, which requires
strength more of a passionate kind than spiritual.
Passion in that sense would be the opposite of a positive
force, just as love to excess becomes a perversion of
itself and is better known as lust. So long as man is
unpredictable, he is human. Controlled by something or
someone other than himself, he becomes predictable; he has
lost his humanity.
However, man is not totally fallen if he can still
control that which is daemonic in himself. He is still a
creature of great complexity and of unending interest,
because of the inexhaustible variety of his nature. This
is why the fallen state, considered as a process, is
infinitely more fascinating in literature than either
man's ultimate state of perfectability or its opposite
state, that of the totally Satanic. Thus it is with
Adam and Eve. When they ate of the apple, the process
65
set in motion already prefigured an end to the Fall and,
as we will see discussed in Chapter IV, the possibility of
a new beginning.
Frye, in his discussion of the Fall as archetype,
cites Milton:
There is nothing bad that they [Adam and
Eve] omitted to do when they ate that wretched
apple. "It comprehended at once distrust in the
divine veracity, and the proportionate credulity
of the assurances of Satan; unbelief, ingratitude;
disobedience; gluttony; in the man excessive
uxoriousness; in the woman a want of proper regard
for her husband, in both an insensibility to the
welfare of their offspring, and that offspring the
whole human race; parricide, theft, invasion of
the rights of others, sacrilege, deceit, pre
sumption in aspiring to divine attributes, fraud
in the means employed to obtain the object, pride,
and arrogance."1
After his Fall, Frye continues, Adam begins to
experience time and space in a new way. Time now becomes
a combination of the straight line and the circle: the
straight line being the fallen conception of time; the
circle referring to the unfailing cycle of seed time and
harvest, which represents an element of promise and hope.
Similarly with space. In Eden, all time was an eternal
present; just as space was an eternal here. After the
Fall, space gradually becomes a wasteland and, finally, a
world of total alienation and Exile (Chapter III). Man
becomes not only alienated but shameful. Shame is really
a state of mind which might be considered to cover the
state of the Fall itself.
66
The fallen state is usually an individual state,
an alienated or egocentric state, one in which man is
the center of his own universe. The very pride which led
man into his fallen state creates an emotional response
in him which might be termed shame. Shame and guilt and
fear then turn him further into himself until he becomes j
totally egocentric and alienated because of an inability
to relate either to the human beings around him or to
that very important quality of humanness in himself.
Symbolic of the vice of pride is the figure of
Narcissus. The story is often considered as the classical j
i
equivalent of the story of the Fall itself. Not that Eve j
i
is prideful; rather, she possesses a charming kind of
vanity which before the Fall was still innocent. But, as
related in the Genesis story, we see that allegorically
it is this innocent vanity that leads Eve to entice Adam
into eating the apple, to be fascinated by the talking
snake, and finally to be taken by the notion of her own
individuality. It is this vague sense of individuality
that leads her to contemplate herself, Adam, the tree of
knowledge, and to listen to the serpent.
The psychological changes that take place in both
Adam and Eve are an important part of the Fall. Adam and
Eve are now able to conceive not of innocence but of
secrecy; with secrecy comes resentment, and resentment
67
often turns into jealousy, which would also imply pos
session and the need to possess. The need to possess
would most certainly indicate an ego either needy or in
conflict with itself and most certainly cut off from other
egos of the same type. These are in fact all rather minor j
vices, to my way of thinking, but they are the first steps i
i
along the fallen path. The ideas of the separated ego |
and of Eve's innocent vanity imply a form of psychological
imprisonment, certainly more alike to a fallen state than j
to a paradisiacal one. !
|
The fallen state is not a free state. A free state j
i
involves both a conscious and unconscious discipline and j
acceptance of responsibility. It is a state man does not j
desire unless he is already in a regenerate state. There
fore, the metamorphoses discussed in this chapter deal
also with various states of ethical bondage. In his
fallen state, man is just as much a slave to his vices
as they are master of him. One depends upon the other:
there can be no master without a slave, and no slave
without a master.
The moral laws which arose after the Fall also
were a consequence of what man had done before. The Ten
Commandments come into being. It is interesting to note
that both the Commandments and the medieval theologies as
embodied in the concept of the seven cardinal sins as
68
opposed to the seven cardinal virtues are not only over
lapping but put within a negative rather than a positive
framework. The general theological background to this
chapter, however, is that of the Old Testament.
After all that has been said, we should not forget
that there is also a positive aspect to the Fall. It is
man's striving toward humanhood and eventual salvation
and freedom. He is not just the first sinner, but also
the first hero. On one side we have the story of man's
fall from perfection, his loss of immortality, his ex
pulsion from Paradise and degeneration into fratricide;
but on the other, we have the story of man's insurrection
against his biological beginnings and his first steps on
j his long and venturesome journey. Man's fall from
divinity is but one aspect, then; the other is his rise
from animality. These two opposed implications of the
Myth of the Fall are symbolized in varying ways in a
variety of metamorphoses— as will be shown in this
chapter.
The story of man's Fall might be considered both
tragic and wonderful. There is a certain special splendor
to man's accepting and embracing Creation as it is,
accepting both its happiness and its pain, and yet loving
it enough to go on.
Man Becomes Sexed
Ovid: "The Story of Tiresias" (Humphries, III.67; Miller,
III.146.316-148.338)
Virginia Woolf: Orlando (New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Company, 1929)
The change from an androgynous being into a being
split into male and female was the most significant aspect
|
of man's Fall. As a consequence of this split man is in j
I
I
conflict and in competition with himself in these roles. j
At the same time, male and female cannot do without each
other. In the context of Old Testament theology, this
need was interpreted as sexual. The original sin concept
derives from the paradigmatic situation of Adam, Eve, and
the serpent. Adam and Eve's eating of the forbidden fruit
was not only an act of rebellion, but also an attempt to
arrive at a plateau of knowledge on a level with God.
Man's desire to transcend himself and to become one again
through sexual activity has often been equated in litera
ture with death. When man becomes a victim of excessive
love, this love in sexual terms becomes lust. The Com
mandments relevant here are those concerning adultery and
covetousness.
70
The specific metamorphoses to be discussed in this
section are sexual. A great many sexual transformations
occur in the Metamorphoses. Ovid, like many other authors,
was fascinated with androgyny, hermaphroditism, and trans
vestism. The physical pleasure and psychic pain of those
transformed in these ways form part of the folklore,
2
mythology, and ethics of all peoples. The subject is
vast, but only one Ovidian example, a metamorphosis from
| male into female, and back again, will here be examined.
The following myth of Tiresias has been classic
in its literary ramifications. The story concerns Jove
and Juno and one of their many familial problems over
I
Jove's transgressions. In this particular story, Jove
is happy and joking with Juno, but Juno has heard of one
of his more lusty adventures and is trying through
secretive means to get him to admit it. They have a
verbal battle, during which Jove maintains that women get
more pleasure out of loving than men ever do. This state
ment enrages Juno. Since they cannot decide the dispute
between themselves, they call in an arbiter, the wise
Tiresias. They select Tiresias because of his special
qualifications: he has been both male and female. Accord
ing to Ovid:
Once he had come upon two serpents mating
In the green woods, and struck them from each other,
And thereupon, from man was turned to woman,
And was a woman seven years, and saw
71
The serpents once again, and once more struck them
Apart, remarking: "If there is such magic
In giving you blows, that man is turned to woman,
It may be woman is turned to man. Worth trying."
3
(Humphries, III.67)
The problem is posed to Tiresias by Jove. Tiresias
sides with Jove. Juno, a bad loser, is infuriated, and !
decides to strike Tiresias blind. She does so, and he is j
doomed to that state forever.^ Jove, naturally taking j
the part of Tiresias, wishes to somehow mitigate the cruel j
punishment. Ovid relates: j
i
No good can over-rule another's action, j
But the Almighty Father, out of pity,
In compensation, gave Tiresias power
To know the future, so there was some honor
Along with punishment.
5
(Humphries, III.67)
!
The two serpents whom Tiresias saw mating may be
assumed to be King Cadmus and his queen (supra, Chap. I,
p. 49). His sexual transformation was the punishment of
the gods for watching the mating activity of a demi-god
and his goddess.
The explanation for sexual division is often dis
cussed in earlier literatures as the result of man's evil
doings and, hence, his change from an androgynous state to
a split being constantly in search of his other half. The
stories of sexual metamorphoses, then, are constant
reminders to man of his fallen state— a state of conflict,
of unease, of searching for that which he feels lacking in
himself.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, sexual
transformations, as treated in the literature, are usu
ally painful in both cause and effect. Most of the
earlier ironic, fanciful, and pleasurable meanings are
gone and rather grim twentieth-century scientific real-
g
ities have taken their place.
One of the few delightful later fictional treat
ments of sexual transformation can be found in Virginia
Woolf's Orlando. Not only is the book itself of high
7 '
literary quality, but the androgynous being is fully and j
I
enchantingly represented. Both male and female aspects I
are portrayed, yet the agony of the Fall is present in j
the torture Orlando feels when forced to cope with a male
mind in her female body. One of the remarkable things
about Orlando is the understanding implicit in Woolf's
writing of the two states of mind and of being; indeed,
Orlando even becomes pregnant, is delivered of a boy, and
hints that the cycle might very well begin again. Here,
in a typically Woolfian fantasy and with more than usual
humor, is Orlando's transformation:
. . . He stood upright in complete nakedness
before us, and while the trumpets pealed Truth 1
Truth! Truth! we have no choice left but confess—
he was a woman.
The sound of the trumpets died away and Orlando
stood stark naked. No human being since the world
began has ever looked more ravishing. His form
combined in one the strength of a man and a woman's
grace. (p. 90)
73
She continues her satirical tale with humorous
comments on Orlando's fascination with his new form. As
he watches his reflection in the mirror, rather than have
him fall Narcissus-like in love with himself, the author
has enter in at the door Chastity, Purity, and Modesty,
whom she satirizes as Victorian busybodies. She has them
finally throw a towel to the naked form, and also includes
a charming and humorous paragraph on the vice and virtue
of Curiosity.
!
Virginia Woolf parallels in extremely biting tone !
the Genesis account of Adam and Eve after they have eaten j
i
of the apple, and humorously recounts Orlando's attempt
at covering her form, which has now changed in terms of
size. Woolf is also commenting on the mores of her day
and on what she considers to be a hypocritical emphasis
on certain of the cardinal virtues not practiced by the
members of her set. She continues her story of Orlando
in this way:
We may take advantage of this pause in
the narrative to make certain statements.
Orlando had become a woman— there is no deny
ing it. But in every other respect, Orlando
remained precisely as he had been. The change
of sex, though it altered their future, did
nothing whatever to alter their identity.
Their faces remained, as their portraits prove,
practically the same. His memory— but in future
we must, for convention's sake, say "her" for
"his," and "she" for "he"— her memory then,
went back through all the events of her past
life without encountering any obstacle. Some
74
slight haziness there may have been, as if a
few dark drops had fallen into the clear pool
of memory; certain things had become a little
dimmed, but that was all. The change seems to
have been accomplished painlessly and com
pletely and in such a way that Orlando herself
showed no surprise at it. Many people taking
this into account, and holding that such a
change of sex is against nature, have been at
great pains to prove (1) that Orlando has always
been a woman, (2) that Orlando is at this moment
a man. Let biologists and psychologists deter
mine. It is enough for us to state the simple
fact: Orlando was a man till the age of thirty;
when he became a woman and has remained so ever
since. (pp. 90-91)
I
Orlando's transformation is given no more ex
planation than "it is enough for us to state the simple
fact" that such a metamorphosis took place.
The example in Ovid is similar. In Ovid the
sexual change is secondary to his humorous treatment of
the theme: do not interfere with the natural actions
either of animals or of gods. Virginia Woolf is also
only secondarily concerned with sexual change. Her main
interest is in the sexual roles as defined by the society
of her day. Indeed, Woolf's theme is even broader. She
uses the sexual transformation plus a simultaneous
transcendence of the space-time continuum, thus enabling
Orlando to live his/her life in different societies
throughout a 350-year span. Orlando, it might be said,
has a male foot planted in the Renaissance while a female
slipper toys with nineteenth-century terrain. Virginia
Woolf is not unduly concerned with the extraordinary
75
causes that allow her character to both change sex and
live many times the normal life span. But she uses these
devices to develop her theme: woman is restricted,
sexually and otherwise, and is made subservient to the
male.®
The specific metamorphosis as utilized in Ovid j
ties the stories of Cadmus, Semele, Jove and Juno together
and also illustrates man's fallen state of conflict,
anguish and lust. By analogy, the metamorphosis brings
to mind those stories (such as Leda and the Swan, Europa
I
9 i
and the Bull, and others ) in which Jove's sexual exploits -
cause Juno such anguish.
In Orlando, the metamorphosis is the point about |
which the whole story revolves. Without it, Orlando
could not function with the mind of a man and the body
of a woman. Woolf causes Orlando to function in the
latter part of the story as a physical female with a
standard of male mentality often considered as double.
Ovid points out the difference between the ac
tivities, sexual and otherwise, allowed the gods and
allowed mere mortals.
In Orlando, Virginia Woolf uses the metamorphic
process and its result as a metaphor for the position of
woman in the society of her day. Through it she sati
rizes the economic, political, and religious problems
76
which a woman like herself faces. Indeed, the subtitle
of the book is A Biography, and Woolf enchantingly, but
also hauntingly, tells us through the metamorphosis of
Orlando from male to female something about her own inner
conflicts.
In Ovid, the metamorphosis ends with the victory j
on the side of the male, for Tiresias is given the power
to foretell the future, while Juno is left, much like
Eve, in the position of a nagging female, even though she
be a god-like one. The state of the man was considered to j
be far superior to that of the woman.
In Orlando we have the fictional confirmation of j
this fact. Once Orlando is transformed to her final form
of a woman, she has nothing but anguish, conflict, and
pain. She is able to give more sexual pleasure since she
knows what a man desires, but she is not able to receive
it in the same way. She feels used as a sexual object
and, though complimented for thinking like a man, she is
also derided for acting like a woman.
The deeper levels which might be investigated in
the metamorphosis from male to female are varied, and
Woolf's novel was, in fact, ahead of its time in terms of
the new literature of today. The psychological impli
cations of female sexuality as discussed by Freud are well
known, and it is just in the recent literature of Women's
77
Liberation that his ideas in this area have been chal
lenged, most specifically by authors such as Betty
Friedan30 and, more thoroughly, although more vitupera-
tively, by Kate Millet.3" I find a good deal of modern
writing concerning this subject overly one-dimensional and
competitive. In my opinion, Woolf's treatment of the male/
female problem is on a much deeper, more significant, more
human level than that of the other writers mentioned. |
i
Woolf's specific instance of a metamorphosis from ;
|
one sex to another functions within the overall context ;
i
of man's Fall as an example of man's conflict withxn ,
himself. It is also symptomatic of the problems prevail
ing in modern society and serves as the basis for much of
modern literature.3"^
A contemplation of archetypal images of man and
woman in poetry suggests an inquiry into whether there
is in the literature of woman writers any imaginative
representation of man in relation to the distinctive
inner life of a woman, to the extent that we find repre
sentations of woman in relation to the emotional life
of a man. In classical poetry, very few figures can be
found to fulfill this condition. Within the field of
contemporary literature, the one discussed, Orlando, is
the most perceptive. The character of this tale, the
mingling of mockery and mystification with whatever it
78
may possess of serious meaning, makes it an important con
tribution to this field. The tale of Orlando is partic
ularly attractive in its rejection of the matter-of-fact
framework in favor of the more imaginative mode of con
veying truth. It presents a woman's experience through
the fantasy of a life running through centuries, beginning
with the adventures of boy and man but later suffering
with some spasm of bewilderment, though with no undue
shock, transformation to a woman's state. Such a fantasy j
gives opportunity for moments of survey, arrestingly i
truthful to the experience of any woman whose imaginative
life has been largely shaped by the thought and adventure
of men. These moments are rendered with gay fidelity to
the scattering glimpses that any reflective mind may know
of a past compounded from both personal and communicated
experience. Orlando, by becoming a woman, is able to
forget the distractions of sex, which she had before,
and is recalled to her faith in the office of a poet,
whose words reach where others fall short. This is her
justification for her womanly form.
79
Man Becomes Mortal
Ovid: "Jason and Medea" (Humphries, VII.153-67; Miller,
VII. 342.1-374.452)
Robert Nathan: Stonecliff (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1967)
When man is aging or has become old, his knowledge
of being mortal and his apprehension of death fill him
with a desire to regain his youth. Attempts at such a
metamorphosis, however, are contrary to God's design and
thus doomed to failure. In this section we will discuss
such a metamorphosis: an Ovidian example, in which an
old and dying man is metamorphosed back into his youth,
and a more modern example, in which an elderly woman is
metamorphosed into her younger self.
Part of the ghastly knowledge which man usurps
from his Creator is the concept of death. He has chosen
the tree of knowledge, not the tree of life, and so he
is now mortal and faced with all the anguish, questions
and fears which the knowledge of his own mortality brings
with it. Considered by some to be the most dreadful
parts of man's Fall, the concept of death and the desire
to avoid it are now forever with him. The desire for
immortality or for youth will speed him on his fallen
road, and perhaps only his creativity will relieve the
suffering. The metamorphoses from age to youth and back
80
are attempts to avoid a concept of death. Every such
metamorphosis also includes the demonstration of the im
possibility of achieving "eternal youth" without greater
cost than it is worth and, thus, becomes a compelling
confirmation of the inescapability of the mortality that
resulted from the Fall.
Ovid, in his story of Jason and Medea, tells about
a metamorphosis performed in a primitive, mysterious,
and violent manner. Medea prepares a potion in hopes of
making Jason's father, Aeson, young again. In a heated
cauldron she mixes water, herbs, hoar-frost, and a
thousand other things, "things without names, out of the
13
world of mortals" (Humphries, VII.162). As she stirs
and the brew turns green, hot drops fall to the barren
ground and it turns green. Medea was ready.
. . . she drew her knife,
Cut Aeson's wrinkled throat, and let the blood
Run out, all the old blood run out, and filled
The veins with the new mixture. Aeson drank it
With his own mouth, and through his wound, and
strangely,
Strangely, and quickly, his beard was black again,
No longer gray, his flesh filled out, the waxen
Complexion changed, the wrinkles all smoothed over,
He walked as young men walk, . . .
14
(Humphries, VII.162)
As Aeson becomes physically young again, he finds
he can also go back in memory, hence also in feeling:
. . . in his wonder [he]
Remembered the forgotten self, that Aesonr
Of forty years ago. (Humphries, V I I . 1 6 2 ) 15
81
Medea is a "barbarian woman" who utilizes black
magic. For the ingredients of her potion, she reaches
into nature, yet concocts an unnatural metamorphosis,
one which reverses the God-given rhythm of life.
Nathan, one of our fine American poets and
novelists who uses an age metamorphosis as the basis for
many of his works, sees love and/or communication as the
I
eternal problems and metamorphosis as a tying image, a j
| !
I symbol for the revival of creativity in both life and art. j
Man's desire to immortalize, extend, or transcend himself |
!
in time is particularly compelling in the artist and is
the driving force which enables him to leave something of
I
himself behind. Nathan, himself an artist, in Stonecliff I
portrays for us an artist thus driven. He beautifully
fictionalizes his concept of an age metamorphosis and
also gives us a glimpse of the writer in the creative act
itself.
The main character, Edward Granville, like the
author an artist-writer, uses his wife as a creative spur
by metamorphosing ("magicking"'*'^) her from elderly
Virginia to young Nina, and back again. In the following
quote, a third party is the speaker:
For a moment I thought of the girl I had
seen— or thought I had seen— on my way up
the Coast; . . . (p. 18)
[she] smelled like fresh, very delicate
tea. [Her] hair . . . the color of wild
82
honey, hung drawn around her shoulders. She
couldn't have been more than twenty . . .
a pretty girl, with a clear, clean look, and
eyes the color of mountain skies. (p 20)
Nina? Was it Nina— ? That silver-haired
woman?
"Yes," she said after awhile; "I am Nina.
And I am Virginia Granville." . . . Thrown
loosely over her shoulders was the same sweater
she had been wearing the first time I saw her
. . . and the odor, too— that faint fragrance
like delicate tea. Only, now her honey-dark
hair was almost white, and caught up in a twist
at the nape of her neck. There were tiny lines
at the corner of her eyes, and near her mouth—
that warm, seeking mouth!— the full cheeks sagged
just a little. She was Nina, and she was Virginia
Granville; and she was sixty years old. (p. 169)
Nathan's use of the age metamorphosis is complex.
Not only does he depict physical change, he also searches
for distinctions between reality and illusion. The cause
of the transformation is the waning creative powers of a
writer. The metamorphosis not only renews Granville's
17
love affair with his wife Nma-Virginia and unveils
(unages) his writer's eye, it also enables him, almost
18
psychosexually, to create again, or become erect anew.
Granville is a writer and a wizard; he "make[s]
no distinction between" writer and wizard (p. 163). Both
Medea and Granville use mysterious powers to accomplish
a concrete, physical metamorphosis from aged to youthful.
Medea, filling the hot cauldron with secret ingredients
and slitting Aeson's throat, performs the metamorphosis
in a gruesome manner. (Perhaps Medea could be considered
83
t±ie forerunner of modern godless scientists who use their
chemicals to create monsters such as the monster
Dr. Frankenstein creates.) The "magicking" of Nina-
Virginia, although also mysterious, is gentler and softer
and is performed not by a barbarian but by an artist.
Nathan's novel is a love story which makes whimsical use
of the metamorphic conceit: from age to youth, from
reality to illusion; from concept to creativity and then
back again. Also, through this image, Nathan presents man
as a uniquely three-dimensional creature, existing— both
spiritually and physically— in Time, Eternity, and In
finity.
The idea behind either of the two stories is fear
of death. Aeson is old and dying; Granville is old and
afraid that his creative energy has left him. Such loss,
to him, is death. Aeson wants, simply, to be young again;
Granville wants his muse to be alive and vital.
The admonition in the two stories is clear: Do
not violate God's design. The characters discussed did
transgress, with dire consequences. After her success
with Aeson's transformation, Medea is drawn more and more
into magic, into murder; and eventually she loses Jason
to a younger woman. Jason later loses both wife and
children. Aeson becomes troubled by his old memories.
Virginia's transformation to Nina tires her greatly.
She, like Aeson, carries the weight of age and experience
when in the younger state. She tells Granville that she
would prefer to enjoy her life with him as herself, at her
natural age, and wants to be accepted and loved for what
she is. In addition, if Granville had not metamorphosed
Nina back to Virginia at the end of the novel, he would
have lost his muse to a younger man.
Both Ovid and Nathan succeed in showing that a
metamorphosis from old age to youth can only be temporary
at best and that any such transformation will still carry
with it the weight of one's previous age and experience.
By God's design man is mortal; youth, the beginning; age,
the culmination.
Man Becomes Alienated
Ovid: "Mercury, Herse, and Aglauros" (Humphries, 11.51-52;
Miller, 11.110.70 8-112.759)
Petrouchka. A ballet. Book by Igor Stravinsky and
Alexandre Benois. Discussed in George Balanchine,
Balanchine's New Complete Stories of the Great
Ballets, ed. Francis Bacon (Garden City, New York:
Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1968), pp. 294-301 and
passim
Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray (New York: Dell
Publishing Co., Inc., 1968)
In contrast to the beautifully ordered yet static
world of the Creation of Chapter I, this chapter deals
with the myth of man's Fall; each section depicts man
85
becoming gradually more embroiled in a state of both inner
and outer conflict, adding another dimension to his fallen
state. Through a series of his own actions (as exemplified
in the metamorphic examples), man is removed from his own
humanity; he is lost already to any order (as in Chapter I)
I
which might be termed divine, and so in this chapter it
is the daemonic forces and passions which drive him to ;
j
inner and outer excesses. As he becomes more alienated !
from his inner self, he descends further— even the human,
i
natural and animal worlds are seen as more separated. The j
i
fallen state includes as mixed only the animal and human j
worlds, and that not until the end of the chapter, where
the mingling of natures is base, bestial, subhuman.
Man has become mortal. He is therefore alienated
from his original state of immortality. The metamorphoses
in the works cited at the beginning of this section,
illustrative of this alienation or dehumanization of man,
will be discussed within the overall archetypal heading
of the Fall.
Man becomes more isolated and alienated from the
human side of his nature through the loss of his ability
to love, through an increasing self-love, and through
continued disobedience to his gods. The sins which he is
guilty of, to a growing degree, are those of greed, envy,
jealousy, desire for isolation, excessive need, and ex
treme sensuality and cruelty.
86
This section discusses three metamorphoses which
deal primarily with man's internal fall. Aglauros1s evil
nature finally externalizes itself in black marble, and
she is left eternally alienated stone, not flesh. In the
Petrouchka ballet, the possibility of any humanity dies
i -----------
l
I from lack of love, and man's flickering soul metamorphoses j
I |
j into the heap of old rags, the carcass of a lifeless J
| puppet. The evil nature of Dorian Gray is hidden from
I
the world by the youthful exterior he has sold his soul
for. It is the first metamorphosis in which man deals
directly with a personification of the devil in himself;
he is indeed not only alienated from humanity, but almost
j
totally fallen. The greenish wormlike soul externalized !
in Dorian's decaying corpse takes man closer to an in
human state.
Ovid's story tells of Aglauros, her jealousy toward
her sister Herse, and her desire for the love of the god
Mercury. Prompted by greed and jealousy, she demands
from Mercury a great weight of gold for the service of
helping him gain entrance to her sister's chamber.
Minerva, on whose secrets Aglauros had spied in the past,
watches her from above. In anger, the goddess decides
to punish Aglauros for her profane and offensive behavior
towards both Mercury and herself. She asks Envy to go
and insert herself into the breast of Aglauros, to fill
87
her heart with thorns, to breed pestilence through her
nostrils, and to spread poison "black" through her bones.
This Envy does. By putting pictures of the happiness and
beauty of the union between Mercury and Herse into the
dreams of Aglauros, she not only maddens her but doubles
i
I her envy and jealousy. Ovid describes to us Aglauros m
I
! a state of progressive dissolution. She eats her heart
out secretly, anxiously, by day and by night, and wastes
away, almost as ice is melted when the sun shines wanly
and fitfully across it. Envy has completed her job.
Aglauros believes that her sister Herse is happy. This
thought fills her with hate and anger. When next the god
Mercury comes to visit Herse, Aglauros attempts to stop
him by blocking his way and threatening him that she will
not move until he leaves. To punish her, Mercury meta
morphoses Aglauros from flesh to stone, from white to
19
black.
Aglauros tried to rise, to block his entrance,
And found she could not, doubled as she sat there,
Too heavy to stand: she fought against that
stiffness,
That numbing cold, blue-veined, blue-nailed, and
helpless
As people are when cancer spreads infection
Through every part. The cold of winter came
Into her lungs, her heart. She gave up trying
To speak, could not have spoken if she tried to.
Her neck was stone, her features hard as marble.
A lifeless statue sat there, and the statue
Was black, not white, dark with her evil spirit.
20
(Humphries, 11.54)
88
Aglauros has lost her life, her spirit, and has
become an inanimate object— no longer human, cold as
marble, the reverse image to that of Galatea, whom we saw
come to life from stone because of love. In contrast,
Aglauros is turned from flesh to stone through lack of
I
love, through greed and envy.
j
A similar metamorphosis, but with a different moral j
I
emphasis, takes place in Petrouchka, the story of a saw
dust and ragged puppet which, through the sensation of
love, gains a human heart. This puppet comes to life for
one brief moment, only to be disbelieved and treated in
humanly and cruelly. He is the prototype for characters
such as Pierrot and Puck, Charlie Chaplin's tramp, or any
of the sad pathetic lifelike but inanimate clowns through
out literature.
The basic story of Petrouchka concerns the puppet's
brief love affair with life through the symbol of another
puppet, a ballerina. At first the puppet is happy to be
a mere automaton, but then he falls in love with the
ballerina and tries to win her though all the world seems
against him. He loses her, dies, turns to dust. Every
one laughs, and yet he has one last feeble laugh at the
cruel and evil magician who has condemned him to the heap
of sawdust into which he re-metamorphoses in the end.
The setting is a Russian fair, the "Living Theatre" of
89
the charlatan, a prototypical character much like that
of a good-humored satan, although evil in his own way.
He entertains, showing three inanimate puppets which, by
black magic, he turns into living beings during the per
formance. He wears a long black robe decorated with
mysterious signs, has a white Shamanish face, uses a flute
much like a magic wand, is menacing, cruel, and greedy for
money. In the back of his theatre, there are three com
partments, or boxlike rooms. In each rests a motionless
puppet staring out at the audience with blank expression.
In the compartment to the right, totally limp,
very sad, is Petrouchka, a rag doll, a clown, his face
a white mask. His costume is old: baggy, loose-fitting
trousers hanging down over black boots, an old blouse
thrown around his neck, a funny, grotesque, haphazard cap
on his head. In all, a totally absurd figure. Petrouchka's
head lolls to the side. Lifeless as he is, he is still
appealing and there is something in his attitude which
suggests, if only faintly, that perhaps he is tired of
being a puppet.
During the play, Petrouchka, through the char
latan's magic, comes to life in a metamorphosis which
seems as spontaneous as life itself. His feet mark each
ascent of his dance so energetically that it is difficult
to believe he was inert but a moment before.
90
The play ends. Petrouchka is tossed back into his
barren cell. He is tossed into this cell by the charlatan
and becomes again lifeless and wooden. He makes an
effort to pick himself up to continue with some of the
animation with which he performed before, but it is hope
less. He tries, however, to do a little dance, as if to
prove that he is worthy of a better fate.
Petrouchka's hatred of the charlatan is his own
hatred of his inarticulate self, that part of his dual
nature that can but pathetically imitate gestures for
j
the human emotions which his other nature desires so
intensely. He arouses our pity because we see that his
rage against the world is also his rage at himself and at
his alienation from a human world. His clumsy wooden
limbs try in vain to express some freedom, yet his white
sawdust face is a mask of sorrow. The rest of the ballet
concerns his attempt to make the ballerina love him. But
Petrouchka is destined always to lose.
The crowd demands another performance from the
puppets and so the charlatan begins. Some god seemingly
has infused Petrouchka with a breath of life; the crowd
stares in amazement. Petrouchka is now transformed into
a more animate object, a more lifelike being than before.
It is his first metamorphosis but it lasts only a minute.
The sad little clown is finally cornered by the savage
91
moorish puppet. He covers his head with his arms shaking
with fright. The moor strikes him down and we now come
to the final transformation of the sad little clown:
Petrouchka doubles up in pain. The music
reflects his agony . . . his great effort
to remain alive. But his legs stretch out,
his whole body quivers spasmodically, and
he is dead. His death has been so realistic
that the people who surround his body cannot
believe that he is a mere puppet; . . . the
charlatan is much amused, and picks up the body
to show every one they are mistaken. Petrouchka
is now a limp rag doll, a creature who could
never have been anything but lifeless. . . .
The charlatan remains alone, holding the
puppet . . . he turns— perhaps to put the
errant clown back in his cell— he looks up:
on the top of the theatre the ghost of
Petrouchka shakes his fist at the charlatan—
and at everyone else who will not believe he
is real. (p. 299)
The puppet has returned to sawdust and is kicked into a
bundle of rags, dust, and old clothes by the charlatan.
The useless stuffing lies strewn about the stage. There
was pathos in this last transformation. For one brief
moment we have seen the flicker of a tiny soul, a pigmy
soul aspiring to human loves and fears without a human
body to support them. And yet, Petrouchka, all innocence,
has been the object of man's inhumanity to man.
Petrouchka exemplifies man's total alienation from
that which is human. Depicting man as puppet (or machine)
symbolizes his total fall and lack of human love or
emotions.
92
Dorian Gray, the ravishingly handsome young man
who has sold his soul to the Devil, is the last example
of a metamorphosis from an animate being to an inanimate
object. The example demonstrates the excesses to which
sensuality may lead. Through a pact with the Devil,
Dorian has transferred his own soul to a portrait painted
of him by a friend. All the evil he commits shows in the
features of his portrait image, while he himself remains
young and handsome. His fascination with this process,
however, becomes so strong that he closets himself with
the picture as the years go by to watch the living death
of his own soul in vivid color, as the picture changes
i
while he remains the same. The picture becomes hideous.
The sight of it causes Dorian pain. Cries of indignation
break from him.
In the eyes there was a look of cunning,
and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the
hypocrite. The thing was loathsome— more
loathsome, if possible, than before— and the
scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed
brighter, and more like blood newly shed.
. . . Why was the red stain larger than it
had been? It seemed to have crept like a
horrible disease over the wrinkled fingers.
There was blood on the painted feet, as
though the thing had dripped— blood even on
the hand that had not held the knife. The
picture itself— he would destroy it. Why
had he kept it so long? Once it had given
him pleasure to watch it changing and grow
ing old. Of late he had felt no such pleasure.
. . . It had been his conscience to him. Yes
it had been his conscience. He would destroy
it. He . . . saw the knife . . . it would
93
kill the past, and when that was dead, he
would be free. It would kill this monstrous
soul life, and without its hideous warnings,
he would be at peace. He sees the thing, and
stabs the picture with it.
There was a cry heard, and a crash. The
cry was so horrible in its agony that it woke
the servants. . . . When they entered they
found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait
of their master as they had last seen him, in
all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty.
Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening
dress, with a knife in his heart. He was
withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage.
(pp. 255-56)
The three metamorphoses— from flesh to stone,
from dust back to dust, from the pigment of a picture
to the withered body of Dorian Grey— will now be com
pared to reveal their place in man's alienation and Fall.
The cause of the metamorphosis in the Aglauros
myth is punishment by the two gods Minerva and Mercury
through the use of Envy personified. In Petrouchka,
the charlatan, evil personified, uses black magic to
transform the lifeless doll momentarily into an animate
being. In The Picture of Dorian Gray we have an excellent
example of an archetypal cause for transformation, that
of a pact with the Devil.
The process of the transformation is different in
each instance: Aglauros is turned from living flesh to
a stone statue. The process is achieved rather quickly,
as it often is in Ovidian myth. In the Petrouchka ballet,
the transformation is first from soulless sawdust and rag
94
puppet to an animate but soulless puppet, than back to
the original dust from which the doll was made, but ending
with a weak and brief flicker of a human soul. In Dorian
the process of the metamorphosis, as we can watch it in
the painting, is gradual. It is as gradual as the passage
of years which Dorian lives; yet, though the process is
slow and we are aware that the transformation is taking
place, the effect of the final transformation comes upon
the reader in a very fast and almost grotesque manner.
The end forms that the metamorphoses take are
different in each instance when taken in their literal
sense, but represent death. Aglauros has become a black
marble statue from a white living being; Petrouchka has
become a heap of sawdust; Dorian, a withered corpselike
being. However, in Dorian as in Petrouchka, there are
two literal transformations near the end. When Dorian
slashes the picture and thereby causes his own death, we
see the picture revert to its original pristine state,
while the body of Dorian immediately takes on the black,
green, yellow colors of corruption. We know that he has
lost his soul.
The metamorphoses discussed emphasize what happens
when one transgresses against the wishes of the gods;
they also emphasize the ephemeral quality of life and the
difference between reality and illusion, particularly in
95
Petrouchka and in Dorian Gray. Also, as Petrouchka in
his boxroom, so is man imprisoned, by the evil in himself,
as in a cage from which it is impossible for him to break
out except for a brief, flickering moment. In Dorian,
the selling of his soul through a pact with the Devil is
an archetypal story in itself.
The end forms of the transformations can also be
considered as concrete symbols in themselves. Aglauros's
spirit is frozen into a black statue. In early myths
black was often considered a color personification for
something evil, obscure or dark. The lifeless rag doll
which was Petrouchka ends up solely as a heap of sawdust,
symbolizing man's return to dust. The first form which
the transformation takes in Dorian, that of the trans
formation of the picture image, he himself discusses as
being a visualization of his soul being gradually eaten
up by the foulness and horror of his life; his sins were
slowly eating the picture away. Before Dorian murders
the artist who had painted his portrait, the two men
confront it together:
"... This is the face of a satyr."
"It is the face of my soul."
"... It has the eyes of a devil."
"Each of us has Heaven and Hell in him . . ."
cried Dorian, with a wild gesture of despair.
(p. 212)
96
In the following quotation from The Picture of
Dorian Gray, images are evoked which are strongly remi
niscent of the Aglauros and Petrouchka stories:
The brain had its own food on which it
battened, and the imagination . . .
twisted and distorted as a living thing
by pain, danced like some foul puppet on
a stand, and grinned through moving masks.
. . . He stared at it [the picture]. Its
very horror made him stone . . . , you must
change him, and everything that belongs to
him, into a handful of ashes. . . . (pp. 218-19)
Thereon, Dorian comments that his soul is sick to death—
a phrase which may also be applied to Aglauros and
Petrouchka. The thoughts and feelings that ultimately
lead to the transformation of Aglauros into marble, the
passionate desire for love which changes the puppet
momentarily into a lifelike being, and the evil deeds
which cause Dorian to be transformed might be commented
upon symbolically in Dorian's own words:
If thought could exercise its influence
upon a living organism, might not thought
exercise an influence upon dead and in
organic things? Nay, without thought or
conscious desire, might not things external
to ourselves vibrate in unison with our
moods and passions . . . ? (p. 177)
In our first example, man has become alienated
from himself through a symbolic death, the transformation
of flesh to stone, human to statue. In the second
example, a puppet, manipulated and given life only by
a "charlatan," symbolizes man's frailty and the pathetic
97
nature of his existence. In the third example, in Dorian,
man is separated even further from himself and God.
Dorian's conflicts range from youth versus age, words
versus actions, his pact with himself versus his pact with
the Devil, his life versus the lifeless image of the paint
ing, until finally he becomes only a graven image, an
illusion of a life. He and the portrait have gone from j
i
life to death and there is only a graphic image left. j
21 i
Similar metamorphoses, indeed, are myriad. j
I
I
Statues, puppets, paintings, dolls, reflections or graven j
|
images, even idols are all archetypal symbols in them
selves when representative, as they usually are, of some
thing else. Examples of the transformation of color and
of life into stone, similar to that in the Aglauros story,
22
are also found in great abundance.
The concept, then, of what can happen between life
and death to one's soul pervades all the transformations
23
discussed. The novel of Dorian Gray, seemingly a very
sophisticated piece of writing, is actually based on a
very primitive totemic concept, for Dorian most certainly
believes that his life is bound up with an external object
and that this object, this picture, touches his inmost
life, his soul. This makes him suspicious, distrustful,
and more egocentric and isolated than perhaps either
Aglauros or Petrouchka is in simpler form. This solitude
98
or alienation of man from himself naturally leads toward
his alienation from other human beings, away from his
natural state as a complete being balanced as to the two
sides of his nature, into one obsessed or possessed by
the more animal side of his nature.
All three of the metamorphic tales discussed in
this section have demonstrated slightly different facets
of man's gradual descent to an alienated state. The
metamorphic images utilized have stood as symbols (or sign
posts) for the degree or kind of alienation and thus
further express the metamorphic conceit illustrative of the
Myth of the Fall.
The final images of the metamorphoses of Aglauros,
I Petrouchka, and Dorian (those of the stone statue, the
lifeless rag puppet, and the excrescent-like picture-
corpse) are, however, the externalized symbols of the
internal alienation of man from himself, representative,
in turn, of Aglauros's lying, Petrouchka's lack of love
and will, and Dorian's sensual lusts and excesses, which
lead him into a pact with the Devil.
In the section to follow, man becomes not only
alienated but inhuman, as the theme of the Myth of the
Fall is continued and strengthened through a set of meta
morphic images found in the stories of the Cecropians
and Jekyll and Hyde: man's internal evil becomes such
99
an inherent part of his soul that we see him fall even
further, as— unlike in the "alienated" metamorphic tales—
he becomes an inhuman creature, whose evil inner nature
is exemplified and externalized in his bestial appearance
and actions.
Man Becomes Inhuman
Ovid: "The Pilgrimage of Aeneas Resumed" (Humphries, XIV. i
340.44; Miller, XIV.305.75-312.176)
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde (New York: Popular Library, 196 3) j
I
i
Eating of the forbidden fruit not only gave Adam j
I
and Eve knowledge of good and evil in an intellectual i
i
j sense; good and evil became a part of them, a duality
existing within them. The evil in man, lack of love and
lack of human contact cause him to transgress against his
society, his fellow men, or himself, and he is sometimes
transformed into a man-animal. Conversely, love for
another human, or good deeds he performs while in his man-
animal state, will metamorphose him back again.
Tricks, lying, or cruelty will also transform man
into a bestial version of himself, onto which he will
project his evil or be overcome by it. And if he is thus
overcome, he is bound to his animal state and deprived by
his gods of man's highest hope and reward: the ability
to transcend himself.
100
Among the most graphic examples of the duality of
man are the men-animals. In this section we will discuss
two examples of men thus transformed: Ovid's myth of the
Cecropians, who were metamorphosed into ugly creatures,
part man, part animal, and Robert Louis Stevenson's
portrayal of a "good" doctor who metamorphoses himself
into a troglodytic creature.
In many legends and myths, Jove punished man for
his transgressions by turning him into half-man, half
beast, endowing him with a combination of external
physical properties more horrible than those of the
simple beast. When Ovid relates the story of Aeneas, he
24
includes transformations of this kind. The following
quotation depicts such a human and yet not human state.
The transformation, in this case, is brought on by the
transgressions of the Cecropians against the basic laws
of human conduct as set down by the gods. The loss of
25
speech is also significant.
. . . Pithecusae,
A town on a barren hill, named for its natives,
Where once the father of the gods, who hated
Cecropian tricks and lies, and all the crimes
That treacherous race committed, changed the men
To ugly beasts, human, and yet not human,
With stunted limbs, snub-nosed and deeply wrinkled,
And sent them here, with their bodies covered over
With long and yellow hair, but he took from them
The power of speech, the use of tongues and left them
No syllables except hoarse grating sounds.
(XIV.341)26
The "ugly beasts, human and yet not human" are men-animals.
Ovid makes a moral statement, with compelling visual
imagery.
Perhaps the most famous of the modern half-man, half
animal tales is Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a
magnificent literary example of a split personality. The
good Dr. Jekyll, through ingestion of certain chemicals,
succeeds in metamorphosing himself at will into the evil
Mr. Hyde and back again. A friend's account furnishes
a detailed description of one of these metamorphoses. It
reads:
He [Hyde] put the glass to his lips, and
drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled,
staggered, clutched at the table, and held on,
staring with injected eyes, gasping with open
mouth; and, as I looked, there came, I thought,
a change; he seemed to swell; his face became
suddenly black, and the features seemed to melt
and alter— and the next moment I had sprung to
my feet and leaped back against the wall, my arm
raised to shield me from that prodigy, my mind
submerged in terror. . . .
"Oh, God!" I screamed, and "Oh, God!" again
and again; for there before my eyes— pale and
shaken, and half-fainting, and groping before
him with his hand, like a man restored from
death— there stood Henry Jekyll! (p. 71)2 7
The transformation of the Cecropians is similar to
that of Jekyll-Hyde. The stunted, hairy creatures with
wrinkled skin are close to the "ape-like" Hyde. The
actions of the Cecropians and Jekyll-Hyde turn both into
men-animals, bringing the evil within them into full view.
102
They are not the devil with horns, pitchfork, tail and
horse's feet, "but rather the idea of evil (in German,
28
no longer Per Bose but Das Bose) In both stories,
something has been placed before the love of God: in the
Ovidian myth, tricks and cruelty are what the Cecropians
love most; in Stevenson's work, love of knowledge is
Dr. Jekyll's god. The doctor shuns all human contact as
he locks himself in his closet to experiment. The same
chemicals which he uses for the transformation of his per
sonalities, he uses in his scientific way with the in
tention of adumbrating part of that knowledge which
should belong to God alone.
Differences can also be noted between the two
stories. The world in the Ovidian tale is ordered: the
Cecropians sin, and Jove punishes them. In Stevenson's
work, however, the powers of man--his knowledge of
chemistry— unleash the chaotic Hyde on the world. True,
Dr. Jekyll is "killed" when he is completely overcome
by Hyde; but man, and not God, is the mover here. In
Ovid, the powers of the gods prevail. In Stevenson's
work, science, not God, prevails. And science destroys,
in this case forcing Jekyll-Hyde into total conflict
with himself and reducing (rather than expanding) his
consciousness to that which is purely evil, anti-social,
disoriented, and de-humanizing.
103
The Ovidian myth attempts to demonstrate the change
of consciousness in its metamorphosed men by taking away
their ability to speak. This muteness, of course, is
frightening but still exterior. Stevenson enables the
reader to understand something of the horrible conscious-
i
ness of Hyde, who, "alone in the ranks of mankind, was
pure evil" (p. 78). Through the notes Jekyll sends a
friend, the reader becomes acquainted with the duality of
the man and the creeping changes in Jekyll as he becomes
more and more possessed by Hyde. The reader follows the
chemically induced metamorphoses of Jekyll into Hyde, to
the same metamorphoses suddenly produced without chemicals,
to a comprehension of the pure evil in Hyde's mind. Un
like Ovid's myth, this is not an allegory. Stevenson is
using the metamorphosis to function metaphysically, to
let the reader see the pure evil within Jekyll . . .
and within all of us. The terrible irony at the end of the
novella is Jekyll's pathetic attempt to dissociate himself
from the evil side of his personality. Jekyll and Hyde
are, however, inextricably bound together; neither can
dissociate himself from the other. Nor can any man dis
sociate himself from the evil within him once he has
unleashed the daemonic forces within himself. Loss of
balance and control over one's life and personality may
be considered a part of the fallen state. And, indeed,
104
even Jekyll's false pride in believing himself master of
himself and his experiments can be equated with one of
the steps in man's Fall and alienation from that balanced
life necessary to any organized, humanitarian society.
The isolation from their humanity by both the Cecropians
and by Jekyll-Hyde leaves them open to possession by the
subhuman parts of their personality. ;
I
Man Becomes Subhuman
Ovid: "Achaemenides Tells His Story" (the story of Circe,
who turned men into swine) (Humphries, XIV.344-48;
Miller, XIV.312.166-322.319) and "The Story of
Picus" (transformation of man into beast) i
(Humphries, XIV.348-52; Miller, XIV.322.320-330.444) \
I
i
George Orwell: Animal Farm (New York: The New York
American Library, HT59)
Aldous Huxley: After a Many Summer Dies the Swan (New
York: Avon Books, 1939)
It is only a short step from the tormented trans
formations of Dr. Jekyll to man's image of himself as
half-human, half-animal. Man often projects his evil
nature onto images from the animal world. In the examples
discussed in this section he loses control over that side
of his nature considered as dark, and through his ex
cesses of self-pride and gluttony is metamorphosed from
man into pig and from man into ape. As in the story of
Jekyll and Hyde, the images shift back and forth, ending
finally with the emphasis on man's animal side. It is the
105
last stage of man's Fall before his total annihilation in
Exile. His previous inhumanity and the eruption of his
animal nature through the use of chemicals and drugs are
expressed in the stories of his external transformations
from man to animal and his final regression to an almost
bestial state.
In the Ovidian story of Circe, Ulysses's men are
changed to a subhuman state by placing themselves reck
lessly within the reach of her evil powers. She has en
ticed them to her island with the promise of sensual
pleasures. One of the men relates what happened:
We took the cups she offered,
And we were thirsty, and we drank them down,
And then the cruel goddess touched our foreheads
With her magic wand— I am ashamed to tell you,
But I will tell— I had bristles sprouting on me,
I could not speak, but only grunting sounds
Came out instead of words, and my face bent over
To see the ground. I felt my mouth grow harder,
I had a snout instead of a nose, my neck
Swelled with great muscles, and the hand which lifted
The cup to my lips made footprints on the ground.
They shut me in a pigsty with the others.
OQ
(Humphries, XIV.347)
The seemingly innocent soldiers are transformed into swine-
30
like creatures. Yet, the goddess with her magic wand
could not have performed this transformation, had the men
not given in to the weak side of their nature. Only one
of them has the strength and still enough will left to
refuse the potion offered by Circe. It is Eurylochus.
Had it not been for him, the men would have had to stay in
106
their swinish state. But Eurylochus tells Ulysses, who
returns to avenge his men. He uses a counter-potion to
that of Circe, and the men are transformed back into
their human state.
The separation between the human nature and the
animal nature in the men becomes blurred. This blurring
can also be noted in Orwell's Animal Farm. However, the
cause in Orwell's story is different. The metamorphoses
here symbolize human failings rather than representing
projections of these failings onto a god or goddess. The
Ovidian men, in their weakness resulting from the Fall,
have violated the virtues of prudence and temperance.
In Orwell, the spirit is that of the Christian era as
expressed through his satiric Septalogue for animals.
One might consider it to be theologically based on the
well-known human Decalogue.
The Seven Commandments
1 - Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2 - Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings,
is a friend.
3 - No animal shall wear clothes.
4 - No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5 - No animal shall drink alcohol.
6 - No animal shall kill any other animal.
7 - All animals are equal. (p. 33)
107
It is the violation of these Seven Commandments by
the animals, specifically the pigs, which leads to their
eventual metamorphosis into a half-human, half-swinish
state. The same is true of the men in Orwell's novel.
It is their continual violation of the Ten Commandments
which results in their metamorphosis to a blurred half
human, half-swinish state. Throughout the novel Orwell
is setting the background for the final metamorphoses.
What he shows us is a cynical and satiric step-by-step
3 1
disintegration of both men and swine.
The metamorphoses of both the men and swine into
symbols of each other, half-animal, half-human, are the
result, then, of a slow moral disintegration in each, yet
the end effect is one of anthropomorphic irony. The
external results of the inner transformations of con
sciousness are described by Orwell in the following
account. The pig farmers and farmer pigs are gathered
together in the farm house of the animal farm and drink
to the completion of a business transaction which they
consider to have been mutually successful. The pig
general of the farm, named Napoleon, speaks:
"Gentlemen," . . . "I will give you the
same toast as before, but in a different form.
Fill your glasses to the brim. Gentlemen, here
is my toast: To the prosperity of The Manor
Farm!"
There was the same hearty cheering as before,
and the mugs were emptied to the dregs. But
108
as the animals outside gazed at the scene,
it seemed to them that some strange thing
was happening. What was it that had altered
in the faces of the pigs? Clover's old dim
eyes flitted from one face to another. Some
of them had five chins, some had four, some
had three. But what was it that seemed to
be melting and changing? Then, the applause
having come to an end, the company took up
their cards and continued the game that had
been interrupted, and the animals crept silently
away. But they had not gone twenty yards when
they stopped short. An uproar of voices was
coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back
and looked through the window again. . . .
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and
they were all alike. No question, now, what
had happened to the faces of the pigs. The
creatures outside looked from pig to man, and
from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but
already it was impossible to say which was which.
(p. 128)
The once suppressed pigs are now transformed into
half-man, half-pig, and their former oppressors into
half-pig, half-man. Animal Farm is now Manor Farm, and
the pigs look just like the greedy men they replace.
Violation of the Seven Commandments has transformed some
of the pigs into men. In similar fashion, violation of
the Ten Commandments has transformed man into his animal
self, as he falls one step further from Paradise. It is
not only pride, gluttony, and desire that have transformed
the Ovidian man and the Orwellian pig, but also the
concept of power, for power in Orwell corrupts both men
and swine, changing them from animal idealists to greedy,
109
prideful men and from men to gluttonous, swinish animals.
When power, pride and ego consume the lives of men, they
are indeed fallen, for the actions they perform to control
or possess money, people or things are usually corrupt,
brutal, or totalitarian in practice and, therefore, sub
human in quality.
In Ovid, the idea of power is represented through
Circe. Her action reflects the loss of the power to act
by the men involved.
As is usual with Ovid, the individual transforma
tive states are considered separately. That, as we have
discussed before, is a mythic concept. In Orwell, the
metamorphic states blend one into the other. In the
specific metamorphoses cited, but throughout the novel,
we can see the gradual progression of man to half-swine,
and swine to half-man. Orwell's metamorphosis appears
to be the more powerful moral allegory, but may also be
considered as a political metaphor, for totalitarianism
in any form, as indeed it is. Yet his Septalogue, and the
relations through dialogue of the characters of the
animals, particularly those of the pigs, in contrast to
the one good man, formerly the owner of the animal farm,
and the bestial or more animal-like men are more realistic
also.
A somewhat humorous critical comparison might be
made between Ovid and Orwell. In Ovid, the men are
110
considered subhuman because they lose the ability to speak.
In Orwell, the pig men are considered subhuman because of
their ability to rationalize and speak fluently in cliches.
The comment, then, on the society of both days seems
apparent. The Ovidian society preferred a being who could
speak like a human. In Orwell, man's speech as imitated
i
first and then taken over by the pigs is satirized through
the use of political and religious phrases which have
become nothing more than stereotyped slogans. This is
pointedly brought out in his animal Septalogue, in which j
he satirizes what he considers to be the complete devalu- j
ation of social values as exemplified in man's total
disregard of the Ten Commandments. His repeated use of
such phrases as "No animal shall drink alcohol," "No animal
shall kill any other animal," "All animals are equal,"
in direct juxtaposition with the acts of both the swine
and men in their gradual metamorphosis is extremely tell
ing. The physical characteristics of the swine in both
instances, however, are indicative of the externalization
of man's internal state; for example, the cloven hoofs of
the swine in both instances would evoke in the reader part
of the physical symbology attributed to the satanic
character. The feet which now make hoof prints on the
ground in Ovid symbolize the animal state, for the men
are reduced to all fours, whereas in Orwell the
Ill
difficulties that the pig has in raising himself to the
stature of a biped are satirically used. The hardness of
the mouths, the physical image which the snouts call to
mind, the heavily muscled necks, and finally the bristle
sprouting on the back are all evocative of a subhuman
state, but one which is symbolized by that of the domes
ticated animal, the pig.
The use of drugs in both works cited is reminiscent
I
of the emergence of Dr. Jekyll's animal nature, as dis
cussed previously. In Ovid, it is a magic potion; in
Orwell, the use of alcohol. The result in both is not a
state of transcendence (such as the one to be discussed
in Chapter IV) but rather an encouragement to descension
into, and appearance of, an animal state. There is a
similarity also in the motivation behind the use of
drugs. In the Ovid tale it is the men's desire to ex
perience sensual pleasures and to relieve themselves of
the cares and duties of which they have been a part. In
Orwell, the alcohol is used by the animals in their
desire to be like the men, i.e., to be part of what they
consider to be acceptable social behavior. They are,
however, primarily motivated by greed for money, which
could be equated with the Ovidian men's desire for
sensual pleasures. Both drives ultimately lead to sub
human conduct.
112
The fallen state can also be considered one in which
a desire to escape reality (including personal and societal
responsibilities) prevails. When men are no longer able
to distinguish between reality and illusion, they will
often act out fantasies rather than purpose. The Myth
of the Fall, then, also includes man's desire to return to
an infantile state, a state devoid of care and concern, ,
one in which desire is the key to action and is also its
motivating force. A disregard for the results of one's
actions, or for a comprehension of their meaning, is also j
j
part of the Ovidian and Orwellian stories. A state of
disintegration— both individual and societal— results in
a fallen and subhuman existence of decadence and decay.
The end results of the two stories, however, are
very different. The men in the Ovidian myth have been
metamorphosed into swine, but they are still men who want
to be human. In Orwell we have pigs who want to be men,
but men who are pigs, and the two are equated. The
distinctions between their animal and human states are
blurred, however; that is to say, the warriors in Ovid's
tale, though transformed to a swinish state, still retain
the mentality of humans. They want to be good; they
wish to be transformed back. In Orwell, there is no such
wish. The men have become subhuman through their actions,
and the pigs in parodying the actions of men (which they
113
try to emulate) are totally confused as to their moral
state. In Ovid there is no real conflict between good
and evil, except in the state of animal versus human or
of the evil of Circe versus the weakness of the men. In
Orwell the original conflict in man between his better
and his baser nature, i.e., his animal nature, is blurred,
and the same is true of the pigs. They are no longer
animal, nor man. Both have taken on the symbolic con
notation of swinish behavior as it is understood in modern
times.
One last comparison might be made between the two
physical settings in Ovid and Orwell. The island of
Circe is much like the animal farm in Orwell, with this
exception: they have a reverse significance symbolically.
The Ovidian men must get away from the lotus-like island
of illusion. In Orwell, the animals are forever banished
from the innocent state of the animal farm. In Ovid, the
moral decision between good and evil is clear-cut. In
Orwell, it is also clear-cut as to its significance, but
the conscience of the men involved and the innocence of
the animal nature have both become blurred and lost.
There is no longer left in Orwell any conflict between
good and evil. Both animal and man have become the worst
part of each other, and therefore subhuman in nature.
Man has lost the ability to love and in so doing has
114
relinquished his compassion, and become a prisoner of his
passions.
In conclusion, and as a transition from man's Fall
to a discussion of his total alienation from himself and
others, his Exile, as symbolized through metamorphoses
into specific beasts, I should like to mention briefly
two examples of transformation which involve man's
regression to a subhuman state.
Ovid tells of other metamorphoses in which Circe
is the instrument. Because Picus, a beautiful youth,
scorns and repels her, Circe transforms him into a bird.
When his comrades demand his return, she transforms them
into beasts:
. . . she sprinkled
Poisonous juices on them, and called forth
Night and the gods of Night from Hell and Chaos,
Wailing to Hecate in long-drawn crying,
And the woods leaped from their place, and the
ground rumbled,
The trees grew white, and the grass was clotted red
Where the drops of poison fell, and stones, it seemed,
Made hoarse and bellowing sounds, dogs bayed, and
the ground
Crawled loathsome with black snakes, and the thin
phantoms,
The silent dead, fluttered around. The men
Trembled and wondered, and she touched their faces,
Trembling and wondering, with her wand; no man
Was any longer man; they all were [black] beasts,
All different, all horrible. (Humphries, XIV.35-51)
Man is now relegated to the sphere of instinct or
animality and his dreams and stories are filled with
theriomorphic symbols. According to Jung, all the wolfs,
115
snakes, and apes that populate our dreams represent an
undifferentiated and as yet untamed libido, which at the
same time forms part of the human personality and can
therefore fittingly be described as the anthropoid
3 3
psyche. ' This anthropoid psyche, Jung continues, will
not fit into the rational pattern of culture, or only
very unsatisfactorily and with extreme reluctance, and
will resist cultural development to the utmost. (Cf.
Ovid's example and Huxley's at the end of this section.)
It is as though this part of the psyche were striving
constantly to go back to the original unconscious state
of untamed savagery. Anything, then, according to Jung,
that exceeds the bounds of man's personal consciousness
and his ability to cope with it will remain unconscious
and will appear in projection. However, this projection
is never a cure. It prevents the conflict only on the
surface, while deeper down it creates a neurosis which
allows the person to escape into illness. In this sense,
then, one can understand the fascination with the animal
symbols in literature, for they are important expressions
of man's attempt to cope with his inner conflicts.
An example of a psychologically regressive meta
morphosis may be found in Henry James's The Beast in the
Jungle. An even better example, however, is the one
given by Aldous Huxley in his novel, After Many a Summer
116
Dies the Swan. Here we get a much more sensuous and
tactile sense of reality, yet Huxley always stops some
where to implore us to stretch out our hand (or soul),
for he believes in raising up the human spirit. He is
neither the Ovidian realist nor the cynical Orwellian J
i
satirist. His tale of the regressive transformation of j
i
man to ape is meant as a counterpoint to his own Brave |
|
New World, and to Orwell's Animal Farm. Still, Huxley is j
|
ruthless in baring the dangers inherent in what he regards j
as the materialism, anti-individualism, anti-intel]ectualism!
I
and psychological conditioning of the modern masses. He j
i
decries egocentricity, mob rule, unbalanced living, and j
I
oversensuality (states of being which have been discussed j
!
in Chapter II and will be further pursued in Chapter III).
Huxley believes in the natural and unsynthesized, in ul
timate truth, in love, and understanding, and in all
things natural and elemental. He shares with both Ovid
and Orwell certain qualities. He is realistic, satirical,
ironical, but also mythical. His characters, here, are
dominated by a single obsession, particularly the million
aire Stoyt, a man who is depravedly erotic, materialistic,
and obsessed with the fear of dying. Huxley has said that
good art possesses a kind of super-truth and should be
more probable, acceptable, than life itself. In this
novel, which relates a man-to-ape transformation, the
117
dialogues and actions of Stoyte, his blond young mistress,
Portage (the intellectual), and the purely evil Dr. Obispo
emphasize the author's belief in the duality of man.
Dr. Obispo is a horrible, scientific, almost De
Sadean character. He is the cause of the reverse meta-
I
morphosis described, the transformation of a man back
ward into the savage animal he was "in his beginnings." |
Both Dr. Obispo and Stoyte are obsessed with finding a
new method of prolonging life by any means at all, however j
evil. For their transformation they use carp cells. The i
injection of unborn, yet living animal cells will, they
feel, prolong or drastically transform life for as long
as thirty years. Frightening! Huxley sees it that way
also, as he contemplates the metamorphic possibilities
present and a continuation of such a scientific method
if used only for genetic purposes. In the novel, Obispo
and Stoyte disclose the results of just such scientific
research in a filthy, acrid stone castle in England.
"The smell!" . . . The little room was
filled with an intolerable stench. . . . He
[Dr. Obispo] flashed his lantern between the
bars, into the foetid darkness beyond. . . .
Beyond the bars, the light of a lantern
had scooped out of the darkness a narrow
world of forms and colors. On the edge of a
low bed, at the center of this world, a man
was sitting, staring, as though fascinated,
into the light. His legs thickly covered with
coarse reddish hair, were bare. The shirt, which
was his only garment, was torn and filthy.
118
Knotted diagonally across the powerful chest
was a broad silk ribbon that had evidently
once been blue. From a piece of string tied
round his neck was suspended a little image of
St. George and the Dragon in gold and enamel.
He sat hunched up, his head thrust forward
and at the same time sunk between his shoulders.
With one of his huge and strangely clumsy hands,
he was scratching a sore place that showed red
between the hairs of his left calf.
. . . Above the matted hair that concealed
the jaws and cheeks, blue eyes stared out of
cavernous sockets. There were no eyebrows;
but under the dirty, wrinkled skin of the
forehead, a great ridge of bone projected like
a shelf.
Suddenly, out of the black darkness, another
simian face emerged . . . a face only slightly
hairy, so that it was possible to see, not only
the ridge above the eyes, but also the curious
distortions of the lower jaws, the accretions
of bone in front of the ears. Clothed in an
old check ulster and some glass beads, a body
followed the face into the light . . . with
pendulous and withered dugs.
. . . [Then] from the shadow came a shrill,
furious gibbering that seemed perpetually to
tremble on the verge of articulate blasphemy.
"The one with the Order of the Garter," said
Dr. Obispo, raising his voice against the tumult,
"he's the Fifth Earl of Gonister. The other's
his housekeeper."
"But what's happened to them?"
"Just time," said Dr. Obispo airily.
"Time?"
"I don't know how old the female is," Dr. Obispo
went on. "But the Earl there— let me see, he was
two hundred and one last January."
Dr. Obispo went on talking. [A dialogue relates
the process of the backward transformation.] Slowing
119
up of development rate . . . one of the
mechanisms of evolution . . . [the trans
formation of] an anthropoid . . . intestinal
flora . . . the Fifth Earl had anticipated
his own discovery . . . no sterol poisoning,
no senility . . . no death, perhaps, except
through an accident . . . but meanwhile, a
foetal anthropoid was able to come to maturity
. . . It was the finest joke he had ever known.
Without moving from where he was sitting,
the Fifth Earl urinated on the floor. A shriller
chattering arose from the darkness. He turned
in the direction from which it came and bellowed
the guttural distortions of almost forgotten
obscenities.
"No need of any further experiment," Dr. Obispo
was saying. "We know it works. You can start
taking the stuff at once. At once," he repeated
with sarcastic emphasis.
Mr. Stoytesaid nothing.
Mr. Stoyte broke his silence. "How long do
you figure it would take before a person went
like that? . . . "I mean it wouldn't happen at
once . . . there'd be a long time while a person
. . . well, you know; while he wouldn't change
any. And once you get over the first shock—
well, they look like they were having a pretty
good time. I mean in their own way, of course.
Don't you think so, Obispo?" he insisted.
(pp. 251-54)
Huxley's comments on this transformation are made
through the character of the philosophical Propter, who
holds that men should properly live on the human not the
animal level, but that in doing so they must attempt a
union between these natures and their Godhead. Huxley
expresses similar ideas in an essay. The following
paragraph is cited here for its particular relevancy:
We fail to attend to our true relations
with ultimate reality and, through ultimate
reality, with our fellow beings because we
prefer to attend to our animal nature and to
our business of getting on in the world. . . .
It is impossible in the nature of things that
no attention should be given to the animal in
us . . . but it is certainly unnecessary to
give all or most of our attention to it.34
Metamorphoses depicting man's last series of sub- I
|
human actions lead him backward through a series of trans- j
i
formations until he has descended to almost the bottom
state of the Fall and has become alienated from his
humanity. The tales in this chapter have concerned man's j
I
transformations alternating him between his animal and j
I
human selves. The blurred distinctions between the
j
swinish men (of Circe) and the human-like swine (of Orwell)j
I
have illustrated the ability of the metamorphic image
graphically to depict both human and animal qualities and
relationships almost simultaneously, thereby even more
vividly illustrating the psychic precipice involved in
the Myth of the Fall.
In an attempt to suggest the terror inherent in
a gradual (rather than a sudden) fall from grace, this
chapter has purposely dealt with a non-homeostatic group
of metamorphoses and it seemed appropriate to end this
chapter with Huxley's metamorphic story describing a man's
gradual and, therefore, terrifying transformation into
an anthropoid ape. It is an image still occasionally
121
erect, not quite mute nor totally bestial as end symbol,
but subhuman in all its emotional and physical reactions.
The anthropoid ape, in fact, seems to me to be
rather more terrifying in any of its mythic implications
of man as fallen than the homeostatic beasts into which
man is metamorphosed in his Exile (Chapter III).
Half-animal now, partially human in appearance
only, communicating through guttural sounds and ape-like
actions, his needs basic to his animal nature only, man's
transformation from an at least partially rational to an
instinctual, non-rational being is complete. In this
chapter, thus, a series of metamorphic images has partially
demonstrated the Myth of Man's Fall; has presented man's
descending separation from his Godhead; and illustrated
his adumbration of knowledge reserved for his Creator
only, through showing how he became:
1. Sexed (split in two and excessively lustful)
2. Mortal (destined to die and therefore desper
ately desirous of immortality)
3. Alienated (isolated in lustful narcissism)
4. Inhuman (through cruelty to both himself
and others)
5. Subhuman, finally (in appearance and bestial
in his actions, only one step removed from
a total loss of his humanity).
122
In the next chapter, a series of bestial meta-
morphic images expressive of the last and homeostatic
condition of the Myth of the Fall— Exile— will illustrate
man's descent to a non-human, Hades-like world, a waste
land, wherein man is metamorphosed into such concrete
images (symbolic of the excessively sinful state into
which his now daemonic nature has exiled him) as the
wolf, the bear, and the vampire bat, until finally the
Myths of Fall and Exile will metamorphically be completed
as man dies, physically and spiritually isolated, the
victim of an inglorious crucifixion— a putrid, yellowish
shell, a verminous bug.
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123
CHAPTER III
EXILE
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is
Become as one of us, to know good and evil:
and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take
also of the tree of life, . . .
Therefore, the LORD God sent him forth from
the garden of Eden, . . .
So he drove out the man; . . . to keep the
way of the tree of life.
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and that every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually.
Genesis 3.22.23,24; 6.5
The preceding chapter dealt with metamorphoses of
man into various objects, states of mind, and conditions
relating to his Fall. It included but one example of
man's transformation into an animal (in the final section).
In contrast, this chapter may be said to resemble a
bestiary, for all metamorphoses herein discussed are from
man into various kinds of beast.
Each of the first two chapters ended with a meta
morphosis symbolic of the total content of the chapter.
In Chapter I, the end symbol was man/serpent; in Chapter II,
124
125
man/ape. These transformations are symbolic of more or
less transitory states. The serpent in Chapter I, as
will be recalled, is a dual symbol, not yet the evil
serpent it becomes after man's Fall; the states described
in Orwell (man/swine) and in Huxley (man/ape) are still
transitional states. The image is that of man slipping
into the animal side of his nature, but not as yet com
pletely isolated from himself. It is after his banish
ment from the Garden of Eden, in his Exile, that he
becomes totally dehumanized. Symbols of this degradation
are discussed in this chapter through a series of meta
morphoses of the fallen man into various kinds of beasts
representative of his internal condition. These meta
morphoses could have been considered within the arche
typal framework of man's Fall; it is suggested, however,
that his Exile might represent an archetypal category in
itself, if the final images of the metamorphoses dis
cussed validly represent a transformative homeostasis in
the cycle.
In the metamorphoses symbolizing the Myth of
Exile, the chapter is illustrative of man's stasis and
end to his fallen state, as discussed in the Myth of the
Fall. Here, his transformations are always from man to
animal or beast, and with the exception of the possibility
of a symbolic resurrection which will follow his
126
metamorphosis to a giant vermin, he is now trapped,
caught or wandering in a wasteland full of evil, vicious,
or ludicrous animals. In contrast to his gradual becom
ing in the Myth of his Fall, he is now at the bottom
of that fall, in a symbolic hell of his own making. This
world might also be interpreted as a daemonic parody of
the harmonious world of Chapter I, Creation. The separa
tion between the natural, the human, and the animal
worlds is now complete, and if the final metamorphic
symbols embody a tormented human soul in the body of a
beast, the relationship is only one of conflict. Man is
now separated from his humanity, and the metamorphic
examples of his exile to an animal or bestial state give
little or no promise of a reverse transformation back to
a human state or form.
The metamorphic pattern set up in this chapter
concerning Exile might be considered as arbitrary in
its arrangement, and so it is; however, I do feel that
the man-to-wolf (Lycaon) metamorphosis should come at
the beginning, and the man-to-vermin metamorphosis at
the end of the transformative examples. The former,
because it is the primary Ovidian myth which relates
man's transformation to a bestial state and his Exile
from the Golden Age; the latter, because not only does
it give a graphic metamorphic picture of the most abject
state of Exile, but also it represents the animal form in
which he meets an almost persecuted and crucified death.
It was my intention to order the chapter, symbolically,
in such a manner that the last metamorphic image of man's
Exile would imply the possibility of his ascendancy or
restoration, symbolized by the metamorphoses in Chapter IV
Eschatology.
In structuring the paper cyclically (with some
unavoidable arbitrariness in execution, here and there),
I have sought to organize the metamorphic images in a
manner that would emphasize the distinction between the
static condition of total Exile and the changing status
implicit in the Myth of the Fall.
The metamorphic animal images for this chapter
I have chosen with great care (and not without some
difficulty in correlating highly diverse materials), in
order to get together a collection of animal metamorphoses
totally different from those utilized in Chapters I and
II. In the latter chapter, Fall, symbolic animal images
represent a blurred half-human, half-animal context.
When classifying the selected metamorphoses into
the four major archetypal categories of Creation, Fall,
Exile, and Eschatology, which give the dissertation its
structure, I found that the beasts considered in this
chapter might be illustrative of the seven cardinal sins
128
(with all allowance made for various gradations etc.).
Two of these— pride and gluttony— have already been dis
cussed in different ways in Chapter II. The five sins
which might be considered as theological background for
this chapter are anger, envy, greed or avarice, lust and
sloth (allowing of course for shifts in emphasis, where
appropriate). These are embodied in part by the beasts
into which man is metamorphosed (or by the agents of
his transformations), as follows: wolf— anger or wrath;
bear and rhinoceros— envy, discontent, or covetousness;
ass— greed and sexual lust; bat— blood or soul lust;
the arachnid or insect (in particular, the bug)— sloth,
negation, infantilism, and death.
The Ovidian metamorphoses cited are taken from
stories concerning Lycaon, Callisto, Midas, the Vesper-
tiliones, and Arachne. The modern authors supplying
metamorphic examples are Guy Endore, Ionesco, Stoker,
and Kafka. All the metamorphoses selected are meant to
be representative in one degree or another of man's
Exile and will be discussed within the theological con
text of the cardinal sins or Ten Commandments, as ex
ternal representations of man's inner nature and desire,
which are now predominantly bestial.
Ovid speaks of man's Four Ages: the Golden Age
(Chapter I in this dissertation), the Age of Silver
129
(Chapter IV), the Age of Bronze (Chapter III) , and the
Iron Age (Chapter II). In Ovid's description of man in
the Iron Age we easily recognize many traits of man now
in his exiled state.
. . . The rich earth,
Good giver of all the bounty of the harvest,
Was asked for more; [man] dug into her vitals,
Pried out the wealth a kinder lord had hidden
In Stygian shadow, all that precious metal,
The root of evil. They found the guilt of iron,
And gold, more guilty still. And War came forth
That uses both to fight with? bloody hands
Brandished the clashing weapons. Men lived on
plunder.
Guest was not safe from host, nor brother from
brother,
A man would kill his wife, a wife her husband,
Stepmothers, dire and dreadful, stirred their brews
With poisonous aconite, and sons would hustle
Fathers to death, and Piety lay vanquished,
And the maiden Justice, last of all immortals,
Fled from the bloody earth. ^
(Humphries, 1.7)
The world that man in Exile lives in is represented
in a concrete form in many earlier stories and in later
biblical times as the Underworld or as Hell. The geog
raphy of these worlds is similar. There are rivers of
woe and lamentation; there are regions for the various
sins and souls of the dead, as in Vergil; there is con
tinual fire or torment. The world is a wasteland, much
like that of T. S. Eliot. It is dark and cold and full
of bestial terrors externalized in various forms. It is
the paradisiacal world displaced. The world we fell from
we can return to only by attaining the kind of freedom
130
which comes with balance. Two famous literary examples
portraying the state of Exile by the symbolic representa
tions of evil are Dante's Divine Comedy and the Walpurgis-
nacht of Goethe's Faust. Both may be taken as warnings
against the idolization of godless intellectualism and
sensuality.
What, then, is the state of Exile? Through his
Fall, man has placed himself on a level of existence
where he does not belong. He must either rise above it
into his proper home, or sink below it into a state of
sin and degradation which his bestial state symbolizes.
He goes through a series of crises within himself. Each
crisis gives him a chance to break the chain, but he does
not break it until he has reached the bottom stage. He
becomes totally susceptible to control by his passions.
In the genuine fallen human mind, reason lies at the
bottom, a helpless critic of the passions above it. The
fallen man does not reason, he rationalizes; that is, he
perverts reason by enlisting it in the service of
passion. Passions become ends in themselves, or idols,
and often are typified as devils, Satan being the number
one symbol for the fallen man. "They that make them
[idols] are like unto them," is a biblical conception.
This identification with the evil that the fallen man
finds within him or creates is symbolized by the variety
of metamorphic disguises Satan has assumed throughout
literature. We meet him as a serpent, as a toad, as a
black dog, a wolf, a black mist, and in many of the
various forms which will be discussed in this chapter.
The fallen man refuses to accept the human mixture
of good and evil which constitutes his humanity. He
feels guilty that he is not perfect. In reaction, he
decides to become perfectly evil; but he cannot do even
that, since it is not given to humans to achieve per
fection in anything. He then compromises with evil and
is thereafter in a weakened state. He is forced to
confront his inner turmoil alone— a soul Godforsaken,
lost in his wilderness. In Exile, he is condemned to
be a wanderer, an alien vagabond. Nothing is worse for
mortals, as Homer has said, than wandering. It signifies
a homelessness, a state of lostness, a state of non
communication.
Man's Exile represents a series of temptations,
conflicts, and shiftings back and forth from one state of
consciousness to another. It is this agony, this loss of
peace, this insecurity which is characteristic of the
daemonic condition. Temptations, however, are a necessary
prerequisite for man's salvation, for it is in the
contests with the dark side of his soul that he finds
the strength not only to suffer but also to die. He must
132
descend into himself in order to ascend out of himself.
The conflict is ultimately a spiritual one, yet here the
physical body is the battlefield of the spirit.
Man in the exiled state must externalize his weak
nesses, negative instincts, and sinful drives so that he
may look at them, face them, and deal with them. When
expression is achieved in self-created images, in folk
lore, myth, and literature, there supervenes awareness
of an intellectual victory by which the brute importunity
of passion is in some degree assuaged.
The projection onto animals of different facets
of the human character is one way of externalizing inner
desires and conflicts. The animals that the fallen man
identifies himself with are not the original forms as
created in the Garden of Eden, but later fallen forms—
beasts of prey. The interest in animal metamorphoses
lies deep in the unconscious. In classical times and
before, gods and witches were thought to have the power to
turn man into wolves, bears, asses, and other beasts. In
Ovid, the effect of a metamorphosis is often charmingly
grotesque. A taste for the grotesque was characteristic
of Roman decadence. In some of the later more gothic
examples such as the novels of Stoker and Endore this
grotesquerie, to modern taste, becomes almost amusing;
in the psychologically terrifying tale of Kafka, or the
133
satirically absurd story of Ionesco, it becomes not only
frightening, but at times also horrifyingly real. As
George Gibian has remarked:
An important element of the grotesque is
the shifting from the human to the animal—
the transformations of one into the other,
the blurring of lines of distinction. In
the twentieth century in particular, we
find this tearing down of barriers between
the animal and the human.2
In concretized images, then, we often more easily
recognize the essential truths about ourselves, the good
and the evil. Even value systems are transformed and
shown to us in the guise of fiction. A quote from De
Sade's Justine forcefully illustrates just such a trans
valuation. It is also illustrative of the first section
of this chapter, which deals with the transformation
of Lycaon into a wolf because of his sins against Jove
of anger, wrath, and finally murder.
The power to destroy is not accorded to man;
at the very most he possesses that of varying
the forms, but he lacks the ability to destroy
them. . . . What does it matter to her [Nature's]
ever creative hand whether this massive flesh
which today forms a two-legged creature re
appears tomorrow in the guise of a thousand . . .
different insects? Who dares to say that the
construction of this biped costs her more than
that of a grub, or that she must take a greater
interest in it? If, then, this degree of affec
tion or rather of indifference is the same, what
can it matter to her whether by one man's hand
another is changed into a fly or a blade of grass?
When I have been persuaded of the sublimity of
our species, when it has been demonstrated to
me that it is so important to Nature that her
134
laws are necessarily violated by this trans
mutation, then shall I believe that murder
is a crime; . . . I shall never allow that
the transformation of one of these creatures
into a thousand others can in any way disturb
her plans. I shall tell myself: All men, all
animals, all plants, growing, feeding, warring,
reproducing by the same means, never experienc
ing a true death but merely a variation in form;
all, I say, appearing today in one shape and
a few years hence in another, can, at the will
of the creature who wishes to move them, change
thousands of times a day without a single law
of Nature thereby being violated for a moment;
may, without these transmuters having done any
thing but good, since by decomposing individuals
whose raw materials become necessary again to
Nature, he merely restores by this action (im
properly described as criminal) the creative
energy of which he is necessarily deprived by
the individual who, through a stupid indiffer
ence, dares disturb nothing. . . . It is only
man's pride that has established murder as a
crime.3
De Sade's frightening philosophy is embodied by
man in his exiled state— total inversion of values, nega
tion of conscience, torment of isolation. In Chapter IV,
Eschatology, we will see that man can achieve salvation
only by use of reason, by subjugation of his passions, by
re-establishing contact with his humanity, and by the
construction of a new set of values and a new philosophy
concerning himself and his society.
135
Man Descends to Wolf
Ovid: "The Story of Lycaon" (Humphries, 1.9-11; Miller,
1.16.210-20.261)
Guy Endore: The Werewolf of Paris (New York: Farrar &
Rinehart, 193 3)
Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf, translated from the German
by Basil Creighton; revised by Walter Sorell
(New York: The Modern Library, 196 3)
The Ovidian story of Lycaon is particularly apt
to begin this collection of metamorphic tales symboliz
ing man's Exile by showing him transformed from a human
to bestial state.
1. It is the first Ovidian myth concerning
man's banishment by Jove from society
and his exile to a bestial state, symbolic
of his evil actions.
2. It is archetypally more significant than most
of the following tales in that the tale it
self has become the paradigm for a psycho
logically exiled state known as Lycanthropy.
3. It also is inclusive of other Ovidian and
mythic tales of man's first exile by the
gods to states other than human; for example,
the metamorphic image of Exile to be discussed
in this chapter will be that of Callisto's
136
transformation to a bear. It is Callisto
who is Lycaon's first-born, and so, mythically,
this tale provides an early metamorphic image
of the concept of original sin being visited
generation upon generation.
4. It is further an excellent illustration of
the Genesis quotation cited at the head of
this chapter, and meant to be symbolically
representative of all the metamorphoses
in this chapter— "and God saw that man's
wickedness was great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually. ..."
In the Ovidian story, Jove transforms Lycaon
from his kingly state into a solitary, rapacious wolf
and promises to extend the metamorphosis to all men if
they continue to commit such grievous sins as rape,
plunder, and murder. More complex but none the less
potent are two modem literary examples of man-into-wolf
metamorphosis: Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris and
Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf.
4
In Ovid's myth of Lycaon, we find the origin
of the lycanthropic image. Although the earth was con
sumed by evil, the most barbarous land was ruled by
King Lycaon, and the perpetrator of the most "rank
137
infamy" was Lycaon himself. Jove entered Lycaon's land
and gave the sign that a god had arrived. Lycaon, how
ever, wanted to test this visitor to see if he was actu
ally a god. In the metamorphosis of King Lycaon into a
howling, savage wolf, Ovid tells his version of man's
original sins, his punishment through exile to a bestial
state, and his ensuing isolation from the human race.
Jove, in indignation over man's wickedness, summons the
high gods to a council and speaks to them of Lycaon:
He [Lycaon] planned, that night, to kill me
[Jove] while I slumbered;
That was his way to test the truth. Moreover,
And not content with that, he took a hostage,
One sent by the Molossians, cut his throat,
Boiled pieces of his flesh, still warm with life,
Broiled others, and set them before me on the table.
That was enough. I struck, and the bolt of
lightning
Blasted the household of that guilty monarch.
He fled in terror, reached the silent fields,
And howled, and tried to speak. No use at all!
Foam dripped from his mouth; bloodthirsty still
he turned
Against the sheep, delighting sill in slaughter,
And his arms were legs, and his robes were shaggy
hair,
Yet he is still Lycaon, the same grayness,
The same fierce face, the same red eyes, a picture
Of bestial savagery. One house has fallen,
But more than one deserves to. Fury reigns
Over all the fields of Earth. They [men] are
sworn to evil,
Believe it. Let them pay for it, and quickly!
5
(Humphries, I.10)
Lycaon, this "picture of bestial savagery," is
so filled with wrath that he kills men and even attempts
to kill the highest god; he is consumed with wrath and
138
other sins; he is a wolf in the skin of a man who needs
but Jove to transform his outer appearance to conform
with his inner and bestial nature. Unlike the modern
examples to follow, Lycaon is so inherently evil that
there is no war within him between his human and animal
souls; Lycaon is not a man and not a combination of a
man and a wolf; Lycaon is a wolf.
Examples of the man-into-wolf metamorphosis in
modern literature most often deal not with a single
transformation but with multiple metamorphoses of man
into wolf, back to man, and so on. Such a changing being
is called a werewolf. The multiple metamorphoses are
the result of the character in conflict with himself.
The werewolf has but one body, but two souls in it at
war— a human and a bestial soul. Then, whatever weakens
the "human" soul— be it sin or darkness, solitude or
cold— will bring the wolf to the fore. Conversely, what
ever weakens the "beast"— virtue or daylight, warmth or
human companionship— will call up the "human" spirit.
For it is known that the wolf shrinks from that which
invites man. A specific fictional example is related in
The Werewolf of Paris, Guy Endore's novel of two souls
in one body.
Endore's main character, Bertrand, is not evil
but weak, a good man who has no control over the forces
139
determining his fate. He was born a bastard, into a
family that has been cursed through the centuries. He
does not know the full extent of his curse as the novel
starts but, as the following quotation shows, he finds out.
He fights with this horrible other self, and tries to sub
due it long enough to have a virgin fall in love with him.
But the war within him is won by the bestial side, and
poor Bertrand spends his final days in an asylum.
The following passages relate how Bertrand comes
to realize the terrible truth about himself:
He [Bertrand] knew when an attack was com
ing on. During the day he would have no appetite.
It was particularly the thought of bread and
butter that nauseated him. In the evening he
would feel tense and both tired and sleepless.
Then he would arrange his window and lock his
door, and having taken his precautions, he would
lie down. Frequently he would wake in the morn
ing, in bed, with no recollection of what had
happened at night. Only a wretched stiffness
in his neck, a lassitude in his limbs, that could
come from nothing but miles of running, scratches
on his hands and feet, and an acrid taste in his
mouth argued that he had spent the night else
where. On one such occasion, however, full con
viction awaited him when he rose. Under his bed
he caught a flash of white. It was a human fore
arm! A man's. The fingers were clutched tightly
into a fist. Hair, as if torn from a fur coat
protruded from the interstices between the
fingers.
He racked his brain. Where? Evidently a
man with a fur coat.
And then he understood something else. Not
fur from a coat, but his own fur! Those grayish
and brownish hairs were his own! Then it was not
140
just an illusion that he changed; it was not
a mere alteration of the desires of his
muscles, but a real transformation!
(pp. 185, 186, 187)
The wolf within Bertrand comes to the fore and
takes over his body. With the wolf dominating and trans
forming his body, Bertrand goes forth to maul and kill
people. The war between the human and the bestial side
is waged more and more fiercely until, inevitably, one
side wins.
In contrast to the werewolf with one body and two
souls is the werewolf with one soul and two bodies. These
two bodies exist independently— one in the forest, the
other in the home— while the two bodies share one soul.
When at home, the man will dream only of his wolf-life.
Lying abed, he thinks himself abroad, roaming great pine-
woods in a distant country, slinking by on soft-padded
paws, or yelling in a pack at the flying hoofs of three
horses dragging a sleigh across a snowy plain. And in
the same manner, the wolf, when satiated with his kill
and drowsing in his den, will dream a strange dream: he
is a man, clad in garments and walking about, busy in
the affairs of the city. An excellent fictional example
of this duality is Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf.
Steppenwolf's duality of body exists not in fact
but in his mind. His one soul is beset with a psychic
141
duality that causes him to think and act as if he had two
bodies. Steppenwolf, a middle-aged man whom others call
Haller, is very much alone in the world. When he is
alone, he writes of himself as Steppenwolf. The follow
ing observations on his psychic duality are from his
diary:
Now with our Steppenwolf it was so that
in his conscious life he lived now as a wolf,
now as a man, as indeed the case is with all
mixed beings. But, when he was a wolf, the
man in him lay in ambush, ever on the watch
to interfere and condemn, while at those times
that he was man the wolf did just the same.
For example, if Harry, as man, had a beautiful
thought, felt a fine and noble emotion, or
performed a so-called good act, then the wolf
bared his teeth at him and laughed and showed
him with bitter scorn how laughable this whole
noble show was in the eyes of a beast, of a
wolf who knew well enough in his heart what
suited him, namely, to trot alone over the
Steppes and now and then gorge himself with
blood or to pursue a female wolf. Then,
wolfishly seen, all human activities become
horribly absurd and misplaced, stupid and vain.
But it was exactly the same when Harry felt and
behaved as a wolf and showed others his teeth
and felt hatred and enmity against all human
beings and their lying and degenerate manners
and customs. For then the human part of him
lay in ambush and watched the wolf, called him
brute and beast, and spoiled and embittered
for him all pleasure in his simple and healthy
and wild wolf's being. (p. 46)
The isolation of Steppenwolf leads to his sub
sequent alienation from himself which, in turn, causes
him to feel "hatred and enmity against all human beings,"
when in his wolf state. The hatred within Steppenwolf
increases as the human part lies in ambush and watches
142
the wolf, calling him "brute and beast," and spoiling all
of the wolf's pleasures.
But unlike Bertrand in Endore's novel, Steppenwolf
brings his state upon himself. Haller detests the modern
world, "the sickness of the times themselves." Rather
than indulge in the "contented" modem world, he delves
into himself harboring an intense hatred for the world
from which he is alienated. Lycaon, of his own free1 ,
will, is also a man consumed by hatred. Lycaon and
Bertrand are physically transformed into wolves, while
Steppenwolf's metamorphoses recur in his mind only. Yet,
whether the cause is willful hatred or a family curse,
all three characters are transformed physically and/or
psychologically into wolves. Both modern tales, however,
add the chaotic ingredient of metamorphoses back and
forth while Ovid, writing of a more ordered world, tells
of a god who causes a transformation that cannot be
reversed.
On a deeper level, the three stories are very
similar in their depiction of perverted love and can be
viewed also as instances of lycanthropic "possession."^
Lycaon loves not man nor Jove; he loves "trickery and
slyness, plotting, swindling,/ Violence and the damned
7
desire of having" (Humphries, 1.7). Steppenwolf loves
not his fellow man but rather "to trot alone over the
Steppes and now and then to gorge himself with blood or
to pursue a female wolf" (p. 46). Bertrand tries to love
a young virgin but it is too late for him when, near the
end, despite all of his efforts, the wolf in him drives
him to kill two people. In symbolic terms, the love of
a virgin would be the redeeming love, capable of cleans
ing even the grievous sins of Bertrand. But in all three
cases, a perverted love rules in the end.
The symbolic banishment of Lycaon is echoed in
the modern literary examples. As a man who cannot con
form to modern times and will not try, Haller alienates
himself and transforms himself into Steppenwolf, while
Bertrand, who tries to enter society as a normal person,
is ultimately banished to the dim corridors of an asylum.
Wrath leads Lycaon to kill a man and test Jove.
Wrath leads Haller away from men and into the dark side
of his self called Steppenwolf. And wrath leads the
rapacious wolf within Bertrand to overtake the human side
completely. In all three examples, the sin of wrath is
the cause of the protagonist's transformation into a
g
wolf. Self-torment, isolation or exile is a consequence
in all three examples, as it is also in the section that
follows. But in the immediately forthcoming examples
the particular sin is not wrath but envy.
144
Man Descends to Bear
Ovid: "Jove in Arcady" (the story of Callisto) (Humphries,
11.40-45; Miller, 11.88.401-96.535)
Eugfene Ionesco: "Rhinoceros," pp. 75-98 in The Colonel's
Photograph and Other Stories, trans. Jean Stewart
(New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1967)
This section deals with the transformation of man
into large and clumsy beasts. I have arbitrarily here
chosen to use two examples rather than one: the bear
9
and the rhinoceros. They are beasts symbolically asso
ciated in this chapter with the cardinal sins of envy, of
covetousness and, by my own extension of envy, also of
conformity. In the Ovidian story of Callisto (Lycaon1s
daughter), who goes through a similar transformation as
her father did before her, we find, as mentioned earlier,
a good example of sin symbolically passed down to the next
generation of Iron Age beings exiled from themselves and
their humanity. Ionesco's satirical metamorphic rhinoceros
tale is symbolic not only of man's exiled state but also
of societal envy and ensuing conformity which isolate and
exile man both from himself and from any organized or
civilized society. In this sense I would view "con
formity" as one of the more isolated and exiled states of
man, particularly in the anti-individualistic and totali
tarian society pictured in "Rhinoceros."
145
The bear and the rhinoceros are both considered in
this section to be antisocial and frightening creatures—
shaggy, ferocious, clumsy and somewhat dumb-witted. They
roam about— the bear as an individual beast, the rhinoc
eros as one in a herd.
Ovid's story is about Callisto, one of Diana's
maidens, who feels most at home in the greenness of the
woods and in the company of the animals. Jove sees her,
and "... fire/ Ran through his marrow-bones" (Humphries,
11.41).^ Knowing the girl's fondness for Diana, he
decides to transform himself into an image of the goddess
and thus to approach Callisto. Unknowing, Callisto greets
him or, as she thinks, Diana, joyfully and, in another
Ovidian instance of seduction, is seduced by Jove. She
struggles, and Ovid comments that even Juno, had she
been there, might have forgiven her. But, also, he
ironically comments that girls in this situation are
frail and that, true, Jove is "irresistible" in the most
literal sense of the word. Callisto returns to the
forest, now loathing it and the beasts in it. When
Diana returns from hunting with her other maidens,
Callisto flees from her, while before she was always the
first to join her. She feels guilty and is afraid.
"Nine times since then/ Moons waxed and waned"
(Humphries, 11.42) — and Ovid ironically comments that
146
if Diana had not been a virgin she would have noticed a
thousand signs of the girl's guilt, for the other hand
maids had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Diana
and the maidens decide, one day, to bathe. They disrobe
and jump into the pool. Callisto tries to refrain from
joining. The girls strip her and see the truth. She is
in terror and tries to hide her belly. Diana, furious,
banishes her from the holy pool to keep her from polluting
Juno, who has known about Jove's affair, had waited
to punish Callisto, but decides that now is the time.
A man-child is born to Callisto (Areas), which makes Juno
even more furious. She takes revenge:
Juno, with blazing mind, and the great eyes blazing,
. . . cried: "Of course, it had to be
This way, no other, you little adulterous bitch,
To get pregnant, to advertise the scandal
By giving birth, to have a living witness
Of Jove's disgraceful conduct. You will never
Get away with this unpunished. I will fix you!
The form you so delight in, the lovely form
That caught my husband's eye, I shall take from you!"
She grabbed her hair, pulled it down over her forehead,
Flung her down to the ground, and the girl, reaching
Her arms toward her in pleading, saw them blacken,
Grow rough with shaggy hair; her hands curved inward,
Turned into feet, with claws; the lips, that seemed
To Jove so lovely not long since, became
Broad ugly snout and jaws; the power of speech
Might have been dangerous for her to plead with,
So that was taken, and her voice became
An angry threatening growl. Her human feelings
Were left her in her bear-like form; she moaned
Held up her hands (I mean her paws) to Heaven,
Blamed Jove's ingratitude, and ah! no longer
Dares rest in the lonely woods, but prowls forever
147
Past what was once her home, her fields; now,
driven
By barking hounds across the rocky places,
The huntress is the hunted. She would fear
Wild beasts, herself a beast, and hide from bears
Forgetting she was one; she feared the wolves
Though her own father, once the man Lycaon,
Roamed with the wolf-pack now.
(Humphries, 11.43)^
As a modern example of a man's transformation into
a large and clumsy beast I have chosen Ionesco's short
13
story "The Rhinoceros." It begins in this manner:
We were sitting outside the caf£, my friend
Jean and I, peacefully talking about one
thing and another, when we caught sight of
it on the opposite pavement, huge and power
ful, panting noisily, charging straight
ahead and brushing against market-stalls—
a rhinoceros. (p. 75)
As in Kafka's Metamorphosis (see section "Man
Descends to Insect"), we are in medias res right from the
start.
Jean and "I"— the "I" being Berenger, the central
character of the story— continue their conversation.
They do not attach any great importance to the huge beast
they see charging by. Their indifference to such an un
usual phenomenon indicates to the reader that something
is amiss, either with them or with the unusual society
in which they must live. They continue to pursue their
activities: they go to the office, visit museums on their
free day, read literary magazines, and listen to lec
tures; they also drink a good deal, due to their boredom
148
within their society. Next Sunday they meet again at the
same cafd and resume their drinking and talking. They
are just getting irritable in their discussion when they
hear a mighty trumpeting, a hurried clatter, a noisy
panting, and, again, see a rhinoceros charging straight
ahead— see it, as it were, simultaneously appear and dis
appear. They begin to debate whether this was the same
rhinoceros they had seen before, or a different one.
Jean says, last week it was an Asian rhinoceros, with
two horns; this time it was an African, with only one
horn. They become more and more irritable. One accuses
the other of inaccurate knowledge, of faulty observation.
Jean says the rhinoceros was yellow; Berenger says it was
green. One says the beast had charged by with its head
down; the other says it had charged head-on. Various
other characters get into the dispute and take sides:
a logician who views the problem of the rhinoceros in
terms of logic; an ex-schoolmaster who considers the
theological meaning and forthwith begins to compose a
dissertation on the subject; being also a freethinker, he
decides that the rhinoceroses are nothing more than a
collective psychosis, just as religion is the opium of
the people; a jurist who considers the rhinoceros from
the legal standpoint; and others.
149
The villagers are becoming so used to the rhinoc
eroses charging in and out of the village that they
are beginning to take them for granted much as they do
themselves. They start using words like perissodactyl
and pachyderm. More and more characters begin to get
involved in the discussion of the rhinoceros, but the
rhinoceroses themselves, though appearing in ever
growing numbers, are practically ignored.
As the tension in the village rises, one gets a
glimpse of the extreme competitiveness within the
society, in office and without, of envy, rivalry, and
covetousness manifesting themselves in words and
actions.
More and more rhinoceroses appear, and disputes
continue. A Madame Boeuf appears at the office to see
Berenger. She is very much upset, for she was followed,
she says, by a rhinoceros all along the way. They hear
an agonizing trumpeting. When turning round, they see
down below a two-horned rhinoceros attempting to make
his way upstairs. They both get into a discussion
whether it is Asian or African. Someone decides that
the whole thing is an infamous plot, the implication
being political. The tension in the office rises. The
chief clerk offers to carry the typist downstairs. She
says, "Don't put your horny hand on my face, you
150
pachydermous creatureI" Madame Boeuf suddenly utters
a terrible cry:
"It's my husband! Boeuf, my poor dear
Boeuf, what has happened to you?"
The rhinoceros, or rather Boeuf, responded
with a violent and yet tender trumpeting,
while Madame Boeuf fainted into my arms. . . .
"It's sheer lunacy! What a society!" (p. 87)
The storm over, Berenger begins to accumulate
what he calls the rhinoceric facts. Finally we come
to the transformation of man into the large, violent,
yet stupid beast, the rhinoceros. Ionesco tells the
story of the transformation through a scene between
Berenger and Jean. Berenger has gone to Jean's room
with the intention of making it up with him. Jean is
his friend, and he feels very conciliatory. He finds
Jean in bed. Berenger relates the scene as follows:
"You know, Jean, we were both right.
There are two-horned rhinoceroses in the
town as well as one-horned ones. . . .
The only significant thing, in my opinion,
is the existence of the rhinoceros in
itself."
"I don't feel very well," my friend kept
on saying without listening to me, . . .
"What's the matter with you? ..."
"I'm rather feverish, and my head aches."
More precisely, it was his forehead which
was aching. He must have had a knock, he said.
And in fact a lump was swelling up there, just
above his nose. He had gone a greenish colour,
and his voice was hoarse.
151
. . . I noticed that his veins were swollen
and bulging out. Looking closely I observed
that not only were the veins enlarged but
that the skin all round them was visibly
changing colour and growing hard.
"What's the matter with your skin? It's
like leather. ..." Then, staring at him:
"Do you know what happened to Boeuf? He's
turned into a rhinoceros."
"Well, what about it? That's not such a
bad thing! After all, rhinoceroses are
creatures like ourselves, with just as much
right to live. ..."
"Provided they don't imperil our own lives.
Aren't you aware of the difference in mentality?"
"Do you think ours is preferable?"
"All the same, we have our own moral code,
which I consider incompatible with that of
these animals. We have our philosophy, our
irreplaceable system of values. ..."
"Humanism is out of date! ..."
"I'm surprised to hear you say that, my
dear Jean! Have you taken leave of your
senses?"
It really looked like it. Blind fury had
disfigured his face, and altered his voice to
such an extent that I could scarcely understand
the words that issued from his lips.
. . . He flung back his blankets, tore
off his pyjamas, and stood up in bed, entirely
naked (he who was usually the most modest of
men!) green with rage from head to foot.
The lump on his forehead had grown longer;
he was staring fixedly at me, apparently with
out seeing me. Or, rather, he must have seen
me quite clearly, for he charged at me with
his head lowered. I barely had time to leap
to one side; if I hadn't he would have pinned
me to the wall.
152
"You are a rhinoceros 1" I cried.
"I'll trample on you! I'll trample on
you!" I made out these words as I dashed
towards the door.
I went downstairs four steps at a time,
while the walls shook as he butted them
with his horn, and I heard him utter fearful
angry trumpetings. (pp. 88-90)
The end of the story describes the transformation
of the whole society into animals, symbols of one another.
Berenger is trying to hold out, but his psychic condition
grows worse and worse. With Daisy, his love, he shared
his inner turmoil and doubts. He feels he should try
to communicate with the animals, that humans should be
able to communicate with anyone, should interpret animal
and human psychology, should regenerate humanity, and
restore the abnormal rhinoceros to the human state.
Gradually we see a change coming over both of them. They
begin to doubt their own sense of values; maybe the whole
world is right; the rhinoceroses are exhibiting a kind of
extraordinary "energy" that he can never possess. He
tries to find a way to "convince" the animals, but they
do not understand him, and he cannot distinguish one
trumpeting from another, nor one rhinoceros from another.
He feels utterly miserable.
One day, looking at myself in the glass,
I took a dislike to my long face: I needed a
horn or even two, to give dignity to my flabby
features. (p. 97)
153
Daisy had left him. She had said he was out of date, and
that one had to keep in step with the times. All this
rankled and made Berenger feel less and less sure of
himself.
It is obvious that one must not always drift
blindly behind events and that it's a good
thing to maintain one's individuality. However,
one must also make allowances for things; assert
ing one's own difference, to be sure, but yet
. . . remaining akin to one's fellows. . . .
Each morning I looked at my hands hoping
that the palms would have hardened during my
sleep. The skin remained flabby. I gazed at
my too-white body, my hairy legs: oh for a
hard skin and that magnificent green colour, a
decent, hairless nudity, like theirs!
My conscience was increasingly uneasy, un
happy. I felt I was a monster. Alas, I would
never become a rhinoceros. I could never change.
I dared no longer look at myself. I was
ashamed. And yet I couldn't, no, I couldn't."
(pp. 97-98)
Ionesco leaves us wondering whether indeed there
is yet one more transformation to come.
In comparing the two animal examples, Ovid's and
Ionesco's, I will deal with the two of them together
wherever possible, discuss the bear as to its deeper
meaning, and finally concentrate on the rhinoceros, since
the archetypal significance of Ionesco's rhinoceros far
exceeds that inherent in the Callisto story.
The cause of Callisto's transformation is a com
pound one: Callisto was punished for violating the
154
ethical code of her society with an illegitimate preg
nancy; a pregnancy, to make things worse, resulting from
her seduction by Jove. This seduction, in turn, was a
transgression against not only the code of her own
society— that of Diana and the maidens in the grove—
but also against the conservative religion of the day,
as often represented by Juno. That a son issued from
this union further incensed Juno: her original envy and
jealousy turn to wrath.
The causes of the society's transformation, in
Ionesco's story of the rhinoceros, are many. Among them
are the mutual envy of the villagers; their wish to
conform as a result of this envy, and the concomitant
fear of not conforming. In this sense, we find at the
end even Berenger becoming a psychic rhinoceros. In the
case of Jean, Ionesco uses literary symbols of the con
formity in both actions and dialogue in that the actions
and dialogue of Jean express his wish to be like the
others, plus his growing animality as represented by his
anger.
The setting of the stage for the actual trans
formation and the development of the process itself in
Ovid, contrary to his usual manner in such tales, take
a little while, whereas in Ionesco we are immediately
thrown amidst an unsuspecting though already partially
155
transformed society. The immediacy adds to the dramatic
impact and the absurd yet marvelously satiric quality of
the s tory.
The transformations of Callisto and Jean might be
compared also as to the characteristics of the forms
which they assume. The girl's arms while stretched out
in pleading toward Juno blacken, become claws, and turn
into paws. Her formerly beautiful body grows rough with
shaggy hair; and her lips, once so lovely, become a broad
ugly snout and jaws. Jean's skin becomes first hard,
then deepens into green, the color commonly associated
with envy. His body becomes heavy and cumbersome as he
becomes hoofed and four-footed. Significant is another
loss of human identity, that of the power of speech in
both. Callisto's speech is taken from her and becomes an
angry threatening growl. Jean's voice gradually hoarsens
and then turns into the trumpeting sound of a rhinoceros.
To further plague Callisto, Juno leaves her with her
human feelings in her bear-like form. She wanders with
a moaning growl, alone and isolated, through the woods
which were once her home. In contrast, Jean is completely
taken over by the bestial nature of the animal which he
becomes, is part of the herd, thundering, panting, and
charging with the rest of them. Callisto, on her prowlings
in her bear form attempts to walk upright, but pathetically
156
falls back upon her heavy claw-like paws. She is chased
by barking hounds— the huntress become the hunted. She
hides from the bears and fears the wild beasts, forgetting
that she herself is now one of them. She fears even the
wolves, though her own father, Lycaon, roams with the
wolf-pack. Jean, on the other hand, becomes the hunter,
but as part of a herd, and near the end of the story
even Berenger considers the rhinoceros as beautiful and
natural, and himself as an ugly being.
Callisto has no recourse except one: to plead
with Jove, and as a result of that pleading is eventually
in some ways vindicated. She is at least given some
glory and remains with her son as one of the brighter
constellations in the skies. In her wanderings, first
alone on the earth, then together with her son on the
firmament, her original innocence still shines through.
Berenger becomes more and more afraid as the whole
village becomes transformed. He fears becoming someone
else. Both, Callisto and Jean, through their trans
formation become isolated from the society to which they
belonged, she from that of Diana and the maidens in the
grove, and he from that of his village, now represented
as a herd of conforming beasts.
At the end of the Ionesco story, we are wondering
whether Berenger as an individual will be able to hold
157
out against the pressures of the herd. When we leave
him, he almost has undergone a psychic transformation
into a beast but has not yet grown the symbolic horns of
the animal.
The symbolic meanings of the bear are many and
varied. The connotation of the astronomic constellation
bearing its name has already been mentioned. Because of
its physical heavyness, the bear has become a symbol of
awkward clumsiness, pathetic yet somehow appealing (e.g.,
the dancing bear of the circus). Its isolation from
other beasts, especially during hibernation, is also
utilized in literature in a symbolic sense. Because of
its isolation, the bear, and particularly the female
bear, might further be considered as an emblem of the
suppliant. The woman who presents a picture of un
mitigated helplessness and destitution is not only a
pathetic and isolated figure, but also a terrifying one
because she arouses in others the archetypal fear of
isolation and exclusion, as an individual, from a group
or from certain rights. In literature, the character of
the suppliant is usually dignified, courageous and
innocent (cf. Callisto). Rejection or mistreatment of
the suppliant arouses profound emotions in the reader
because of his identification with the victim. Sometimes
we also think of the bear with its back to the wall,
158
especially when it is cornered by a beast more ferocious
than itself.
The symbolic significance of the bear is closely
related to its anthropologic significance as a totem
worshiped in primitive societies. Levi-Strauss in his
14
studj.es on totem and taboo, establishes definite cate
gories of animal totems and taboos with further breakdowns
as to their values and relationships to society. It is
interesting to note that the nature of the animal chosen
as totem is often concentrated in the primitive mind into
a unique quality. This concentration may be regarded as
the beginning of the emblematic symbol as known in
literature: it is the birth of the concept of the emble
matic symbol. For, if the totemic principle resides by
choice in a particular animal (or object, or plant), it
cannot remain localized in it. The sacred is contagious
in the extreme. It-thus extends and spreads from the
totemic being to everything that is at all connected with
it, the things it feeds on, things that resemble it,
various beings with which it is constantly connected.
The totemic background-' further explains the use of animal
symbols in literary treatments of phenomena within the
social world of humans.
Ionesco's story of the rhinoceros is a case in
point. Society itself is viewed by the author as a
159
barrier between human beings with its language of cliches,
empty slogans, and rhetorical formulae. All of these
are satirized in the Ionesco story.
The whole story may be termed a satirical allegory.
In contrast, parts of the Callisto story are grotesque,
often ironic, but neither absurd nor satirical. The
satirist has to select the absurdities, and the act of
selecting is a moral act. Two elements are essential to
satire: one is wit or humor founded on fantasy or a
sense of the grotesque or absurd; the other is an object
of attack. To attack anything, writer and audience must
agree on its undesirability.
To return to the story of the rhinoceros. The in
habitants of Berenger's village are infected by a mys
terious disease, rhinoceritis, which not only makes them
change into rhinos, but actually makes them want to turn
themselves into the image of the strong, aggressive, and
insensitive pachyderm. In this sense, Ionesco satirizes
any conformance with popular opinion, feeling that the
mob has a power of contagion which may lead to a real
epidemic. People allow themselves to be suddenly invaded
by a new religion, a new doctrine, or a new fanaticism,
and at such a time we witness a veritable mental mutation.
For it is when people no longer share any of your
opinions, when you no longer communicate with them, or
160
are understood by them, that you feel you have to do with
monsters— rhinoceroses, for example. They have a mix
ture of candor and ferocity. They will kill you with the
best of consciences and Ionesco himself says that history
has shown us during the past quarter of a century that
people thus transformed not only resemble rhinoceroses
but really become such beasts. Some of the characters in
the story opt for a pachydermic existence because they
admire the brute force and simplicity that attend the
suppression of over-tender humanistic feeling; others do
so because one can try to win the rhinoceros back to
humanity only by learning to understand its way of think
ing; others simply cannot bear being different from the
majority. Rhinoceritis, therefore, might be considered
an actual or potential disease not only of the totali-
tarians of the right but also of those of the left. It
can represent the pull of conformism as well.
At the end of Ionesco's story, Berenger defends
his desire to remain human, not logically but instinc
tively and intuitively. He finally regrets that he is
unable to change. In some ways, his last statement, then,
might not be considered heroic but rather absurd, just as
absurd in its defiance as is the instinctive conformism
of the pachyderms. Berenger's tragedy is that of an in
dividualist who cannot join the happy throng of less
sensitive people and thus feels like an outcast.
161
Jumping ahead a bit, I would like to cite a para
graph from Esslin, in which he aptly compares Ionesco's
rhinoceros to Kafka's bug, the subject of the final sec
tion (Man Descends to Insect) of this chapter.
In a sense, Berenger's situation at
the end of Rhinoceros resembles that
of the victim of another metamorphosis,
Kafka's Gregor Samsa. Samsa was trans
formed into a giant bug, while the rest
of humanity remained normal; Berenger,
having become the last human being, is in
exactly the same position as Samsa, for
now that being a rhino is normal, to be
human is a monstrosity. In his last speech,
Berenger deplores the whiteness and flabbi
ness of his skin and longs for the hardness
and dark green of the pachyderm's armor.
"I'm a monster, just a monster," he cries,
before he finally decides to make a stand
for humanity.15
It is in this sense that the Ionesco work transcends
the message of propagandistic statements and becomes a
valid comment on the basic inescapability and absurdity
of the human condition, for it is not just a tract against
conformism and insensitivity, but also mocks the indi
vidualist who merely makes a virtue of necessity in in
sisting on his superiority as a sensitive artistic being.
Through the rhinoceric metamorphosis, then, Ionesco
protests against the deadliness of present-day mechanical
bourgeois civilization, the loss of real self value, the
resulting degradation in the quality of life, and the
belief held by many that, if ignored, society's ills will
162
go away. The story, thus, is symbolic also of what this
chapter represents: man's Exile.
The implication in both stories (of Callisto and
of Berenger) is that human existence can be desperate
and lonely. Both these metamorphic tales show man's
difficulty in communicating with others; his subjection
to degrading outside pressures, to the mechanical con
formity of society as well as to the equally degrading
internal pressures of his own personality, sexuality and
ensuing feelings of guilt; also the anxieties which can
arise from the insecurity involved with uncertainty con
cerning one's self-image, and finally the facing of the
anxiety and isolation of Exile through death. Yet these
metamorphic stories of despair are meant to be illustra
tive for the reader and to lead him to self-knowledge
or to a catharsis and eventually to an emotional or intel
lectual liberation from actions or fears which might place
him in an exiled or isolated state.
The discussion of the rhinoceros as both absurd
and satirical leads us into the next section on the trans
formation of man into ass, a transformation which, also
satirically, symbolizes two other cardinal sins, those
of a different kind of excessive love: greed and sexual
lust.
163
Man Descends to Ass
Ovid: "The Story of Midas" (Humphries, XI.261-63; Miller,
XI.126.84-130.145) and "Midas Never Learns"
(Humphries, XI.263-65; Miller, XI.130.146-132.193)
Lucius Apuleius: The Golden Ass (The Transformation of
Lucius Apuleius of Madaura), trans. Robert Graves
(New York: Pocket Books, Inc., 1959)
Brothers Grimm: "The Salad" in Grimm's Fairy Tales,
trans. Mrs. E. V. Lucus, Lucy Crane and Marian
Edwardes (New York: Cronet and Dunlap, Pub
lishers, 1946)
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ballet in two acts and six
scenes. Music by Felix Mendelssohn. Choreography
by George Balanchine; pp. 247-49 in Balanchine's
New Complete Stories of the Great Ballets, ed.
Francis Mason (Garden City, New York: Doubleday
& Company, Inc., 1968)
Transformations of man into ass are seemingly al
most always humorous. Yet this kind of humor has the
quality of isolation about it, and its laughter is aimed
at a pharmakos or exiled fool. The ass is a symbol of
greed, sexual lust, or stupidity; occasionally, the ass
symbolizes a fool caught up in situations far beyond his
control. Each of the following four selections deals
with a man-to-ass metamorphosis in which the ass stands
as a symbol for one or more of the above-named failings.
When man is laughed at, rather than with, such ridicule
often has the facility of exiling him far more than tears
or whips could do.
164
In Ovid's immortal tale of all-consuming greed,
whatever Midas touches turns to gold. This gold-making
power has made him both rich and poor; poor, because
whatever he tries to eat or drink turns to gold, too.
Less well known is the story of Midas's transformation
16
into a man with asses' ears. After Midas confesses his
sin of avarice, Bacchus takes back the alchemic power he
had bestowed on Midas. But, as Ovid tells it, Midas con
tinues his greedy and stupid actions; he never learns.
In a contest between Pan and Apollo, old Timalus, as
judge, decides. Midas, presumptuously, interferes.
Timolus ordered Pan to lower his reeds,
Submissive to the lyre, and all approved
The judgment of the holy god of the mountain,
All except Midas, who began to argue,
Calling it most unfair. Such stupid ears
Apollo thought, were surely less than human,
And so he made them longer, stuffed them full
Of gray and shaggy hair, and made their base
Unstable, giving them the power of motion.
The rest of him was human; this one feature
Alone was punished, and he wore the ears .7
Of the slow-going jackass. (Humphries, XI.264-65)
Ovid, delightfully and with a delicate sense of
humor, implies that the stupidity which caused Midas's
greed also caused him to interfere with the gods. Midas's
foolishness is symbolized by his ears of a jackass; but,
to add to the comedy, Apollo made them unstable, capable
of wiggling.
In the story of Midas, then, the man-to-ass meta
morphosis is only partial; only his ears are transformed.
165
In the story The Golden Ass (The Transformation of Lucius
Apuleius of Madaura) we witness a complete metamorphosis
of man to ass. Here we find the ass used as both a
humorous and serious symbol of a soul's journey through
life. The Golden Ass is classed by some as a Milesian
tale. It is Milesian in structure, and is a delightful
string of satiric tales connected by the symbol of Lucius
transformed into a golden ass. In it, not only are the
society and the ills of that time attacked, but also
the individual sins of pride, lust, and avarice. In
addition, the practice of the black arts is satirized.
For example, one of the many magic symbols utilized is
18
the pink rose, a symbol for the re-metamorphosis of
Lucius.
Included in the series of tales are other stories
utilizing physical transformation as an image. Most
notable is the moralistic tale of Cupid and Psyche, so
well retold in the twentieth century by C. S. Lewis, in
Till We Have Faces. Lucius Apuleius, however, is still
the main character. Until nearly the end of his life as
an ass, Lucius is a beast of ill luck. And his ill luck
is catching. Each of his masters in turn either dies
violently, is locked up in jail or suffers some lesser
misfortune. The spell begins to lift only when Lucius
enters the household of Thyasys, a Corinthian judge.
There, Lucius is encouraged (through his treatment by
166
Thyasys) to reassert his humanity, thereby supplying the
moral that when people or animals are treated as "beasts,"
they will react as such, and vice versa.
Lucius' metamorphosis is also a literary symbol
for the seasonal transformations of the god of the
mystery cults, the Spirit of the Year. These were
epitomized in the Athenian Lenaia festival and in cor
responding performances throughout the ancient world, in
cluding North-Western Europe. In this cult, the initiate
identified himself with the god, and seems to have under
gone twelve emblematic transformations, represented in
the Golden Ass by Lucius' twelve metamorphoses, as he
passed through the successive Houses of the Zodiac before
undergoing his ritual death and rebirth. The Trans
formation , therefore, conveys the secondary sense of a
"spiritual autobiography," in that Lucius spends twelve
months in his ass's skin, from one rose-season to the
next, constantly changing his House— until his death as
an ass and his rebirth as a devotee of Isis. These two
metamorphoses are delightfully related in the following
quotations from the Apuleian chapters entitled "Lucius
Is Transformed" and "The Ass Is Transformed":
I stood flapping my arms, first the left
and then the right, as I had seen Pamphile do,
but no little feathers appeared on them and
they showed no sign of turning into wings.
All that happened was that the hair on them
167
grew coarser and the skin toughened into hide.
Next, my fingers bunched together into a hard
lump so that my hands became hooves, the
same change came over my feet and I felt a
long tail sprouting from the base of my spine.
Then my face swelled, my mouth widened, my
nostrils dilated, my lips hung flabbily down,
and my ears shot up long and hairy. . . . At
last, hopelessly surveying myself all over, I
was obliged to face the mortifying fact that
I had been transformed not into a bird, but
into a plain jackass. (pp. 64, 65)
Lust and stupidity propelled Lucius into this
sorry state in the first place. He had been making love
to a young maiden whose lady is a sorceress. Together
Lucius and his mistress secretly watch the sorceress
transform herself from one animal to another. Lucius,
in his infinite stupidity, tells his mistress he would
like to be an owl. She, however, procures the wrong
potion. When Lucius rubs it all over himself, he turns
not into a symbol of wisdom— the owl— but into an ass.
Instead of rising above humanity as a bird, Lucius
descends to one of the lowest and most ridiculed beasts.
Finally, after a year of misadventures, he is given
some roses by a priest. Only through the good works of
a man of God and his roses does Lucius become a man again.
. . . I trembled and my heart pounded as
I ate those roses with loving relish; and
no sooner had I swallowed them than I found
that the promise had been no deceit. My
bestial features fadeid away, the rough
hair fell from my body, my sagging paunch
tightened, my hind hooves separated into
feet and toes, my fore hooves now no longer
168
served only for walking upon, but were
restored, as hands, to my human uses.
Then my neck shrank, my face and head
rounded, my great hard teeth shrank to
their proper size, my long ears shortened,
and my tail which had been my worst shame
vanished altogether. (p. 245)
The greatly humorous tales in the Golden Ass
satirically allude to society's ills but also to Lucius'
sexual prowess before, during, and after his trans-
19
formation. One example xs the following paragraph,
in which Lucius expresses his joy at finding himself
human again.
When I saw what had happened to me I stood
rooted to the ground with astonishment and could
not speak for a long while, my mind unable to
cope with so great and sudden a joy. I could
find no words good enough to thank the Goddess
for her extraordinary loving-kindness. But
the High Priest, who had been informed by her
of all my miseries, though himself taken aback
by the weird sight, gave orders in dumb-show
that I should be lent a linen garment to cover
me; for as soon as I regained my human shape,
I had naturally done what any naked man would
do— pressed my knees closely together and put
both my hands down to screen my private parts.
Someone quickly took off his upper robe and
covered me with it, after which the High Priest
gazed benignly at me, still wondering at my
perfectly human appearance. (p. 245)
Avarice pure and simple is the cause of a man's
20
transformation into an ass in "The Salad," a faxry tale.
It is not, however, the avarice of the young man in the
story but that of others which causes him to be trans
formed.
169
Another example of a magical metamorphosis from
man to ass is found in A Midsummer Night's Dream, a ballet
by George Balanchine based on the music of Mendelssohn.^
Among the multitude of characters in this dream-like
story (either in love or spatting with their lovers, or
suffering from unrequited love) is a simple weaver named
Bottom. Oberon, King of the Fairies, fights with his
wife, Queen Titania. An infamous weaver of spells named
Puck is then ordered by Oberon to work mischief on Bottom.
In Balanchine's words:
Puck, at Oberon's order, has separated
Bottom . . . from his companions, trans
formed his head into that of an ass and
placed him at the sleeping [Queen] Titania's
feet. Awakening, Titania sees Bottom, thinks
him fair, and pays him close and loving
attention. At last Oberon, his anger over,
has Bottom sent away and releases Titania
from her spell. (pp. 248-49)
Needless to say, Bottom is powerless throughout all
of this. Indeed, this innocent weaver whose head is trans
formed into that of an ass is aptly named! But, in truth,
he has committed no sin of lust or greed; he is not even
depicted as terribly stupid— as is the case with Midas.
Poor Bottom just finds himself in a situation far beyond
his control; indeed, in the ballet, Bottom's bestial
actions are not only lewd but grotesquely lustful, thus
exiling him (pantomimically) even further from his human
self.
170
The concrete metamorphoses of Midas's ears to
those of an ass, and Bottom's head to that of an ass
are similar, even if Midas was sinful and Bottom blame
less. In both cases gods directly or indirectly caused
the transformation. In Ovid's myth, Midas acted foolishly
while in A Midsummer Night's Dream it is not Bottom who
is foolish; it is the other characters who are foolish.
In the Golden Ass the complete metamorphoses of man to
ass are caused by magic: Lucius rubs on the wrong, yet
magical potion. On a literal level, the transformation
to ass, or only to asses' ears or head, is humorous and
indicative of avarice, lust or stupidity.
On a symbolic level, the metamorphoses function
in conjunction with morals: never be greedy and never
interfere with the gods (Ovid); lust and stupidity bring
untold hardships (Apuleius); and the simple and innocent
should stay clear of the mighty (A Midsummer Night's
Dream). In Ovid and Apuleius, moreover, it is as if
greed and lust, if gotten away with, invariably led to
other foolishness— with dire consequences.
A deeper significance is found in these meta
morphoses of man to ass due to their potrayals of such
excessive loves as sexual lust and material greed, two
of the cardinal sins. Although a magical potion trans
forms Lucius into an ass, roses— that symbol of pure
171
love— transform him back into a man. Midas's excessive
love for money and his general stupidity can never be
reversed, so he is left with asses' ears.
The metamorphosis of man into ass, in all the ex
amples discussed in this section (as in the other trans
formative tales), has two major facets: it isolates the
character from people and does so through comedically low
humor. Even in these humorously burlesque-like tales,
the transformation of man into ass leads to a form of
Exile that is the result of ridicule and means isolation
or banishment from society. Whether it be for his greed
or lust, plain foolishness or bad luck, the transformed
man loses the love of his fellow men, and because he is
isolated singly, rather than in a pack, it is a lonelier
Exile.
If banishment exists in light-hearted stories, it
exists in a far more frightening manner in the horror
stories to follow which tell of the transformation of man
into a bat.
Man Descends to Bat
Ovid: "The End of the Daughters of Minyas" (Humphries,
IV.93-94; Miller, IV.204.389-206.415)
Bram Stoker: Dracula (New York: The Modern Library, 1897)
The form of anti-social action which is considered
most inhuman, and for which Exile is the punishment, is
172
murder, and one of the strongest metamorphic images which
deal with the sin of murder is that of the transformation
of man into vampire bat. The metamorphosis of man into
bat results from the sin of lust; not lust directly
related to sex (though it does have sexual connotations),
but lust for blood. The combination of bats and blood
is frightening, as are just about all metamorphoses which
deal with flying or crawling beings such as spiders,
buzzards, or winged beetles. Yet through literary treat
ment (particularly in the Gothic and horror novels), the
large vampire bat may well be the most frightening of all
metamorphic images.
In legend, the vampire is the ghost of a wizard,
heretic, or criminal who leaves his grave at night and
either sucks the blood of sleeping persons or preys upon
them. It is a chilling and extremely visual transforma
tion symbol of evil. The image also has the appeal, or
lack of it, of the night versus the day plus the dark
ness, blackness, and aloneness that are often associated
22
with the night. As the legend grew, certain rules were
added to the game of imaginative participation. For
example, the vampire could not enter a chamber the first
time unless asked; thereafter, it could come in as bat,
rat, or red mist but only between the hours of sunset
and dawn, and only if able to transport itself back to a
173
nearby lair (usually a closed coffin or crypt-like struc
ture) . Often the dividing line between reality and
illusion is too thin for the reader's comfort. Herein
lie both the potency and the weakness of the symbol as
it is utilized most often in fiction.
In Ovid the symbol is represented extremely well,
in part because the usual reason for the metamorphosis is
reversed; it is good rather than evil which causes the
primary change. The transformation of the daughters of
Minyas into bats is due to their refusal to acknowledge
Bacchus (Dionysus) as the son of Jove; they refuse to
neglect their household duties of sewing and weaving etc.
in order to take part in the Bacchic orgies. They tend
to themselves and continue their worship of Pallas.
Alcithoe, Leucippe, and Aristippe are then hounded by
Bacchus, through a series of his transformations to girl,
to lion, bull and panther, until finally he drives them
insane. Leucippe then offers her son as a sacrifice.
The three sisters devour him, for now they lust for blood.
In a frenzy, they tear madly over the mountains until
Bacchus, for punishment, transforms them into bats.
. . . Day had ended,
And the time was coming, neither dusk nor daylight,
The faint refulgent borderline of darkness,
And suddenly the building seemed to tremble,
The oily lamps to flare, the hearth to glow
With ruddy fire, and ghostly beasts were howling.
The sisters, hiding in the smoky rooms,
Fled from the fire and light and sought the shadows,
174
And over their frail limbs a film, a membrane,
Began to spread, and their arms were little wings.
They did not know, in the darkness, in what fashion
The change had come upon them; they were lifted
On no great mass of plumage, only on wings
So frail you could see through them. They tried to
speak,
But the sounds they made were tiny as their bodies,
A squeak of protest. And still they flock to houses,
Not woods; they hate the light, and flit in the
darkness,
And science calls them Vespertiliones,
The bats, the evening-flutterers.
(Humphries, IV.94)^
This story is very effective, even a little sad,
and creates great empathy for the three sisters. Indeed,
this empathy is warranted, for it was not the lust of
the sisters but the lust of Bacchus which caused their
problems. Because they were devoted to their own duties
and not his orgies, they were driven to blood lust and
then transformed into bats.
In later fiction, the bat becomes more horrifying
as a symbol and is often associated closely in legend
24
and belief with the werewolf, the Undead, and the Zombie.
Vampiristic beliefs include all of the superstitions and
powers attributed to the werewolf, plus others which are
due to the belief in the superior will power and intellec
tual qualities of the vampire as person. Its background
is often noble, wealthy and exotic; for example, its
homeland is usually Transylvania. The rosary and the
silver crucifix are still considered preventatives, but
175
to them are added the garlic wreath and the wolf bone
plus the sacred circle and the moral necessity for strong
will in the adversary. The demise of a vampire may be
accomplished only (1) between the hours of dawn and sun
set; (2) in the coffin or lair of the enchanted one;
(3) by driving a stake through the heart; and, finally,
(4) by severing the head from the body. The ancient
belief in the power of light over darkness is also strongly
emphasized, for the vampire's body (immortal until staked)
will crumble to dust if exposed to the light of the sun.
In modern fiction, the bat metamorphosis has been
utilized well only once, in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.
Even modern dramatic and cinematic fictions have adapted
from this source. The following is an account of this
famous vampire's metamorphosis as seen through the eyes
of a victim.
. . . Count [Dracula] turned his face, and
the hellish look that I had heard described
seemed to leap into it. His eyes flaming
red with devilish passion; the great
nostrils of the white acquiline nose opened
wide and quivered at the edge; and the white
sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the
blood-dripping mouth, champed together like
those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which
threw his victim back upon the bed as though
hurled from a height, he turned and sprang at
us. But by this time the Professor had
gained his feet, and was holding towards him
the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer.
The Count suddenly stopped . . . and cowered
back. Further and further back he cowered,
as we, lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The
moonlight suddenly failed, as a great black
176
cloud sailed across the sky; and when the gas
light sprang up under Quincey's match, we saw
nothing but a faint vapour. (p. 311)
Colors play a vital role in the depiction of the
vampire bat. The red of Dracula's eyes ("flaming red
with devilish passion") and lips (his "blood-dripping
mouth") stands in lurid contrast to the white— usually a
color of purity— of his nose ("the great nostrils of the
white acquiline nose opened wide") and teeth (his "white
sharp teeth"), which are his weapon for the extraction of
blood. In the end, the reds of Satan and the whites of
a ghost merge in a "great black cloud," because symbols
of good— the crucifixes— cause Dracula to vanish into a
faint vapor.
On a literal level, the transformation of people
into bats is horrifying. Yet the element of pity for
the daughters of Minyas adds a more substantial feeling
than the simple horror of Dracula. The reader fears
Dracula, but he fears for the daughters of Minyas because
they have been so misused by Bacchus. In both cases,
however, lust for blood has transformed the characters
into bats. Few would think the daughters of Minyas in
herently evil simply because they refuse to devote them
selves to Bacchus's orgiastic rites. Dracula, on the
other hand, is a symbol for "the dark soul of man" and
commits his nefarious acts not because of any external
177
force but as a consequence of his own evil nature. Count
Dracula is the latest descendant of an ancestry all of
whose members needed blood to sustain their lives. On
a symbolic level, therefore, Dracula is but another of
Satan's many disguises, others of which include the
werewolf, the black mist, the black dog (i.e., the poodle
in Goethe's Faust) and the rat. The Ovidian myth, in
this rare instance, is more complicated than the modern
story, for the daughters of Minyas are not evil initially;
they are made so. And they are made evil not by the
devil but by a god.
The religious meanings of these two stories are
rich in variety. Bacchus, a god, causes three righteous
women to become evil. Clearly the moral, especially
when combined with Ovid's immensely sympathetic treat
ment of the transformation, is somewhat ambiguous. The
deeper significance, however, is clear, for Ovid's world
is not as ordered as usually thought. There are gods
who do evil. Dracula is far more ordered, for he is so
evil, so filled with Satan, that he has no reflection in
a mirror. Since he is so impure, symbols of purity—
such as the brier-rose, the sign of the cross and the
crucifix itself— are the best preventatives against him.
The latter two preventatives are especially effective
178
because they represent the love of God, whereas Dracula
is the product of the excessive love termed blood lust.
The sin of blood lust results in the transformation
of man (or woman) into bat. This terrible form of
banishment keeps the characters from friendly human
contact and even from the light of day. Only at night
do they undertake their quest for human blood. Addition
ally horrifying transformations occur in the following
section. The sin of these people who are being trans
formed into insects is not blood lust or the driving
will for anything. The exact opposite is true; these
characters suffer from effects resulting from sloth or
other relatively minor failings.
Man Descends to Insect
Ovid: "War between Crete and Athens" (the story of the
Myrmidons) (Humphries, VII.167-74; Miller, VII.
374.453-390.689); The story of Arachne (Humphries,
VI.129.133; Miller, VI.288.1-298.145)
Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung), trans.
Willa and Edwin Muir (New York: Schocken Books,
1946)
The image of man as an insect is an important one,
representing the ultimate form of total alienation which
ends in death. The insect passions as represented in
the Ovidian tales, compared to the blood lust of the
bat, are in keeping with the insect's size. The Ovidian
179
examples, and the modern example from Kafka as well, are
representative of such minor sins as gossip, excesses,
busyness, sloth, and general negation of energy and per
sonality.
The often minute-in-size creatures of the insect
world are invertebrate animals, usually with the body
divided into segments and with several pairs of highly
movable, easily extended legs and/or feelers or wings.
Insects come in various sizes, extensions of legs and
other movable parts, and in combinations of colors that
are guaranteed to camouflage, to prettify, or to frighten
to death. Some of these creatures are equipped also with
various kinds of humanicides of their own with which
they lash, ooze or spray out in a miniaturely defensive
manner. Some are winged like the moth, a favorite lit
erary image. Others are many-legged like the spider,
spinning their lacy lures for insects smaller than them
selves .
In our modern world, insects represent an "un
known," are often something seemingly immaterial, and
are, therefore, to be feared. Precisely because of their
size, they are uncontrollable and seemingly serve no
function in a mechanized and plastic world. Yet in the
world of the so-called primitive, and earlier, they func
tioned not only as important societal examples in a
180
hierarchical macorocsm, but also beneficially as medicines
in whichever microcosm they belonged to. Levi-Strauss's
work in this field is particularly interesting. The
Savage Mind is but one of the many works explicating the
place and purpose of the insect both as totem and taboo
in primitive societies.^
The story of the Myrmidons is one of many literary
representations of the insect as a many-leveled creature.
In this story Ovid utilizes the insect metamorphosis as
a symbol for the tinyness of the human being in relation
to Nature or his gods, but also, and more importantly, as
a symbol for the plague which has overtaken the land.
King Aeacus in prayer asks Jove for the return of his
subjects who had fallen victim to the plague, or to be
granted the favor of entering the Underworld with them.
Jove, as a lightning bolt, a form which he frequently
assumes, strikes a nearby tree. Aeacus takes this as a
favorable omen. The tree struck is an oak, one of the
holy trees which were discussed in Chapter I, a symbol
representing both god and king. Along its wrinkled bark,
King Aeacus sees a column of ants moving on its path:
. . . grain-bearers,
Each with its tiny jaws holding its load,
. . . [King Aeacus] wondered at their numbers,
Praying: "O kindly Father, grant our people
May equal theirs, and fill our empty walls!"
(Humphries, VII.172)
181
The king's request is not granted immediately. He
is forced to go through a period of waiting and prayer
and vigil, in keeping more with the modern examples of
metamorphosis than with the usual Ovidian treatment of
similar incidents, which develop in a much quicker fashion.
In this story, however, because it serves as a metaphor
for larger implications within the work itself, the meta
morphosis is related at greater length. The king goes to
bed and as night comes and goes, Jove performs the favor
for the king, who has always been a faithful priest to
him.
Confusion in the palace, a stir, a murmur,
And I thought I was hearing voices I had known
Unheard for long in my hallucination,
But Telemon came running, "Father, father!"
He cried, flung open the door, "There is more to see
Then you could ever believe or dare to hope for!
Come out!" I came, and with my waking eyes
Saw men as I had seen them in my slumber,
Coming to me, and greeting me as ruler.
I offered thanks to Jove, and gave the city
In shares to my new people, assigned them fields
Forsaken by their previous possessors,
And gave them a name, the Myrmidons, a title
True to their origin. You have seen their bodies,
And they still have their customary talents,
Industry, thrift, endurance; they are eager
For gain, and never easily relinquish
What they have won. (Humphries, VII.172-73)
This story of the Myrmidons' metamorphosis is one
of Ovid's more charming tales and shows Jove in a forgiv
ing light. It might be noted also that this story of
the transformation of man first into corpse, of man's
spirit into ant, and finally of ant into human being
182
differs in an interesting way from the later story of
Pythagoras (Humphries, XV. 367), in which ant-like insects
come crawling from the human corpses. In that story the
ants are white and maggot-like rather than earth-colored
as they are in the story of the Myrmidons. This is one of
the few color inversions as to value that we find either
in early myth or in modern literature (with the exception,
of course, of Moby Dick). In Ovid's time and later, white
ants were considered as evil forces; red or black or
earth-colored ones, as good and positive forces. This
distinction has some zoological validation in that there
are certain kinds of ants whose "customary talents" do
not include industry, thrift, and endurance. In the
story of the Myrmidons we see the insects as a positive
symbol, in contrast to the following examples.
The gods and goddesses punished mortals not only
for serious transgressions, but also for lesser evils.
One of the favorite themes of Greek and Roman mythology,
tale and drama is the punishment of hubris. There is
even a particular group of arthropods, the arachnids—
eight-legged spiders, so named after Arachne. Ovid tells
the story of Arachne and her shameless shuttle in this
way:
Neither Minerva, no, nor even Envy
Could find a flaw in the work; the fair-haired
goddess
183
Was angry now, indeed, and tore the web
That showed the crimes of the gods, and with her
shuttle
Struck at Arachne's head, and kept on striking,
Until the daughter of Idmon could not bear it,
Noosed her own neck, and hung herself. Minerva
At last was moved to pity, and raised her, saying:
"Live, wicked girl; live on, but hang forever,
And, just to keep you thoughtful for the future,
This punishment shall be enforced for always
On all your generations." As she turned,
She sprinkled her with hell-bane, and her hair
Fell off, and nose and ears fell off, and head
Was shrunken, and the body very tiny,
Nothing but belly, with little fingers clinging
Along the side as legs, but from the belly
She still kept spinning; the spider has not forgotten
The arts she used to practice.
(Humphries, VI. 133)^
The cause of the metamorphosis is the displeasure
of the goddess Minerva with Arachne's previous slothful
ness and now with her conduct in a contest in the art of
weaving. Arachne's weaving is perfection, but she has
revealed her pride and disdain for the secrets of the gods.
Into her tapestry she has woven the gods' and goddesses'
erotic pleasures, pursued in various guises and trans
formations (often at the expense and to the confused dis
may of the humans involved), as portrayed throughout the
Metamorphoses. For this reason, this story is a pivotal
one in Ovid.
The process of the metamorphosis of Arachne into
the prototypical spider and her web is told briefly but
lyrically. The symbol functions not only as story but
also as an image for Arachne's punishment. She is
184
condemned to a life of continual spinning. Her reduction
in size serves to remind us of the insignificance of
human powers versus the powers not only of Nature but of
the gods. The physical manifestation of the spider's
belly and legs functions as an image of negation of human
personality. Arachne becomes fragmented, and easily
disposed of; the easy disintegration of the web, or of
one's life, is also inherent in the symbol.
The implications of Kafka's Metamorphosis are
much wider than those of the Arachne story. For this
reason I would like to discuss the Kafka story of the
transformation of Gregor Samsa into a huge verminous
29
bug at greater length. This metamorphosis is symbolic
of the final stages of man's Fall, his Exile, the total
disintegration of his human personality, and finally
death.
Further examples of insect transformation may be
found in myth, literature, and other artistic media, and
I should like briefly to comment on these before proceed
ing with the discussion of Kafka. The transformation
image is used effectively in myth and film. In myth,
man considers transformations as magical and possible.
In modern literature, insect metamorphosis has been
rarely used; it is a difficult symbol to use imagina
tively and believably. Bugs, scorpions, and many other
185
kinds of insects used as symbols are well known for their
"literary" effectiveness; the moth or the chrysalis is
generally portrayed in its final metamorphic form or
utilized as a symbol analogous to the life process but
not treated graphically in a linear manner. Perhaps that
is why the mantis-insect metamorphosis functions more
validly in myths and in the literature of the film. Myth
is fabulous, trans-historical, un-naturalistic, and
related to something other than scientific fact. It is
connected in the modern reader's mind with primitive
fancy and therefore he suspends belief and accepts the
mythic insect metamorphosis. The film,^ on the other
hand, can graphically and realistically portray an insect
as larger than the person viewing it. The transforma
tion, therefore, does not only seem more realistic but
becomes more terrifying to the viewer. He sees a being
he has always considered as much weaker, much smaller,
much uglier than himself (in general) emerge on the
screen in a frighteningly large size.
There are few instances of the insect trans
formation on the stage or in ballet. One of the most
effective is the modern ballet story entitled The Cage,
a horrifyingly real story of the transformation of a
31
human female into a voracious and deadly insect.
32
To return to Kafka's Metamorphosis. Gregor
Samsa, then, is metamorphosed into a large voluminous
186
bug, similar to the ant and the arachnid, yet embodying
a whole other level of verminous symbology. This type
of bug is nocturnal; it is voracious; its favorite place
of infestation is the kitchen; its shell is slick and
almost plastic-like but often transparently gives off
the slickly shiny dark yellow, brown or black of its
glue-like underneath fluid. Neither in its appearance,
habits nor physical movements is it one of the more attrac
tive creatures of the insect world. Even its magical
properties (except in the weakest of potions) are mediocre.
It is not industrious like the ant, nor clever like the
spider, but is known mostly for a huge appetite, a
sluggish disposition and an unesthetically structured
form.
Kafka's utilization, then, of a verminous bug as
physical symbol for what he wishes to say in The Meta
morphosis is as brilliant as it is applicable. I con
sider it the most beautifully written, multi-leveled,
exceptional example of the metamorphic works herein dis
cussed. The terrifying reality with which Kafka intro
duces us to Gregor seems real, is real.
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from un
easy dreams he found himself transformed in
his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying
on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and
when he lifted his head a little he could see
his dome-like brown belly divided into stiff
arched segments on top of which the bed quilt
could hardly keep in position and was about to
187
slide off completely. His numerous legs, which
were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his
bulk waved helplessly before his eyes.
What has happened to me? he thought. It was
no dream. His room, a regular human bedroom,
only rather too small, lay quiet between the
four familiar walls. . . . (p. 7)
Gregor's eyes turned next to the window, and
the overcast sky— one could hear rain drops beating
on the window gutter— made him quite melancholy.
What about sleeping a little longer and forgetting
all this nonsense, he thought, but it could not
be done, for he was accustomed to sleep on his
right side and in his present condition he could
not turn himself over. However violently he
forced himself towards his right side he always
rolled on to his back again. He tried it at
least a hundred times, shutting his eyes to
keep from seeing his struggling legs; . . .
(p. 9)
The metamorphic symbol as used in the Kafka story
functions even better than it does in the Ovid stories.
It captures not only the mythopoeic quality of "some
thing given" but also that of a primal and mysterious
"origin." The story of The Metamorphosis cannot be taken
on a literal level, because it relates the reaction to
a metamorphic process which has already taken place. It
is a story mythic in its sense of ob origine and can be
considered just on the level of the story or on a many-
faceted level. The myriad implications are fascinating.
The ugly bug metamorphosis in Kafka thus is
representative of man reaching the lowest level, his
last rung as a beast, and as a symbol is indeed arche
typal, as such paragraphs as the following exemplify:
188
. . . The devil take it all! He [Gregor]
felt a slight itching up on his belly; slowly
pushed himself on his back nearer to the top
of the bed so that he could lift his head
more easily; identified the itching place
which was surrounded by many small white spots
the nature of which he could not understand and
made to touch it with a leg, but drew the leg
back immediately, for the contact made a cold
shiver run through him.
He slid down again into his former position.
(p. 9)
To get rid of the quilt was quite easy; he
had only to inflate himself a little and it
fell off by itself. But the next move was
difficult, especially because he was so un
commonly broad. He would have needed arms
and hands to hoist himself up; instead he had
only the numerous little legs which he could
not control in the least. When he tried to
bend one of them it was the first to stretch
itself straight; and did he succeed at last in
making it do what he wanted, all the other legs
meanwhile waved the more wildly in a high degree
of unpleasant agitation. (p. 15)
Gregor's white spots and his itching place are
symbolic of our instinctive reaction not only to the bug
but to most insects. The mention of Gregor touching the
itching place itself with his (its) leg and of the
contact, which is cold, arouses a violent sensation in
the reader; a sensation recalling the other insect images
we have read about, or know about. When reading the
words, one almost begins to itch and to feel the numerous
little legs in one's head. The image of many legs waving
wildly in a high degree of unpleasant agitation is evoca
tive of one's own mental state when disturbed or nervous,
189
anxious or agitated. They represent all the kinds of
things or states which stop one from functioning, as
they stop Gregor from moving out of bed. The growing
small, white spots which Gregor cannot understand symbol
ize the "itching place" of anxiety or gnawing feeling of
guilt. The mental and emotional states symbolized by the
metamorphic transformation are such as may be used as an
excuse for withdrawal from one's world or from facing up
to the everyday problems which every human encounters.
The metaphor implied in the next paragraphs is illus
trative of this point:
. . . when he [Gregor] finally got his head
free over the edge of the bed he felt too
scared to go on advancing, for after all if
he let himself fall in this way it would take
a miracle to keep his head from being injured.
And at all costs he must not lose conscious
ness now, precisely now; he would rather stay
in bed. (p. 17)
. . . And he set himself to rocking his whole
body at once in a regular rhythm, with the idea
of swinging it out of the bed. If he tipped
himself out in that way he could keep his head from
injury by lifting it at an acute angle when he fell.
His back seemed to be hard and was not likely to
suffer from a fall on the carpet. His biggest
worry was the loud crash he would not be able to
help making, which would probably cause anxiety,
if not terror, behind all the doors. Still, he
must take the risk. (p. 19)
This quotation would be humorous if the writing
were not so successful in placing the reader in Gregor's
position. It still is humorous, but frighteningly so.
One laughs while one cries over the use of such words
190
as "scared," over the idea that Gregor is afraid to go
over the edge of the bed because he might fall and lose
consciousness. He rocks in a regular rhythm as he is
going to swing himself out of bed. Again he mentions
he is afraid he might fall, then realizes that, if he
does fall, he will be protected by the hard shell he now
has. He then starts to rationalize: when he falls, the
terrible sound will arouse anxiety and terror, not in
himself, but in the "others" behind the doors. Within
the last paragraph, then, of the preceding quotation
we have on an archetypal level the evocation, through a
literary image, of a picture of a psychological regression
to an infantile state. As discussed previously, one of
the stronger symtpoms of man's alienation from himself
and from society is his perversion of reason through the
process of rationalization. The inconsequential suc
cession of theories that form themselves in Gregor's mind
as he attempts to rationalize his experience are excellent
examples. This is again why Gregor's metamorphosis was
chosen for the concluding section in this chapter.
Gregor hunts helplessly for explanations of the .
inexplicable: the metamorphosis is a dream, a cold in
the head, a foolish hallucination induced by pangs of
conscience. The work is full of excellent symbolic
representations of Gregor's psychological state. The
191
paradoxical and contradictory quality that can be noted
in many of his thoughts, feelings, and actions is an
element both of humor and, when carried to an extreme,
the beginning of tragedy. His desire to exonerate himself
obliterates any chance of his re-establishing contact
with either reality or his own humanity; Gregor's one
concession is the occasional phrase "maybe" or "rather,"
utilized by him with contradictory overtones and with the
words ending up as just another defense or equivocation;
a childish wish to both be and yet not be.
. . . recognition that a cake cannot be both
eaten and had, is a developmentally advanced
achievement, learned by the human child with
difficulty and sorrow; . . .33
In myth, as in Ovid's story of Arachne, humans are
punished by the gods for their transgressions. In Kafka's
work, it is Gregor himself who is the unconscious punisher,
with the aid of societal, familial, and personal expecta
tions in regards to values, success, and standards of
perfection. The insect is a fantastic physical image of
his inner self, yet it is written about in such a manner
that we, too, are there and are part of him and his trans
formation. We understand with Gregor Samsa his psychic
pain and his metaphysical metamorphosis, yet we also feel
and believe physically in his change. We, too, suddenly
have this unwieldy body, this difficulty in adjusting our
odd little legs and our sorely troubled mind. He i£ the
192
bug, and yet he is Gregor too— or is he? In The Trial,
it is the physical setting and the people's actions which
shadowed forth in concrete imagery the dark and fearful
self-doubt, hate and fears of Mr. K. With Gregor, the
paranoia and the pain are individualized, internalized,
then externalized in the concrete image of the large, ugly,
and ungainly bug.
As mentioned before, Gregor's metamorphosis was
chosen for the concluding image in this chapter primarily
for its being inclusive of all the other elements dis
cussed in the preceding sections. The anger and wratch of
the wolf are exmplified by society and the father in
Kafka's work; the greed of the ass, by the avarice of
Gregor's former employers and later, as personified, by
the emotional greed of his parents; the cruelty and blood
lust of the bat are inverted onto himself as a masochistic
desire for self-torture and eventually death.
Kafka's Metamorphosis is a shockingly grotesque,
34
intellectual, and yet highly emotional tale. Gregor's
mental and physical states are but a metaphor for modern
man: his anxiety, frustration, and self-doubt. Gregor's
room and its gradual disintegration parallel the equally
tortuous stripping away of life. The kitchen is a last
refuge, a last attempt at maintaining life. Yet, the
society placed in that kitchen consists of all the value
193
judgments and expectations of the outer society it
mirrors. The women: the mother (both Samsa's and
Portnoy's, perhaps), Gregor's sister Grete, and the house
maid— all want something different from him; but they do
not relate to Gregor as a person, for they (as he) have
never really considered him one. The men: the father
and the lodgers are Kafka's personal symbols; but they
are also a symbol for all he considered paternalistic in
modern life— Big Business, the Church, the State. His
life is laid down by this society, like a plate of crumbs
on a table; a table at which "they" sit and tower above
him in repulsion, scorn, and judgment. It is a beetle's
eye-view of life, but that is_ Gregor's viewpoint. And
the kitchen is where he too gets sustenance— but also
where he will be exterminated. One might be warm there,
strangely drawn not only to some small light at night, but
also to the sound of music— even moved by it to excess
like an animal, just as Gregor often thinks he reacts.
Yes, he iss transformed. But the metamorphosis is
not complete until he no longer cares, until he no longer
has anything to sell. There is no charm left, no per
sonal wares, no person; only, a repulsive, crawling self
denigration and tortured obsequiousness. There is no way
left to please, to amuse grotesquely, nor to fascinate
even by one's excrescent looks and manner. There is no
194
humility, only a shroudlike humbleness. Even the desper
ate need for any kind of attention is finally sated out
by the wound one asks for— and gets. It may be a rotten
apple, thrown and then lodged into a putridly cracked
shell, but it will serve to start a small suicide or two.
And so it does for Gregor. Now he can die. He is not
understood— they cannot understand "it"; and so he is
truly a creature, a bug, an object less than animal; even
as an "idea"— he is no longer "their" Gregor. "It"
should have respected the sensibilities and sensitivies
of "human beings." When it becomes "different," it should
have gone away on its own. Worse than animal, bug or
insect, it is a thing and has made them take the furious
responsibility of doing away with it. And so the rotten
apple, and the locked door and the silent room. Now the
transformation becomes complete and mutual. A negative
"social contract" has been made; "they" become their
brother's killer, for the good of the family (the major
ity?) . The sadist and the masochist are satisfied.
"And what now?" said Gregor to himself,
looking round in the darkness. Soon he made
the discovery that he was now unable to stir
a limb. This did not surprise him, rather it
seemed unnatural that he should ever actually
have been able to move on these feeble little
legs. Otherwise he felt relatively comfortable.
True, his whole body was aching, but it seemed
that the pain was gradually growing less and
would finally pass away. The rotting apple in
his back and the inflamed area around it, all
195
covered with soft dust, already hardly
troubled him. He thought of his family with
tenderness and love. The decision that he
must disappear was one that he held to even
more strongly than his sister, if that were
possible. In this state of vacant and peace
ful meditation he remained until the tower
clock struck three in the morning. The first
broadening of light in the world outside the
window entered his consciousness once more.
Then his head sank to the floor of its own
accord and from his nostrils came the last
faint flicker of his breath. (pp. 117, 119)
The metamorphosis here portrays not just the
spiritual death of a man (as in Chapter II) but also his
physical death. Gregor has accomplished a complete
regression, or self-crucifixion. As representative of
the last step in man's Exile, this metamorphosis, or
disintegration of consciousness plus the physical trans
formation of man to bug to rotting corpse ends the
temptations and tortures of his exiled state. It (the
bug) could be the last image in the metamorphic cycle
unless— "The first broadening of light in the world out
side . . . [will enter] his consciousness once more"
(p. 119).
Since man's Exile has been defined as a somewhat
arbitrary category, representing the ultimate homeostasis
implicit in man's Fall, its mythic qualities in that sense
might be said to collect the "what," the "where" and the
"when" of that state. The "how" and the "why" of the
mythic origins of man's Fall were illustrated in
Chapter II, Fall. This chapter (III) is the only one in
which man in each metamorphic example ends in an animal or
bestial condition. The attempt was to deal with symbols
of the results of man's fallen actions, and to illustrate
such sinful actions and/or qualities as anger, envy,
greed, hate, murder, lust, and pride through the trans
formative tales relating man's descent to (1) wolf,
(2) bear (rhino), (3) ass, (4) bat, and (5) insect. All
of these tales illustrate some aspect of an "exiled" state
such as loneliness, isolation, homelessness or wandering,
or man's inability to escape from his animal nature or
bestial form. The psychic conflicts inherent in, and
the tortured, guilty or fearful actions resulting from,
such metamorphoses serve to extend the symbolic meanings.
In Exile, all the realms of Nature have been
distinct, isolated, separate— human beings transformed
into their animal selves living in a wasteland. These
have been stories of Endings, not of Makings, or
Becomings.
The insect metamorphoses were used as the final
symbol of this chapter because of the infinitesimal world
and its problems which they suggest (in Arachne's story
it is her excessive pride and self-love which condemn
her; conversely, in Gregor, the huge and loathsome
vermin, the reverse occurs); and the masochistic death
197
of what was only a partially fulfilled human being would
seem to me to be the concluding transformation. Of all
the animals, the vermin seems the least loved and the
most useless; and of all the tales discussed, Gregor's
is the only one which has a crucifixion tone to it and
ends with the final corrupting death of the man-creature
involved.
In Chapter I, Creation, I mentioned that the end
could be a beginning; and, similarly, I would here like
the Exile transformation of all the beast-men, but in
particular that ignoble death of Samsa, to be considered
as a metamorphic concluding image, but at the same time
also as an image which suggests the restorative and
resurrective tone of the metamorphic tales of Chapter IV,
Eschatology. It seems fitting that Gregor's last frail
breath and rotting shell and loveless end should lead to
the final series of metamorphoses in this cycle, those
metamorphic images which deal with a different kind of
Creation, those imaginative tales which deal with things
considered as "final," yet carry the seed of a new begin
ning, a new Creation.
-
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. M v ! . . .,, > 7 '« > * ', • *• ! )
*i*1 riv:
i;' ' , ' ■ ■ • •»■?■•..;
CHAPTER IV
ESCHATOLOGY
And he . . . said, Behold, I make all things new.
And he said unto me, . . .
. . . I will give unto him that is athirst of
the fountain of the water of life freely.
He that overcometh shall inherit all things;
. . . and he shall be my son.
And there came unto me one of the seven angels
• • •
And he carried me away in the spirit to a great
and high mountain, . . .
And he saith unto me, . . .
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,
the first and the last.
. . . and the bright and morning star.
New Testament, Revelation, 21.5.6.7.8.10;
22.10.13.16
The metamorphic myths and tales which relate
eschatological concepts are equally as important and
literarily archetypal as those which concern the Creation
stories of Chapter I. Since Eschatology is the doctrine
which man has formulated concerning the "last" or final
things, it is fitting that this concluding discussion of
metamorphic images relate some of those stories and tales
by which man has attempted to resolve his doubts, hopes
199
200
or fears concerning death, judgment and the future state
of the soul.
Indeed, the great literatures have all discussed
in one way or another man's attempt through the ages to
deal with death, punishment or reward in or after life
and, finally, the problem of eternity or immortality it
self. Much of this literature is theologically oriented
and attempts to deal with man's deepest psychological
and spiritual fears or concerns which revolve about the
subject of age, death and all that is therein implicit.
To help man deal with such fears and concerns, arche
typal myths expressed through metamorphic images and
embodying eschatological meanings are often utilized.
For a discussion of these metamorphic images
this chapter has been divided into five sections, each
an example of some facet dealt with in eschatological
literature, and illustrated through matching (or similar)
pairs of dual metamorphoses. The destiny of humanity and
its potential for actual human metamorphoses often are
part of these myths or stories. In a way, one might
suggest that the very concept of "metamorphosis" itself
is eschatologically structural. It implies man's need
for explanations or hopes regarding his future— or the
future of his planet, galaxy or cosmos. It was in this
sense that the beginning quotation from Revelation was
201
used, for it embodies symbolically and poetically the
particular eschatological myths to be illustrated in this
final chapter through metamorphic images; indeed, even
the section titles were chosen to embody concepts of a
transformative kind.
The chapter is thus divided into;
1. Restoration; These myths and stories relate man's
re-transformation from beast to man, through the
virtue of love. This metamorphosis represents
a first step in the optimistic eschatological
myth which these transformations imply.
2. Resurgence; Two metamorphic tales illustrate
a renewal in man of his hope of transcending
his material self. Resurgence is symbolized
by two man-to-bird transformations represent
ing not only man's attempt to go beyond his earthly
boundaries, but also the beginning of a renewal
of his spiritual desires, and a wish for some
thing beyond a mortal span.
3. Redemption; These transformations symbolically
embody man's salvation and baptism through the
recreative and life-giving powers of water.
They are also illustrative of the cleansing
power of love, and the re-metamorphosis of
man's nature and soul from its bestial aspect
202
to its humanity and wholeness as a human being
cleansed of original sin.
4. Resurrection; These transformative tales il
lustrate through myth and story man's desire
for a reunion with Nature, the Cosmos, or his
Creator. To accomplish this, the metamorphic
images suggest the agonizing dissolution of
man's corporeal self until only his will and
intelligence stand between himself and his God
head as a totally spiritual being.
5. Trans figuration: A series of Ovidian, science-
fiction, and poetically prose-like metamorphic
images suggest man's final release and hold on
that which was material, intellectual or sensual.
Through the purification of fire, spiritual
desire and cosmic grace, man is transformed
first into a comet, then a star, and, finally,
a "being," soul, or shining energystic force—
a part of the cosmos that was, is, and will be.
As quoted at the chapter head, he is now meta
morphosed into:
. . . [the] Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the end, the first and
the last.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • a *
. . . and the bright and morning star.
203
It is in these sections, then, that an attempt
has been made to organize through metamorphic images
some of man's thinking and myth-making regarding
Eschatology. Mircea Eliade, for example, points out that
Christianity was not putting forth a new myth, but,
rather, was employing the categories of mythical thought
in a new way.'*' Salvation through Restoration, Resurgence,
Redemption, and Transfiguration is generally associated
with New Testament theology; that is, this eschatological
pattern often evokes in modern man a memory or subconscious
reaction to an eschatological drama such as that of Jesus
Christ: a pattern of life, death and resurrection. How
ever, this imitation of a trans-human model which is a
repetition of an exemplary scenario and also a breakaway
from profane time through a moment that opens out into
trans-historical time, is also an essential mark of
"mythical behavior."
Through the use of archetypal myths that embody
eschatological meanings expressed by metamorphic images,
this chapter will attempt to show how particular authors
have related man's regeneration, resurrection, and
transfiguration from a daemonic possession of himself to
a glimpse, again, of his Godhead.
204
Man Ascends through Restoration
Ovid: "Achaemenides Tells His Story" (the story of Circe)
(Humphries, XIV.344-52; Miller, XIV.312.177-322.
319 (
Franz Kafka: "A Report to an Academy," pp. 173-84 in
The Penal Colony. Stories and Short Pieces, trans.
Willa and Edwin Muir (New York: Schocken Books,
Inc., 1948)
Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, Beauty and the Beast, trans.
P. H. Muir (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968)
The introductory metamorphosis of ape to man pro
vides a reverse parallel to the end of Chapter II. There,
man was transformed from his human state to that of a
foetal anthropoid. In the following metamorphic example
he is transformed from ape to man and physically, if not
spiritually, he becomes human once more.
Kafka's "Report to an Academy" is a brief but tell
ing story of an ape-to-man metamorphosis. It is an ex
ample of man's last agonizing step toward his human state
and, more importantly, of the reverse transformation from
ape to man. This metamorphosis may perhaps be considered
not a divine judgment but an ironic illustration of the
often erroneous judgments of a modern human society.
This view seems to be borne out by Kafka's own words
entered in a diary (1917):
205
If I closely examine what is my ultimate
aim, it turns out that I am not really
striving to be good, and to fulfill the
demands of a Supreme Judgment, but rather
very much to the contrary: I strive to know
the whole human and animal community, to recog
nize their predilections, desires, moral ideals,
to reduce these to simple rules and as quickly
as possible trim my behavior to these rules,
in order that I may find favor in the whole
world's eyes; and, indeed (this is the incon
sistency) , so much favor that in the end I
could openly act out the meanness within me
without alienating the universal love in which
I am held— the only sinner who won't be roasted.
To sum up, then, my sole concern is the human
tribunal, and this, moreover, I wish to deceive,
though without practicing any actual deception.2
The story itself concerns the education of the
ape and his transformation into a human being through a
system of the repression and destruction of his earlier
memories. This ape is a picture of the everyday man
(as Kafka saw him), who cannot fulfill his being in
freedom but whose first commitment is to adapt himself.
The ape in the story reports to an Academy recol
lections of his life prior to his transformation into a
human being. He cannot tell the Academy much, for he
has forgotten most of his past. He was captured in
Africa, and his first clear recollections are of the cage
in which he was confined on a boat to Europe. There he
suffered much abuse. The crew spit in his face, laughed
at him, prodded him with sticks, and burned him with
their pipes. He soon realized that the only way for him
to get out of his cage was to become like them a human
206
animal. He makes great efforts toward that goal and
relates these efforts which culminated finally in his
transformation as follows:
It was so easy to imitate these people.
I learned to spit in the very first days.
We used to spit in each other's faces; the
only difference was that I licked my face
clean afterwards and they did not. I could
soon smoke a pipe like an old hand; and if
I also pressed my thumb into the bowl of the
pipe, a roar of appreciation went up between-
decks; only it took me a very long time to
understand the difference between a full pipe
and an empty one.
My worst trouble came from the schnapps
bottle. The smell of it revolted me; . . .
What a triumph it was then . . . when
one evening before a large circle of spec
tators . . . just as no one was looking, I
took hold of a schnapps bottle that had been
carelessly left standing before my cage, un
corked it in the best style . . . set it to
my lips without hesitation, with no grimace,
like a professional drinker, with rolling
eyes and full throat, actually and truly
drank it empty; then threw the bottle away,
not this time in despair but as an artistic
performer;, forgot, indeed, to rub my belly;
but instead of that, because I could not help
it, because my senses were reeling, called a
brief and unmistakable "Hallo!" breaking into
human speech, and with this outburst broke
into the human community, and felt its echo:
"Listen, he's talking!" like a caress over
the whole of my sweat-drenched body.
I repeat: there was no attraction for me
in imitating human beings; I imitated them
because I needed a way out, and for no other
reason. (pp. 181-82)
As compared to the ritual of eating performed by
the swine in Orwell's tale, we might consider the ape's
207
drinking of the wine a symbolic yet ironic act for the
Sacrament of Communion. By drinking with the crew, the
ape becomes a Christian and is joyously welcomed into
the assembled group— an ironic, satirical conversion.
The conversion is not really sincere as yet; for, under
standably, the ape only wants to be a human being so that
it will no longer be spit upon, burned, tortured, or kept
in a cage. It drinks in order to be accepted.
When discussing his previous torments, the ape-
now-become-man is careful to excuse his tormentors. His
teachers burned him, but he realizes that they acted
with the best of intentions. The scar that he bears was
from a wound involuntarily inflicted, and although he was
intolerably cramped in his cage, that was apparently the
way apes must be kept. Despite this outward show of recon
ciliation, memories do recur in his subconscious of that
cage in which he had to stay motionless, with raised
arms crushed against a wooden wall (perhaps a symbol for
Jesus on the Cross or, indeed, for the ape-man's own
crucifixion).
In order not to relapse into his former state,
the ape-man embarks on a strenuous program of training.
He engages teachers and puts them into five communicating
rooms. He leaps from one to the other, to take lessons
from all five teachers at once. These might suggest the
208
five senses of man. At the end of his lecture to the
Academy, he again congratulates himself on his trans
formation. We, too, might consider that his transforma
tion was worthwhile; he is at least out of his cage and
progresses toward a more complete transformation.
An example of a beast-to-man metamorphosis in
Ovid is the story of Circe, in which, first, we are told
how she turned the friends of Ulysses into swine (see
Chapter II). Eurylochus, the only one of the men who had
refused the magic potion, got word to Ulysses of what had
happened. The hero came forthwith to the aid of his
3
friends. He had a moly with him, a white flower with
a black root (white and black magic), apparently as a
counter-charm, to use only if necessary; thus he heeded
the warnings from the gods, and when Circe offered him
her potion, he drew his sword and frightened her.
Achaemenides, one of the friends of Ulysses, tells the
story this way:
. . . vows were made; she took him
Into her chamber, and for wedding gift,
Since that was what the bridegroom asked, she gave him
His friends restored. We were sprinkled with
some juices,
Better ones, from some herbs or other; she turned
Her wand around, and tapped our foreheads lightly,
Chanting her counter-charm, and as she chanted,
The bristles dropped, feet were no longer cloven,
We had our shoulders again, and arms came back
To their right places.
(Humphries, XIV.347)^
209
The men are all in tears, and so is Ulysses. They crowd
around him and the first words they speak are words of
thanks.
5
Beauty and the Beast is an example of a beast-to-
man metamorphosis which, in contrast to Kafka's "Report
to an Academy," is almost complete in both physical and
spiritual aspects. The Beast-man is totally transformed
into a human without the necessity of evolutionary
progressions. But when they first meet, Beauty is
repulsed by Beast. His soft-spoken manner, however, al
most conquers her dread. But when he asks her to marry
him, she trembles as she answers, "No." Beauty sees with
the eyes of the world, and this is also the point of the
story: until she sees with her heart, Beast will remain
Beast. When, in good Christian fashion, she finds his
kind heart and good nature more important than his ugly
appearance, only then does Beast become Prince, and Beauty
his bride. Love conquers all in this and another varia
tion, The Sleeping Beauty, where the roles are reversed.
g
(The theme has been utilized in literature quite often. )
In the end, as in all moralistic myths and legends, virtue
is rewarded and evil destroyed or punished.
Although magic transformed a prince into Beast,
we find that love can bring him back to his normal state,
as the following quotation shows:
210
"Am I not very wicked," she [Beauty] said
[to herself], "to act so unkindly to Beast, who
has studied so much to please me in everything?
Is it his fault that he is so ugly and has so
little sense? He is kind and good and that is
enough. Why did I refuse to marry him? I should
be happier with the monster than my sisters are
with their husbands. It is neither wit nor a
fine person in a husband that makes a woman happy;
but virtue, sweetness of temper, and good nature,
and Beast has all of these. I do not feel true
love for him, but I do feel the deepest gratitude,
esteem, and friendship, and I will not make him
miserable. Were I to be so ungrateful I should
never forgive myself." (p. 44)
. . . she found poor Beast stretched out, quite
senseless and, as she imagined, dead.
"No, dear Beast," said Beauty. "You must not
die; live to be my husband. From this moment I
give you my hand, and swear to be none but yours.
As soon as her lips touched his cheek, the
palace sparkled with light; fireworks and music
filled the air. But nothing else could claim her
attention but her dear Beast, for whom she trembled
with fear. How great was her surprise to find that
Beast had disappeared, and in his place she saw at
her feet one of the most handsome princes the eye
ever beheld, who returned her thanks for having
put an end to the charm under which he had so
long remained. . . . (pp. 46-47)
Thus, in addition to the element of magic, love is
utilized as a cause of the metamorphosis; and love is de
picted as a force capable of overcoming not only magic
but the power of evil. Love has no such power in the
myths of Ovid; the gods have the ultimate ability to
transform people or things according to their (the gods')
7
wishes. The belief m the power of love could be said
to have filled the void left when people no longer believed
211
in the mythic gods. This power of love saw to it that
true love was properly rewarded: within the body of the
ugly Beast, Beauty can see a good heart. This good heart,
not his appearance, is what she loves.
In many ways, Beauty and the Beast is simply a
modern version of the story which Achaemenides told about
his friends' transformation into swine and their re
transformation through the power and will of Ulysses.
There is the evil sorceress or fairy in both tales:
Circe in one, and an evil fairy in Beauty and the Beast.
There is a handsome but weak protagonist: the men of
Ulysses, and the Beast, as symbols for powerless but
handsome protagonists, before their transformations. The
settings, too, are similar in their enchantment: Circe's
garden and palace on her island, and Beast's glittering
palace amidst the green sylvan glades. On the other hand,
there are contrasts in the stories: whereas Beauty is
a symbol for love and the cause of Beast's transformation
to his princely state, Circe is her opposite. Circe
stands for the evil enchantress, as strong in her way as
Beauty through her love is in hers. Yet, they both
utilize magic potions; and Circe's wand finds its counter
part in the roses of Beast.
The transformation into the beast-like state in
the beginning might be equated with the archetypal descent
212
into the underworld which we find also in the stories of
Aeneas, Dante, and Faust. The re-transformation of the
men is symbolic, then, also of their return from the
underworld.
The restoration of the protagonist in either story
is symbolic also, not only of his physical re-transforma
tion to a human state, but also of his recapturing of his
soul. For, in primitive times and later— as in Beauty
and the Beast— the fear that goes with losing one's soul
to a sorcerer has been an important element in these
stories. The art of abducting the human soul has been a
theme throughout literature and was considered a high form
of the evil arts carried to their extreme. Only the Grand
Wizards or Great Enchantresses were able to perform this
function. Later on, in the pacts with the devil, which
were mentioned previously, we see this same situation
repeated.
The moly might be taken as a restorative symbol
utilized in the transformations related in both stories.
However, it is roses stolen from Beast which are the
cause of Beauty's voluntary imprisonment. And these
roses also are symbolic not only of her love but also of
his re-transformation.
The more modern story of the restoration of beast
to man has within it added archetypal elements which can
213
be more properly related to the Christian concept em
bodied in Eschatology. Beauty is rewarded by the good
fairy in her dream by being promised the restoration of
her father's life because she has given up her own life
to save his. That one gives up one's life for another,
or that one loses one's life in order to save it, is an
important element in the Christ story.
Another archetypal element occurs after Beast is
transformed back into the good and handsome prince. The
good fairy gives a stroke of her wand— much as Circe does—
and not only the prince, but all of the prince's servants—
like all the bewitched men of Ulysses— are transformed
back into their human state.
The two stories are paradigmatic in structure.
There is a character one might term the tempted, and there
is the temptor. Then there is the temptation, and
struggle, and, finally, victory of the tempted over
temptor, of good over evil, and of human over beast.
In this sense, the death of the bestial part of
the half-beast, half-man is symbolic of a sacrificial
death and brings to mind a whole category of animal sac
rifices in mythology and in legend. The animal sacrifice,
where it has lost its original meaning as an offered gift
and has taken on a higher religious significance, has an
inner relationship to the hero or the god. In this
214
context, the animal represents the god himself. The
sacrifice of the animal or the death of that nature in
man means, therefore, the sacrifice and death of the
animal or instinctual nature.
In later times, the symbols shift back and forth
but the story still retains its main thrust: the impulse
to sacrifice, which is necessary before a man can be
restored (re-born).
The essential element in the mythical and re
ligious sacrifice stories is not the concreteness of the
figures nor is it important what sort of an animal is
sacrificed or what sort of god it represents. What alone
is important is that an act of sacrifice takes place,
that a process of transformation is going on in the un
conscious, whose dynamism, whose contents and whose
subject are themselves unknown but become visible in
directly to the conscious mind by stimulating the imagina
tive material at its disposal.
The transformation of the Beast is a concrete
portrayal of his inner transformation. Inherent also
in the story might be elements of the earlier, annual
sacrifices of maidens to dragons and the stories which
concern such ideal sacrifices: "The Lady and the Knight,"
"The Lady, the Knight and the Dragon," the slayings of
dragons are all earlier forms of this same concept. So
215
it is in Beauty and the Beast. The sacrifice of Beauty
to Beast is a symbolical act wherein Beauty sacrificed
what she considered to be valued objects of her life, of
desire and possession. She redeemed Beast and thus sug
gests the moral of the story: it is through sacrifice
that man ransoms himself from the fear of death.
Beast's re-entry into life is symbolized by his
wedding with Beauty, a union that is archetypal in mean
ing. It is similar to the feast of Adonis— similar to
the fear of Venus and Adonis and of Christ and the Cross.
The prince and the princess put on their crowns and live
happily ever after. Even the crown symbol might be
equated with the Christ legend. In earlier times, the
devout wore crowns in honor of Prometheus, in order to
represent his bondage. In this connection, therefore, the
crown might have the same meaning as the betrothal ring;
the worshipers enter into a pact with God and, indeed,
in this story of regeneration, there is a commitment to
a new life and to God.
In Beauty and the Beast, then, we have gone past
the story of Circe to the Christian idea of sacrifice,
as symbolized by not only the death of the animal in man
but but also his death as a human being. This demands
a surrender of the whole man, a total renunciation of
animal instincts and a disciplining of specifically human
216
spiritual functions for the sake of the spiritual goal
beyond this world. And this goal requires hope.
The next series of metamorphoses suggest that man
must have the courage to face the unknown in himself. The
myths in which these metamorphoses play an integral role
utilize man as human, still afraid, and so positing a
literal paradise for himself. The new hopes kindled in
man through his attempts to transcend his material being
mark his first partial success at bridging the chasm
between his body and soul. As yet, however, the myths
discussed do not embody a total eschatological concept of
hope. Yet, since hope is another element present in the
eschatological and metamorphic images which have enabled
man to conceive of a myth of resurgence for himself, they
will be discussed further in the following section which
deals with man's initial attempts to transcend his
material self.
Man Ascends through Resurgence
Ovid: "The Story of Aesacus and Hesperia" (Humphries,
XI.282-84; Miller, XI.172.749-176.795); "The Story
of the Raven" (specifically the crow's story)
(Humphries, 11.45-48; Miller, 11.96.536-104.632)
Carlos Castaneda: The Teachings of don Juan. A Yaqui Way
of Knowledge (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968)
The cardinal virtue discussed in this section is
hope, the kind of hope that lifts man's spirits and gives
217
him wings. One of the prime symbols of hope is the bird
soaring the air— an image of release from earthly fears
and worries, ease of thought and movement, freedom and
transcendence of self. In the Bible, next to God in the
theological hierarchy are the angels, bird-like beings with
wings.
The feathered vertebrates, therefore, have been a
favorite poetical symbol. The eagle has stood for Jove;
the dove, for peace; the hawk, for war; and, to name but
one more example, the nightingale often represents the
soul, and is the spirit of song in Chinese mythology. In
literature and religion the soul of man is often portrayed
as being "on wings" in its upward flight to heaven.
The following metamorphic examples center on
the emotions of hope and love and man's attempt to
transcend himself.
The first story is only one of many Ovidian
g
examples of a man-into-bird transformation. It is the
story of Aesacus and his strange fate. One day Aesacus
saw Hesperia by a river as she dried her hair in the
sunlight. Unknown to Hesperia, Aesacus had followed her
often before, but this time she sees him and flees. As
Aesacus pursues her, tragedy strikes.
. . . he followed her
As swift in love as she in fear. A serpent,
Hidden, struck from the grass at the flashing ankles,
Left poison in her veins, poison that ended
218
Pursuit and life. And Aesacus, in anguish,
Embraced the lifeless body, crying and sobbing:
"0, I repent, repent! I did not know
That my pursuit meant death. It was not worth it
To win at such a cost! We have destroyed you,
We two, serpent and I: one gave the wound,
The other the cause. I am the guiltier,
But by my death I can bring you this much comfort,
One death to match another!" And as he spoke,
Aesacus flung himself from the tall cliff
Whose base the hoarse resounding waves had hollowed,
But Tethys, pitying him, received him gently,
Covered his body with plumage, and denied him
The privilege of death. He fought against it,
Angry at life, and with his new wings on him,
Soared up, came hurtling down, but the soft feathers
Lightened his fall. In a wild rage he dove
Deep into the water, tried to drown; his fury,
His love, had made him lean: between the joints
His legs grew long, and his long neck grew longer,
His head was far from his body, and to this day
He loves the sea, and his new name is Mergus,
Or The Submerger, the inveterate diver.
9
(Humphries, XI.283-84)
Because of the death of his love, Aesacus tries to
plunge himself down into the distant waters to his death.
But Tethys gives him wings with which to live, not die.
The man who once loved a woman is transformed into a bird
who now loves the sea. Aesacus wanted to die in the sea,
but now he draws his sustenance, his life, from the sea.
In this example, the transformation of man to bird is a
transformation from the wish for death to the desire for
life.
Aesacus, however, is transformed against his will.
Ovid provides another metamorphosis wherein the person,
a woman, desires the transformation into a bird— this
time, a crow.
219
The crow, a carnivorous bird, is often considered
as a symbol of death or disease. But in earlier times,
the crow was a symbol of hope and life. In one of his
many stories of humans transformed into crows, Ovid tells
of a princess whose "beauty was [her] ruin" (Humphries,
11.46)."^ The princess, turned crow, relates her story
to a raven:
. . . I ran; I wearied
In the soft sand; I called on gods and mortals
For help, and never a mortal came to help me.
A virgin goddess, pitying a virgin,
Brought help to me. I held my arms to heaven,
My arms began to darken with soft plumage;
I tried to pull the cloak from off my shoulders,
The cloak was plumage, and I could not move it.
I tried to beat my naked breasts, and found
I had neither breasts nor beating hands. I ran,
Not as I used to, through the holding sand,
But over it, just over it, and rising,
Air-borne, unsullied, given to Minerva.
(Humphries, II. 46-47)^
The princess is a virgin fleeing from animal
passions who finds safety in a winged escape. She
literally rises above the bestial impulses that drive
the male to want the female by force.
In modern times, the crow as a symbol is often
associated with the drug sub-cultuce. The bird has now
often become the symbol for a transmutative experience.
The religiously oriented experiences of the Yaqui tribe
of Mexico versus those of a drug oriented Hippie culture
are in totally different contexts. In Carlos Castaneda's
220
documentary novel, The Teachings of don Juan, this differ
ence is explored very deeply. Rather than the disserta-
tional exercise that some critics claim it to be, it is
considered by this writer to be an excellent recounting
of a transcendent drug experience. Castaneda goes through
this experience in the context of a highly religious set
of physical and mental practices, which must be followed
in a spirit of complete dedication to one's inner limits
of conscience. He considers the pursuit of this kind of
transcendent consciousness the most important experience
12
a man can dedicate himself to, and pursues it in terms
of the symbology of the crow. Castaneda must follow
exactly certain practices and teachings as they are
>
revealed to him by his guru (or brujo), don Juan.
I [don Juan] am a crow. I am teaching you
how to become a crow. When you learn that,
you will stay awake, and you will move
freely; otherwise you will always be glued
to the ground, wherever you fall. (p. 171)
To be a crow is to "move freely"; to be otherwise is to
"be glued to the ground." This knowledge is what Carlos
desires.
After a year of arduous mental and physical effort
to understand the Yaqui teachings of space and time,
Carlos reaches one of the pinnacles of the Yaqui way of
knowledge. Aided by don Juan, he becomes the modern male
counterpart of the Ovidian princess quoted above. Before
221
Carlos can fly like a crow, he must learn to see like a
crow. Carlos writes:
I had no difficulty whatsoever eliciting
the corresponding sensation to each one of his
[don Juan's] commands. I had the perception
of growing bird's legs, which were weak and
wobbly at first. I felt a tail coming out of
the back of my neck and wings out of my cheek
bones. The wings were folded deeply. I felt
them coming out by degrees. The process was
hard but not painful. Then I winked my head
down to the size of a crow. But the most
astonishing effect was accomplished with my
eyes. My bird's sight!
When don Juan directed me to grow a beak, I had
an annoying sensation of lack of air. Then some
thing bulged out and created a block in front of
me. But it was not until don Juan directed me to
see laterally that my eyes actually were capable
of having a full view to the side. I could wink
one eye at a time and shift the focusing from one
eye to the other. But the sight of the room and
all the things in it was not like an ordinary
sight. Yet it was impossible to tell in what
way it was different. (pp. 173-74)
Using such drugs as peyote, mescaline, and a par
ticular species of mushroom, Carlos is able to understand
something of don Juan's "states of non-ordinary reality."
Carlos's love of knowledge does lead to new perceptions,
especially a new way to see: as a crow with "a full view
to the side." Yet seeing as a bird is not the same as
being a bird, and Carlos remains a human who is afraid
of going beyond what he considers the limits of human
experience. Before he actually experiences the Yaqui
way of actually becoming a crow, Carlos terminates his
education with don Juan.
222
Carlos Castaneda does not become a bird, but the
Ovidian princess and Aesacus do. On a literal level, the
princess escapes the brutality of man by her metamorphosis.
Aesacus is transformed into a bird and thereby escapes the
death as he has willed on himself. And Carlos, even
though he is only partially successful in his transforma
tion into a bird, does break through some of the ordinary
human limits to glimpse what he terms "the state of non
ordinary reality" when he is able to see as a crow.
On a symbolic level, all three metamorphoses
function in a manner that indicates escape, release,
freedom. The bird metamorphoses, represent a transcendence
of the human state. The princess flies to Minerva in an
"unsullied" state; not only is she physically rising
above the god of the ocean, she is rising above ignoble
human passions and will now serve a goddess. Aesacus,
who in his anguish flung himself from a cliff, through
his transformation into a bird finds not death in the
sea but sustenance and life. The symbolism in Castaneda's
work, however, is more difficult to penetrate, precisely
because don Juan's system of knowledge makes sense only
"if examined in the light of its structural units" (p. 14)
and the drug experience is fundamental to an understand
ing of these units.
Whereas gods transform the Ovidian characters,
don Juan is no god, so Carlos must transform himself.
223
This he cannot do. Yet Carlos's ability to see as a crow
is symbolic— if not of a rising above the human experi
ence, of a widening of human perception.
The deeper significance of all three metamorphoses
may be found to lie in hope and in love. The two Ovidian
examples show gods or goddesses giving hope to particular
humans: both Aesacus and the princess are saved in a
moment of peril. In addition, Aesacus' grief was the
result of his love for a woman; and, in his transformed
state, he becomes a lover of the sea. The princess, in
her transformed state, becomes a devotee of Minerva.
Carlos, because he loves knowledge, hopes to gain the
understanding that don Juan has, part of which is don
Juan's utilization of the crow as a mental tool of free
movement versus the gravitational forces to which all
ordinary humans are subjected. Yet, in spite of Carlos's
love of knowledge and his great hope to benefit from don
Juan's teachings, he does not and cannot succeed.
Hope is not enough. In the Ovidian examples,
only the princess has hope before her transformation, and
her hope is born out of desperation. Aesacus, before his
transformation, had no hope, and is infused with it only
when in a completely different state of body and soul.
Hope and love are not enough as is shown in the example
of Carlos. The spirit of Aesacus and the princess soar
224
after the transformations, not before. Carlos's spirit
never soars, because he never has the will to complete
his psychic transformation. In spite of hope and love,
Carlos lacks strength and faith.
The metamorphoses in this section suggest that the
spirit can be given wings which may lift it to hope and
to love. In the following section, the addition of faith
will allow the imagination of man to combine hope and
faith through which he creates new eschatological myths:
those of man transcending himself in hope of a complete
transformation and resurrection.
Man Ascends through Redemption
Ovid: "Minerva Visits the Muses" (the story of Arethusa)
(Humphries, V.115-28; Miller, V.254.250-284.678)
Jean Giraudoux: Ondine in Four Plays, trans. Maurice
Valency, Vol. 1 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1958)
In this section the eschatological concepts of
salvation and spiritual rebirth will be represented
through parallel metamorphoses. These metamorphic images
imply the beginnings of a new life and hint at further
myths and metamorphoses which concern the total dissolu
tion of man's corporeal self. The myths represent each
stage of spiritual renewal: his Restoration from beast
to man through love, his attempt at Transcendence, and
his Resurgence through hope, until, finally, he comes
225
face to face with the idea of his eventual complete dis
solution.
The soul must be redeemed through hope and love
and, in addition, through faith. Throughout myth and
literature man often declares his faith in conjunction
with an act of faith, an immersion in water. In water
man is baptised; he is cleansed of his sins and thus
purified. "The fountain of the water of life" (New Testa
ment, Revelation, 21.6) is the water in which man is re
born. Colorless, transparent, tasteless, scentless water
is pure, is clean, is virginal. Yet one must have faith
before entering water because water is also a slayer:
it can drown, dissolve, and abolish; the waters of life
are also those of death.
In his myths, ancient man created a watery
hierarchy of beings not quite controllable, but posess-
able for a time, and not immortal as are the anthro
pomorphic gods of man. Among these are the water nymphs,
the Oceanides (the daughters of Oceanus— also the father
of Venus); the Oreads (mountains), and the Dryads and
Hamadryads (the trees). They are endowed with divine
gifts such as prophecy and occasional powers of trans
formation. They are charming, honest, beautiful, loving,
and totally devoted— when captured. We are concerned
here with Naiads, the nymphs of the lakes, rivers, and
226
fountains (twin sisters to the Oceanides). From Ovid to
Giraudoux, and Arethusa to Ondine, the Naiads are among
the most loving of nymphs.
In the story of Arethusa Ovid tells one of the
most famous water transformations. The beginning of the
story is similar to that of the Ovidian princess of our
previous section. Arethusa is swimming naked in a river
when she hears a murmur and flees from Alpheus, a hunter.
He pursues her and, like the princess in the story
referred to above, Arethusa tires. She implores Diana to
come to her help. The goddess transforms Arethusa, not
into a bird that could fly away, but into a stream.
Thereupon Alpheus transforms himself into a river and
joins her. The transformation caused by Diana is far
different, then, from that caused by Minerva.
Arethusa relates her flight from Alpheus in these
words:
. . . I ran, through fields through mountain
thickets,
Over the rocks and cliffs, through pathless places.
The sun was at my back; I saw before me,
Or my fear made me see, his lengthy shadow
Running ahead, and oh, but I was frightened
At the sound of his feet and the way his labored
breathing
Blew on the back of my hair. And I was tiring.
"Goddess," I cried, "Diana, come and help me,
Before I am taken, help your armor-bearer,
Carrier, often, of your bow and quiver!"
She was moved, and cast a hollow cloud about me,
So I was hidden in mist, and he, blind stalker,
Went searching, lost, around that cloak of darkness,
Twice he went round the place, and never knew it, 13
Calling "0 Arethusa, Arethusa!" (Humphries, V.126)
227
In spite of the hollow cloud which conceals Arethusa,
Alpheus remains nearby, awaiting her reappearance. As
he sees no footsteps leaving the area, he keeps watching
the cloud. Arethusa continues her story:
. . . Cold sweat
Poured over my limbs and the dark drops were raining
From all my body, and wherever I moved,
There seemed to be a pool, and even quicker
Than I can tell the story I was changed
To a stream of water. But even so, he knew me,
He laid aside his human shape, became
A river again, a water shape, to join me.
14
(Humphries, V.126-27)
Ovid joins lover and beloved together. Alpheus has the
ability to transform himself and, as we are told, "He
laid aside his human shape, became/ A river again. ..."
Together, Arethusa and Alpheus become part of the element
itself.^
Giraudoux, in Ondine, retains the basic myth but
adds substance and social satire. Ondine remains a being
who "belongs to the lake [and] is the lake" (p. 195). Her
suitor is Hans, a knight-errant, who errs with and is
soon to marry Ondine's rival, Bertha. The social commen
tary is presented in confrontations of the world of the
sea versus the world of chivalry, and the real world
versus the illusory. What should be illusory, Ondine, is
more genuine than Hans's "real" world. At her trial, for
example, she is sentenced to death. Although she is
"the most human being that ever lived," "she [is] human
228
by choice" (p. 243), but she has also "transgressed the
boundaries of nature" (p. 247). In spite of the fact
that "in so doing she brought with her nothing but kind
ness and love" (p. 247), her transgression necessitates
her paying the ultimate penalty.
It is this love which, ultimately, has condemned
her. As Neptune, the Old One, originally condemned her
to a human life complete with soul and memory, so her
human judges commit her to the opposite, and to figura
tive watery depths— a death within herself. Symbolically,
in a modern use of the ancient baptism image, Giraudoux
pictures Ondine as both murderess and murdered.
In the performance of the play, the metamorphosis
is depicted on stage. In the script, it is only implied.
ONDINE: . . . I have taken my precautions.
You used to laugh at me because I always made
the same movements in your house. You said I
counted my steps. It was true. It was because
I knew the day would come when I would have to
go back. I was training myself. And now, in
the depths of the Rhine or the ocean, without
knowing why, I shall go on forever making the
movements that I made when I lived with you.
When I plunge to the bottom, I shall be going
to the cellar— when I spring to the surface,
I shall be going to the attic. . . .
How did I get here? How strange! It's
solid. It's empty. It's the earth?
THE SECOND FISHERMAN appears.
SECOND FISHERMAN: It is the earth, Ondine.
It's no place for you.
229
SECOND FISHERMAN: Come little one, let
us leave it.
ONDINE: . . . Let us leave it. [She takes
a few steps, then stops before the body of Hans,
which is lying on the platform steps.] Wait.
Why is this handsome young man lying here? Who
is he?
SECOND FISHERMAN: His name is Hans.
ONDINE: What a beautiful name! But why
doesn't he move? Is there something wrong
with him?
SECOND FISHERMAN: He is dead.
FIRST FISHERMAN: Come, Ondine.
ONDINE: Oh, I like him so much! Can you bring
him back to life, Old One?
SECOND FISHERMAN: Impossible.
ONDINE: What a pity! How I should have
loved him!
Curtain
(pp. 253, 255)
With the memory of her human state completely
gone, Ondine does not even recognize the body of Hans.
Her redoubtable spirit remains, however, for she ex
claims: "How I should have loved him!" at the very end
of the play. More importantly, Ondine has implanted in
her mind habits from her human state which she carries
with her into the water.
On a literal level, there are more differences
than similarities between the stories of Arethusa and
Ondine. Arethusa, a woman, is transformed into a stream
230
while Ondine, a water-spirit, is transformed into a woman
(then back into a water-spirit). Similarly, Arethusa and
Alpheus are united in water while Ondine and Hans are
separated by his death and her return to the water. Even
the depiction of love is different, for Arethusa has no
love for Alpheus, and Hans falters in his love for Ondine.
On a literal level, therefore, the major similarity in
the two stories is the metamorphosis from woman to water.
Yet on a symbolic level, many more similarities
appear. Gods are the direct cause of the metamorphoses:
Diana transforms Arethusa; Neptune transforms Ondine.
In both instances, there was unfulfilled love. The love
of Alpheus was not returned by Arethusa; the pure love
of Ondine was impurely returned by Hans. In addition,
both Arethusa and Ondine have great hopes of attaining
their ends: Arethusa appeals to Diana, while Ondine
does not listen to Neptune but hopes Hans can return her
love.
The main similarity, however, is the presence of
faith. Diana exhibits faith in helping Arethusa, not to
escape Alpheus, but to join him. It may be assumed that
the goddess transformed Arethusa into a stream with a
foreknowledge that Alpheus would become "a river again."
Ondine exhibits faith in her love of Hans. Knowing that
she will be transformed back into her water-spirit nature
231
and lose all memory of her life with Hans, she implants
in her mind the movements that she made in his house.
When at the bottom of the ocean, she will make these
same movements, though she will not know why.
Both Arethusa and Ondine are reborn in water.
Arethusa is reborn in a state of union with Alpheus,
while Ondine is reborn with a vestige of her human soul,
her habitual movements. For Arethusa and Ondine, there
is new life in dissolution. They are returning as the
cardinal element that existed before the earth ("Darkness
was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the Waters." Genesis, 1.2).
The deeper significance of the return to and re
birth in water is the dissolution of the body in that
water. In Arethusa and Ondine, there is only the idea
of dissolution as a new state of man. Nevertheless,
these two women are reborn in the state of dissolution.
The salvation and rebirth of Arethusa and Ondine
are achieved through their metamorphoses from humans to
water. Both myths contain hope, love, and faith. Although
water can signify death, especially when thought of as
dissolving and abolishing all form, both Arethusa and
Ondine are given new life in water. They had to be im
mersed before they could emerge in new forms.
The myths discussed in this section carry the
implication of ultimate redemption; the myths discussed
232
in the section to follow are explicit in representing
it.
Man Ascends through Resurrection
Ovid: "The Pilgrimage of Aeneas Resumed" (the story of
the Sibyl) (Humphries, XIV.340-44; Miller, XIV.
304.75-312.176); "The Teachings of Pythagoras"
(Humphries, XV.367-79; Miller, XV.368.60-39 8.478)
Richard Matheson: The Shrinking Man (New York: Bantam
Books, Inc., 1969)
Amos Tutuola: "The Lady and the Skull," in The Palm-Wine
Drinkard (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1953)
Nikos Kazantzakis: "The Dissolution of Odysseus," in
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, trans. Kimon Friar
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 195 8)
The metamorphoses in this section symbolize man's
resurrection through a continued dissolution of his cor
poreal self into parts, until only mind and voice, spirit
and energy are left. This dematerialization occurs almost
simultaneously with his spiritual redemption. The meta
morphic examples in the last section of this chapter will
symbolize man's transfiguration through fire, from energy
and spirit to the image, first, of a star and, ultimately,
a star baby— the end, or new beginning, in the Metamorphic
Cycle.
In the preceding section (Redemption), we have
seen Ondine return to the sea, to her original formless
state. Though blessed by the loss of human desires and a
233
conscious memory, she still exists in a time and a space,
however different from those of man. In the last section
(Transfiguration), the two sets of parallel metamorphoses
given will show how Ovid and some modern writers have
conceived of a dissolution not only of man but also of
traditional concepts of time and space.
In the selections to follow, the Sibyl, the famous
prophetess, tells Aeneas (who is approaching his own
bodily dissolution) the story of the change she knows she
will undergo: from the beautiful form which Apollo loved,
to smaller and smaller particles, until all will be gone
but her spirit.
. . . I once was offered
Eternal life, if I had let Apollo
Take me, still virgin. While he still was hopeful,
Seeking to bend my will with gifts, he told me
Choose what you will, 0 maid, and you shall have it.
I pointed to a heap of sand and uttered
The foolish prayer that my years might be as many
As there were sand-grains in that mound. I should have
Asked that those years should be forever young,
But I forgot. He granted me the years,
And promised endless youth if he could have me,
But I refused Apollo, and no man
Has ever had me. Now my happier days
Are gone, and sick old age comes tottering on,
And this I must endure, for a long time.
I am seven hundred years of age; I have
Three hundred still to go, before I equal
The tally of those grains of sand. The time
Will come when I shall shrivel to almost nothing,
Weigh almost nothing, when no one, seeing me,
Would ever think a god had found me lovely.
Even Apollo, it may be, will see me
And not know who I am, or, if he knew me,
Would say he never loved me. To such change
I am borne onward, till no eye can see me,
234
And I am known by voice alone; my voice
The Fates will leave me.
(Humphries, XIV.342-43)16
In this myth we have the transformation from
visible to invisible, and a dissolution of matter into
17
spirit. The Sibyl's mind will linger on, but only her
voice and the power of prophecy will be left her to
remind the world of her former lovely presence. The im
plication of the myth is that life and death are natural,
and that to live beyond one's given time is not the
happiest of fates (cf. the Nina-Virginia transformation
in Chapter II, pp. 81-84).
An almost parallel and fascinating example of the
dissolution of a corporeal self, in this instance the
body of Scott Carey, is found in Matheson's science-
fiction novel, The Shrinking Man. It is a gripping and
sad story containing many of the elements of the Sibyl
myth: the inevitability of the dissolution, the frustra
tion with which the individual first confronts it, and
her (his) total disability to do anything about it.
Matheson's story, much like the Sibyl's, begins right in
the middle of the metamorphosis:
The last week.
• • •
. . . Could he still be considered a part
[of the world] when he was the size of a
bug. . .?
235
In six days he would be gone. (p. 6)
The man is dwindling in size, condemned to this agony by
some unfortunate chance meeting between some radiation
mist and a freak pollution of his system through an in
secticide. In the beginning he is hopeful that something
can be done or that, at least, he may be able to make
an adjustment. But, as time goes on, the process con
tinues inexorably. He has great difficulty of grasping
the reality and implications of his shrinking. As he
grows shorter and shorter, every part of him shrinks
proportionately. The story of his metamorphosis is told
through gradual flash-backs, each getting more frightening
as Carey diminishes in size. He keeps wondering how
long he can possibly go on shrinking. He is gradually
reduced to the size of a child, a midget, a doll, loses
his family, his sense of proportion, is forced to fight
with an arachnid-like spider (cf. the story of Arachne,
in Chapter III, pp. 182-84), fights for the dim little
life which is his own, and ends up very much like the
Sibyl. Some of the terror of the metamorphosis Carey goes
through can be inferred from the following selected
paragraphs:
Reality was relative. . . . In six days
reality would be blotted out for him— not by
death, but a hideously simple act of dis
appearance.
236
For what reality could there be at zero
inches? (p. 11)
. . . he thought about God creating heaven
and earth in seven days.
He was shrinking a seventh of an inch
a day. (p. 15)
Three-sevenths of an inch.
. . . He was sick of measuring himself.
There was [a] point, he decided, a point
below that at which a man either laughed or
broke. There was one more step down to the
level of absolute negation. He was there now.
He didn't care about anything. Beyond the
simple plane of bodily function, there was
nothing.
He had no will to live. It was simply
that he had no will to die.
. . . overnight he had shrunk another fraction
and was now only two-sevenths of an inch tall.
. . . he crouched, . . . no bigger than a
grain of salt. (pp. 91, 122)
Was it possible, . . that things had worked
out in a definite manner? Was it possible that
there was purpose to his survival? It was hard
to believe. . . .
. . . Yet how could he doubt the process
going on in his body, which told him clearly
that he had today and nothing more? Unless the
very precision with which he shrank indicated
something. But . . . what— beyond hopelessness?
. . . Hours away lay the end of his days. He
knew and still he was glad he was alive.
. . . To know the end was close and not
to mind. This he knew, was courage, the truest,
ultimate courage, . . .
. . . Before he had kept on living because
he had kept on hoping. . . .
237
But now, . . at a point without hope he
had found contentment. He knew he had tried
and there was nothing to be sorry for. And
this was complete victory, because it was a
victory over himself. (pp. 184, 186)
It is interesting to compare the two metamorphoses.
The Sibyl must wait out 700 years and longer, while
Carey's seven days must have seemed equally as long to
him. The cause of the Sibyl's metamorphosis was her
foolishness in asking for a long life without also asking
for the youth to enjoy that life. Carey's transformation
was due to a cause characteristic of the modern world:
a strange chemical reaction between an insecticide and a
radiation fallout.
The process of the metamorphosis in the two
instances is similar. Both the Sibyl and Carey go through
the agony not only of suffering a loss of substance, but
also of experiencing a change in perspective with respect
to their seeing the world differently and with respect to
the new way in which they themselves are now seen by the
world. The many and varied consequences to one's rela
tive place in the world because of a shrinkage in size
would be a fascinating subject to explore further.
In both stories the meaning of the transformation
to the concerned individual's erotic life is implied.
The Sibyl sees herself as she is, withered and aging,
no longer lovely, still virginal, while Carey has an
even more agonizing problem, for the tiny shrinking man
is left with the emotions and urges of his original self.
Matheson's story is a modern parable of the dangers
inherent in society as we now know it and also the
philosophical problems involved. Where the story of the
Sibyl becomes merely sad, Carey's almost final dissolution
to a similar grain of sand encapsulizes Matheson's view
of an inhuman universe, and yet also of the promise of
man's resurrection, no matter how small his size; for,
the soul is neither measured in inches nor weighed by the
gods.
Both the Sibyl and Carey are left with only a mind
and a voice dying off into the distance. They have both,
however, moved closer toward their resurrection— the
one, through a sense of resignation; the other, through a
sense of contentment.
The metamorphic examples of Sibyl and Carey, the
dissolution of their corporeal selves into spirit, are
illustrations of the fact that form can change. It is,
however, the process of the metamorphosis itself which
I consider archetypal.
As further mythic fictional examples will suggest,
if a body has been dissolved into its elements, this
original state is only form, not content. What happens
to brain and soul? Are they, too, metamorphosed, and
239
if so, how? In the following literary examples of a
man's metamorphosis first to brain and then to spirit,
Ovid and some modern authors turn their thoughts to these
questions.
Ovid's presentation of the Pythagorean concepts of
metamorphosis is one of the more beautiful and philo
sophical parts of the Metamorphoses. It is, moreover,
fascinating to compare Kazantzakis' ideas, and later
Clarke's, with the ideas of the first-century philosopher
Pythagoras; their dreams and visions, that is, concerning
man, space and time, energy and eternity. Clarke, for
example, a scientist-writer, was transposing, at a
different time, in a different language, and at a dif
ferent place, these same transcendent ideas regarding
the potential metamorphosis of man from matter to mind,
mind to energy, and energy to a state as yet unconnotated.
2
It is a state beyond E = me , a something which Clarke
refers to as the "stateless" state. The concept itself
18
exists only visually in his mind.
Pythagoras, through Ovid, gives this subtle in
timation:
Our bodies also change. What we have been,
What we now are, we shall not be tomorrow.
There was a time when we were only seed.
Only the hope of men, housed in the womb,
Where Nature shaped us, brought us forth,
exposed us
To the void air, and there in light we lay,
Feeble and infant, and were quadrupeds
240
Before too long, and after a little wobbled
And pulled ourselves upright, holding a chair,
The side of the crib, and strength grew into us,
And swiftness; youth and middle age went swiftly
Down the long hill toward age, and all our vigor
Came to decline, so Milon, the old wrestler,
Weeps when he sees his arms whose bulging muscles
Were once like Hercules', and Helen weeps
To see her wrinkles in the looking glass:
Could this old woman ever have been ravished,
Taken twice over? Time devours all things
With envious Age, together. The slow gnawing
Consumes all things, and very, very slowly.
Nothing remains the same: the great renewer,
Nature, makes form from form, and, oh, believe me
That nothing ever dies. What we call birth
Is the beginning of a difference,
No more than that, and death is only ceasing
Of what had been before. The parts may vary,
Shifting from here to there, hither and yon,
And back again, but the great sum is constant.
Nothing, I am convinced, can be the same
Forever. (Humphries, XV.372-73)19
It is one ancient mind that thought these thoughts,
and another that turned them into poetry. Forms do change,
yet eschatological concepts such as "hope," "faith,"
"life," "death," "time" seemingly do not, although they
are sensed to contain never-ending possibilities.
The two fictional counterparts to the above quoted
Pythagorean selection are "The Lady and the Skull" from
the Palm-Wine Drinkard, written by the young South
African novelist Amos Tutuola, and Kazantzakis1 treatment
of Odysseus' final dissolution into spirit before his
final transfiguration, in the monumental poetic prose
work, The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel. Tutuola's meta
morphosis is far more primitive than are the metamorphoses
241
in Ovid, Clarke, and Kazantzakis, but just as intriguing
and it serves as a transition to the beautiful and time
less concept of mind and spirit as expressed in the final
Kazantzakis quotation.
The Palm-Wine Drinkard is an enchantingly told
story of a man's dissolution from the component parts
of his physical being to only his skull. But unlike
Ovid's teachings of Pythagoras, which are uncharacter
istically intellectual, Tutuola's story is in the mythical
style. The characters in the following selection are the
complete gentleman and the lady from the market:
"RETURN THE PARTS OF BODY TO THE
OWNERS: OR HIRED PARTS OF THE
COMPLETE GENTLEMAN'S BODY TO BE
RETURNED"
As they were travelling along in this endless
forest then the complete gentleman in the market
that the lady was following, began to return the
hired parts of his body to the owners and he was
paying them the rentage money. When he reached
where he hired the left foot, he pulled it out,
he gave it to the owner and paid him, and they
kept going; when they reached the place where he
hired the right foot, he pulled it out and gave
it to the owner and paid for the rentage. Now
both feet had returned to the owners, so he began
to crawl along on the ground, by that time, that
lady wanted to go back to her town or her father,
but the terrible and curious creature or the
complete gentleman did not allow her to return
or go back to her town or her father again. . . .
When they went furthermore, then they reached
where he hired the belly, ribs, chest etc., then
he pulled them out and gave them to the owner and
paid for the rentage.
242
"A FULL-BODIED GENTLEMAN
REDUCED TO HEAD"
Now this complete gentleman was reduced to
head and when they reached where he hired the
skin and flesh which covered the head, he re
turned them, and paid to the owner, now the
complete gentleman in the market reduced to a
"SKULL" and this lady remained with only Skull:
When the lady saw that she remained with only
Skull, she began to say that her father had been
telling her to marry a man, but she did not
listen to or believe him.
When the lady saw that the gentleman became
a Skull, she began to faint, but the Skull told
her if she would die she would die and she would
follow him to his house. But by the time that
he was saying so, he was humming with a terrible
voice and also grew very wild and even if there
was a person two miles away he would not have to
listen before hearing him, so this lady began
to run away in that forest for her life, but the
Skull chased her and within a few yards, he
caught her, because he was very clever and smart
as he was only Skull. (pp. 19-22)
Now an uncomplete gentleman, he is yet more
compleat— he is "clever and smart"; only his brain is left;
there is no more body to weigh him down. We have prac
tically gone full circle, back to Dr. Frankenstein, who,
when creating his monster, began with the skull, it, of
course, representing the brain.
In these myths, man has still no exact knowledge
of how and why the human brain thinks and reacts as it
does. To s.ome of us the "inner universe" is by far more
exciting than all the great light and energy areas of
"outer space." And yet, the brain itself is numb—
243
a "skull." It knows only what the body experiences.
Scientists can tell us that the chemistry and electricity
in the brain combined together produce our behavior— but
they cannot tell us as yet how we learn, why we learn,
or what our idea of a "soul" is. They cannot tell us why
poets dream of an intragalaxial or vaster universe.
In The Odyssey; A Modern Sequel, in my opinion
one of the great works of all time, Kazantzakis discusses
this last, final dissolution not only of man's corporeal
self into its elements, but also of his mind into spirit,
which involves that last step of letting go. For only
the release of one's past, the letting go of one's
precious memory can assure the freedom of a trans-
historical time.
He gathered all his memories, held Time in his
hands
like a thick ball of musk and smelled it in the
wastes
with flaring nostrils till his mind was drenched
with scent.
Time melted in the lone man's fingers till his nails
dripped with aromas like the birds of inner Asia
flown from rich woods of nutmeg blooms and pepper
root.
He was drained pure till life turned to immaculate
myth,
and into tranquil princesses his fearful thoughts,
for in his mind dread God distilled like oil of roses.
And as Odysseus smelled the ripe and flaming fruit,
a sweet swoon seized him, all his entrails came
unstitched
and his veins opened with unutterable relief
and all his body's armored net which once he cast
to snare the world— nerves, bone, and flesh—
became disjoined.
244
The five tumultuous elements, that strove for years
to forge the famous form of the world-wandering man
shifted and parted now and slowly said farewell—
earth, water, fire, air, and the mind, keeper of
keys.
"... 0 brimming head,
in you the seeds of the whole world became one kin,
for trees, birds, beasts, and man's own gaudy
generations,
all rushed to sprout within you, not to plunge to
Hades,
but now that they've all sweetly met and merged like
brothers,
it's time, dear head, that you were smashed!
Fall down, and break!"
(Book 23, p. 720)
This beautiful passage from Kazantzakis' Odyssey
is concerned, as are the previous examples in this
section, with final things: with how one dies, physically,
and how one views that death philosophically. The slow
dissolution of the Sibyl and the transformation of Scott
Carey to a flickering, conscious grain of sand have led us
to the Pythagorean concept of shifting parts ("but the
great sum is constant") and the beginning of man's de
materialization; to the metamorphosis of the complete man
into a skull; and to Kazantzakis' poetic and stirring
rendering of Odysseus' dissolution: "nerves, bone and
flesh became disjoined. The five tumultuous elements,
that strove . . . to forge the famous form of [this] world-
wandering man shifted and parted . . . and . . . said
farewell." And still, though Odysseus tells himself it
is time that his head were smashed and break, his fertile
245
brain continues to be tempted by the images flickering
before it, and holds on to the end, no matter how drowsy
the myth grows. Though even the world has "folded its
vast wings and dropped its head . . . the great hybrid
mind [still] cast tongues of flame and light" (p. 774)
Before continuing on to the subject of Trans
figuration, I would like, again, to use a quotation from
Ovid, one that seems to me to serve beautifully as an end
ing to this section and equally well as a transition to
the next:
I tell you
Nothing is permanent in all the world.
All things are fluent; every image forms,
Wandering through change. Time is itself a river
In constant movement, and the hours flow by
Like water, wave on wave, pursued, pursuing,
Forever fugitive, forever new.
That which has been, is not; that which is not,
Begins to be; motion and moment always 20
In process of renewal. (Humphries, XV.371)
Remember this:
The heavens and all below them, earth and her
creatures,
All change, and we, part of creation, also
Must suffer change. We are not bodies only,
But winged spirits. (Humphries, XV.379)21
246
Man Ascends through Transfiguration
Ovid: "The Story of Hercules, Nessus, and Deianira"
(Humphries, IX.212-17; Miller, IX.8.101-22.281;
"The Deification of Caesar" (Humphries, XV.388-92;
Miller, XV.416.745-426.870)
Nikos Kazantzakis: "The Death of Odysseus," in The
Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, trans. Kimon Friar
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1958)
Arthur C. Clarke: "The Star Baby," in 2001: A Space
Odyssey (New York: The New American Library,
1968)
The metamorphic image in this section, from Ovid,
Kazantzakis, and Clarke, symbolize man's transfiguration
into spirit, star, and ultimately "star baby." Since
resurrection and transfiguration both involve dematerial
ization, the preceding section and the present section
might be considered together, as involving similar
eschatological concepts.
Theories of dissolution and dematerialization have
naturally changed with the advance of the physical
sciences. In Arthur C. Clarke's novel, 2001: A Space
Odyssey, some of these basic changes have been given
fictional expression. Along with Ovid and Kazantzakis,
Clarke ponders over man's final transitional step from
brain to energy, energy to force, fire or star, and
approaches these questions as a writer-astrophysicist.
In his fictional context, in 2001, Clarke utilizes
247
characters who express his own scientific thinking and
philosophy and who (fictionally) state that they do not
believe that truly advanced beings would in the future
possess organic bodies at all. They speculate that, as
scientific knowledge progresses, men would get rid of the
"fragile, disease-and-accident-prone homes that Nature
had given them . . . which doomed them to inevitable
death" (p. 173). They would replace their natural bodies,
when or even before they wore out, with metal or plastic
constructions, and thus achieve immortality. The brain,
outlasting the rest of the organic body, would direct the
mechanical limbs and observe the universe through elec
tronic senses, organs far superior to our natural ones.
Eventually even the brain might go.
. . . As the seat of consciousness, it was not
essential; the development of electronic intel
ligence had proved that. The conflict between
mind and machine might be resolved at last in
the eternal truce of complete symbiosis. . . .
But was even this the end? A few mystically
inclined biologists went still further. They
speculated, taking their cues from the beliefs of
many religions, that mind would eventually free
itself from matter. The robot body, like the
flesh-and-blood one, would be no more than a
stepping-stone to something which, long ago, men
had called "spirit."
And if there was anything beyond that, its
name could only be God.
. . . and so, as soon as their machines were
better than their bodies, it was time to move.
First their brains, and then their thoughts
248
alone, they transferred into shining new homes
of metal and of plastic.
In these, they roamed among the stars. They
no longer built spaceships. They were spaceships.
But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly
passed. In their ceaseless experimenting, they
had learned to store knowledge in the structure of
space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for
eternity in frozen lattices of light. They could
become creatures of radiation, free at last from
the tyranny of matter.
Into pure energy, therefore, they presently
transformed themselves; . . . (pp. 173-74)
This transformation of man into pure energy rep
resents an imaginative jump from the third to the fourth
dimension, from Pythagoras to Kazantzakis, and from
Kazantzakis to Clarke, who suggests that the brain can
convert its electrical impulses to energy, and that this
energy might then transform itself to light. In litera
ture, "light" often represents the soul, the spirit of
God. In the novel, 2001, light is represented as carrying
weight and being energy, and it is suggested that it might
very well eventually contain the knowledge of an indi
vidual mind "as an energy in space."
Clarke's use of the metamorphic conceit in 2001
is truly a fusion of fiction and fact, of imagination and
science. The helix-like strands of science and fiction
often interweave in modern thought, as they did not in
antiquity. Tracing such golden intellectual threads would
249
be a project in itself. The concepts of space, time, and
matter, as suggested by Ovid/Pythagoras, have been scien
tifically established by Einstein (the scientist-writer),
and yet are fictionally utilized by Clarke (as writer-
scientist). Clarke has stated that Einstein's concept
of relativity formed the basis of many of his short
stories, and that these, in turn, suggested the applica
tion of that theory to the idea of a Tel-Star (now a
reality) and intra-galaxial travel (still fiction). Fas
cinatingly enough, Ovid, almost two thousand years ago,
has envisaged all of this in his Pythagorean section:
space travel, the problems of matter in time, and the
probability of harnessing energy. But it is in his story
of Hercules that eschatological ideas are expressed
through metamorphic images with even greater force.
The mythical hero Hercules is the subject of an
almost endless number of legends. Here we are concerned
only with the hero's death and transfiguration, as
beautifully and symbolically represented in Ovid's work.
After having performed the twelve labors assigned
him and gone through countless adventures and temptations
of all sorts, Hercules wins the beautiful Deianira and
she becomes his bride. The evil centaur Nessus, por
trayed as a double-bodied monster, much like the double-
souled beast-man in an earlier section of this chapter,
250
has designs on Deianira, and despite Hercules' warnings
challenges him. Hercules slays Nessus with an arrow
whose barb had been dipped in the venom of a serpent.
Dying, Nessus vows revenge. He hands his robe, "dyed in
22
warm [poisonous] crimson" (Humphries, IX.213) to
Deianira, hoping it will make her love him. Time passes
in the story. While Hercules is off one day on one of
his exploits, Juno in her hatred for him sends Rumor to
Deianira with the story that Hercules burns in passion for
another woman. The young Deianira in her grief knows not
what to do. She finally decides to send the robe of
Nessus to Hercules hoping it will make him love her again.
She does not know what she is giving him. Hercules,
happy to receive a gift firom his bride, whom he loves
dearly, throws the robe over his shoulder, at the very
time he, as a priest of Jove, is offering incense on the
rising flames and pouring wine on the altar. He did not
know what horrors were awaiting him.
And the warmth brought out the virulence of
the garment,
Whose molten deadliness spread over his limbs,
And, while he could, his usual fortitude
Kept back his groans, but even his endurance
Could not hold out forever, and in his madness
He knocked the altars down, filled woody Oeta
With horrible cries, tried to tear off the robe,
And where he tore it, there it tore the skin,
Or, where it could not be torn, clung to the limbs,
Or burned to the naked muscles and great bones.
And the blood hissed, as white-hot metal does
Dipped in cold water, and the mixture boiled,
Poison and blood together, the hungry fever
251
Eating his very marrow, and the tendons,
Half-burnt, made cracking sounds, . . .
(Humphries, IX. 214)
This is almost the last agony of Hercules. He begs
Juno for pity and finally for the gift of death. He re
minds her of the labors and feats he performed; of having
held the weight of the world on his shoulds, one time, for
Atlas; and of never having tired of obeying her orders.
But now he can no longer stand the fire which is devouring
his lungs and feeding on all his members. He is racked
with pain and cannot help moaning and groaning, gnashing
his teeth, tearing at his garment, raging against the
mountains and trying to contain the agony within himself
until, finally, he realizes that his death is near and
that he himself must conquer the fire. He builds himself
a funeral pyre, and as the flames grow stronger, he feels
a deep calm within him, and "lay there, no more troubled
than a feaster/ At a great banquet, garland-crowned, among/
24
The brimming cups of wine" (Humphries, IX.216).
And the gods were troubled for earth's champion
As Jove, with joyful voice addressed them; "Gods,
This fear of yours is my delight; my heart
Rejoices that the people I rule and father
Is grateful, that your favor guards my son.
He has earned that favor by his deeds, but I
Am under obligation for that favor.
. . . Oeta's flames
Are nothing, and the conqueror will conquer
These also. Only . . .
His mortal part, will feel the fire; that part
Which comes from me, no flames will ever master,
252
It will live always, safe from death and burning,
And I shall take it to the shores of Heaven
When it is done with earth, and you, I trust,
Will, all of you, approve. ..."
The gods agreed . . .
And meanwhile anything that fire could conquer
Was conquered: there was nothing left, a form,
A shape, not to be recognized, of Hercules,
With nothing human about it, only spirit,
The proof of Jove, shining, the way a serpent
Shines with the old skin cast, when the new life
glistens.
So Hercules put off the mortal body,
Thriving, and in his better part becoming greater,
More worthy of veneration, and Jove raised him
Through hollow clouds to the bright stars, a rider
In the chariot drawn by the four heavenly horses.
(Humphries, IX.216-17)25
The story is beautifully told and one of Ovid's
best. Amazingly, it might be said to prefigure the
Christ story itself. The many archetypal images it
evokes are extremely moving. The ability of the mind to
go beyond the corporeal was one of the themes Ovid greatly
favored.2^
Philosophically speaking, the conflict in the final
metamorphosis of Odysseus, as related in Book 24 of
Kazantzakis' Odyssey not only reflects, it seems to me,
the modern spirit, and perhaps goes beyond it, but also
embodies the finest classical concept of transfiguration.
(The following paragraphs remind one also of the trans
figuration of Hercules as found in Ovid.)
The mighty athlete slowly fondled his sly spirit,
and his dark palms ate up its airy flesh with stealth;
253
its dark cheeks sank, its black sun-nourished eyes
dropped out,
its thick lips rotted, still unslaked, its ears
disjoined,
its cold skull glittered, bald and smooth in the
afterglow.
Slowly his glance caressed all things for the last
time;
the hour had come to fling his laughter in farewell,
and his throat rose and laughed, . . .
Erect by his mind-mast amid the clustered grapes,
the prodigal son now heard the song of all return
and his eyes cleansed and emptied, his full heart
grew light,
for Life and Death were songs, his mind the singing
bird.
He cast his eyes about him, slowly clenched his teeth,
then thrust his hands in pomegranates, figs, and
grapes
until the twelve gods round his dark loins were
refreshed.
All the great body of the world-roamer turned to mist,
and slowly his snow-ship, his memory, fruit, and
friends
drifted like fog far down the sea, vanished like dew.
Then flesh dissolved, glances congealed, the
heart's pulse stopped,
and the great mind leapt to the peak of its holy freedom,
fluttered with empty wings, then upright through the
air
soared high and freed itself from its last cage, its
freedom.
0 Sun, great Eastern Prince, your eyes have brimmed
with tears,
for all the world has darkened, all life swirls and
spins,
Then the earth vanished, the sea dimmed, all flesh
dissolved,
the body turned to fragile spirit and spirit to air,
till the air moved and sighed as in the hollow hush
was heard the ultimate and despairing cry of Earth,
the sun's lament, but with no throat or mouth or
voice;
254
"Mother, I don't want wine to drink or bread to eat—
today I've seen my loved one vanish like a dwindling
thought."
(pp. 775-76)
If we compare Ovid's Hercules and Kazantzakis'
Odysseus, we can see that, taken symbolically, they might
stand one for the other. As to style, it depends on the
reader's taste whether he prefers the more concrete
symbolization and passionate rendering of Ovid, or the
more mystical poesy and ironic symbolism of Kazantzakis.
The two examples will be discussed here at somewhat
greater length because they are deeply eschatological
and get at the very heart of the concept of transfigura
tion as a metamorphic image.
The five roads to salvation that Odysseus follows
in Kazantzakis' modern Odyssey parallel almost exactly
the five-pronged road of Hercules. In Kazantzakis, the
five roads to salvation are those of despair, beauty,
love, play, and truth; beyond these, there is only the
word, and beyond the word is only a wordless smile. A
similar interpretation can be given the Hercules story.
Both immortals are purified through fire symbols:
the one, by a funeral pyre; the other, through the sun.
The struggles of the two heroes symbolize the unceasing
struggle that every living creature has to face. The
courage of both "mighty athletes" is awe-inspiring.
255
Interesting, also, is the image evoked in both
stories, that of a hero casting off his skin, snake-like
(renovation by death; see Chapter I, section on the
serpent) .
Symbolically, both tales may be interpreted as
representing rites of sacrifice, transfiguration, and im
mortalization of sacred kings. A part of such early
rites was often mutilation either through fire or through
floggings. Hercules had his mutilation through fire,
and in an earlier part of the Odysseus story, Calypso,
who had promised to immortalize Odysseus, first orders
him stripped of his clothes and flogged until he is bleed
ing and in agony. This is a further element in the two
stories suggestive of the legend of Christ.
The trials of the modern Odysseus, as told by
Kazantzakis, closely parallel the twelve labors of
Hercules but depart radically from Homer's great work.
Metamorphoses occur all through the prose epic, as they
do in Hercules. Both tales deal with transformations
and the final transfiguration of a heroic character
through his adventurous and dangerous exploration of the
physical and spiritual world.
Kazantzakis, in Book 23, has Odysseus rise and
face the twelve Olympian gods, much as Hercules does,
except that Odysseus does it as an individual. When
256
confronting them, he blesses the five fundamental elements
of his body (those same elements into which he will be
dissolved before being transfigured into only love and
memory): earth, water, fire, air, and mind.
As Kazantzakis poetically represents the process,
Odysseus' mind begins to flicker like a flame on its wick,
the worm (the serpent) takes its first bite, and the five
elements within him snap and disjoin, as the sun prepares
to drown. The four winds smash open the four gates of
Odysseus' head, and everything that wishes to be remembered
rushes in: plants, animals, birds, and insects; the
thoughts, dreams, and creations of his imagination; and
men of every race and kind. All these rush in to live in
his memory, but Odysseus must give them up too. He
attempts, now, to transcend even his own mind. The uni
verse merges into a forked flame and his mind, trans
figured, soars like fire and burns away into nothingness.
Two final metamorphic examples conclude the
section: Ovid's deification of Caesar and the trans
figuration of David Bowman, the modern human, into what
Arthur C. Clarke terms "a star baby," in 2001: A Space
Odyssey. Ovid and Clarke share a fundamental faith in
the triumph of man's spirit over his material being and
both believe in a continuation of that spirit in some
other form, space, time, or context.
257
In the following brief discussion, the deification
of Caesar is viewed against a final quotation from the
Ovidian teachings of Pythagoras:
0 mortals,
Dumb in cold fear of death, why do you tremble
At Stygian rivers, shadows, empty names,
The lying stock of poets, and the terrors
Of a false world? I tell you that your bodies
Can never suffer evil, whether fire
Consumes them, or the waste of time. Our souls
Are deathless; always, when they leave our bodies,
They find new dwelling-places.
. . . All things are always changing,
But nothing dies. The spirit comes and goes,
Is housed wherever it wills, shifts residence
From beasts to men, from men to beasts, but always
It keeps on living. As the pliant wax
Is stamped with new designs, and is no longer
What once it was, but changes form, and still
Is pliant wax, so do I teach that spirit
Is evermore the same, though passing always
To ever-changing bodies.
(Humphries, XV. 370)^
In the story of Caesar, Venus fearfully and with
a heavy heart sees the murder plotted against Caesar, her
priest. She implores the gods to avert this crime. They
cannot. Jove tells her that Caesar has finished the time
allotted him on earth, but promises that he will enter
Heaven as a god.
The bloody crime has been perpetrated; the great
Caesar is dead. His transfiguration is told in this way:
. . . Venus, all unseen, came to the temple,
Raised from the body of Caesar the fleeting spirit,
Not to be lost in air, but borne aloft
To the bright stars of Heaven. As she bore it,
258
She felt it burn, released it from her bosom,
And saw it rise, beyond the moon, a comet
Rising, not falling, leaving the long fire
Behind its wake, and gleaming as a star.
2 8
(Humphries, XV.391)
Again we have dematerialization, purification through
fire, and the gleaming of a star.
And now the last example of a metamorphic trans
figuration: Clarke's story of a man of the twentieth
century, one David Bowman, who sets out on a long, lonely
journey and quest which results in a physical and yet at
the same time eschatological metamorphosis.
Toward the end of 2001, in a section entitled
"Star Baby," Clarke fictionalizes his personal concept
of transfiguration. David Bowman has traveled through
space and time in the spaceship of 2001, guided by a
new kind of star, computerized and, perhaps, for that
very reason, fallible. At the end of his long journey and
quest, Bowman feels alone and isolated— in a space and
time not his own. He is described as sleeping for a
last time, as floating in free space, while around him
stretches in all directions an infinite geometrical grid
of dark lines or threads, along which move tiny nodes of
light— some slowly, and some at dazzling speed.
. . . it seemed that Time itself was running
backward. . . .
The springs of memory were being tapped;
in controlled recollection, he was reliving
259
the past. . . . But nothing was being lost; all
that he had ever been, at every moment of his
life, was being transferred to safer keeping.
Even as one David Bowman [or Hercules, Odysseus,
Caesar or Christ] ceased to exist, another became
immortal. . . . (pp. 216-17)
Bowman has no longer any recollection of time, and
it flows more and more sluggishly, approaching a moment
of stasis.
The timeless instant passed; . . .
In an empty room, floating amid the fires
of a double star twenty thousand light-
years from Earth, a baby opened its eyes
and began to cry. . . . His indestructible
body was his mind's present image of itself.
So he would remain until he had decided on
a new form, or had passed beyond the neces
sities of matter. (p. 218)
. . . he . . . left behind the time scales
of his human origin; now, as he contemplated
that band of starless night, he knew his first
intimations of the Eternity that yawned before
him.
. . . like a high diver who had regained his nerve,
he launched himself across the light-years. The
galaxy burst forth from the mental frame in which
he had enclosed it; stars and nebulae poured past
him in an illusion of infinite speed. Phantom
suns exploded and fell behind as he slipped like
a shadow through their cores; the cold, dark
waste of cosmic dust which he had once feared
seemed no more than the beat of a raven's wing
across the face of the Sun.
The stars were thinning out; the glare of
the Milky Way was dimming into a pale ghost of
the glory he had known— and, when he was ready,
would know again.
He was back, precisely where he wished to be,
in the space that men called real. (p. 220)
260
As conceived of by Clarke, this "star baby" symbol
izes the spiritual essence of man and may be said to
represent a final step in this Metamorphic Cycle: the
star child David Bowman (man) is back in the only space
which might be termed reality— that of his (man's)
imagination.
261
EPILOGUE
In the four archetypally oriented chapters of the
dissertation, metamorphosis has been examined specifically
in approximately fifty-seven varied works of literature;
in addition, a great many other uses of the metamorphic
image have been mentioned secondarily in the text or in
footnotes. Authors from such diverse periods as the
first, nineteenth and twentieth centuries have utilized
the metamorphic image in their poetic myths, short stories,
novellas, novels, and ballet librettos. These authors
have utilized the metamorphic image because it seemingly
has functioned in their works as no other image could.
The metamorphic image evokes a primordial sense of recog
nition in the conscious memory of the reader, a recognition
of the kinds of sensed experiences represented in all
cultures by the archetypal myths recounting man's Creation,
Fall, Exile, and Salvation. It recurs in a great variety
of forms in literature, and dramatically expresses the
spiritual and emotional content of the larger archetypal
categories. Thus it can be said, finally, that the
metamorphic image is recognizable as an element of one's
literary experience as a whole. I feel it may be concluded
262
263
that metamorphosis is, indeed, a literary archetype worthy
of inclusion in the body of mythic criticism.
After these specific observations concerning the
validation of metamorphosis as a literary archetype, I
should like to make a few additional general observations
concerning the metamorphic symbol before concluding with
some possible extensions. Since logical construction in
a popular tale and also in archetypal stories is often a
matter of the linking of archetypes, I feel that one of
the most satisfactory archetypal metaphors for this kind
of construction is that of metamorphosis. Generally
speaking, it can be found as a mode of presentation in
one way or another, not only in myths, legends, folklore,
fantasies, but also in fiction, particularly in the
utopian, science-fiction, fantastic and absurd stories;
it can also be used most graphically for satirical pur
poses, and, further, functions extremely well not only
in the ballet libretto, as mentioned earlier, but also
in the puppet show, in pantomimes, particularly in the
early religious or Shamanistic dramas, an extension of
which can be seen in the ritualistic Christian mass of
today (see the missal concerning the Easter and Christmas
rituals). It is a basic step in the construction of any
form of cinema or television production and is widely
used now in psychodrama and by extension in the new
264
theater of the absurd, which utilizes the dreamlike
metamorphic techniques, some of which have been discussed
in this paper. Briefly to mention scientific or literary
fields which deal also with transformation or meta
morphosis , one might go into further study of the psycho
logical or anthropological literatures, certainly the
natural sciences such as geology and biology, the physical
sciences such as mathematics and physics, and the other
arts, some of which have been mentioned in this disser
tation, such as music, dance, film, literature.
Metamorphosis also works particularly well as a
vehicle of displacement, as a way of showing "tension,"
therefore resolving or heightening tension between two
states, forms, or characters. It can be used as a means
of integration, as in the stories of Jason and of Stone-
cliff. The youth and age of the same individual are
integrated through the metamorphic image, although the
two separate stages are presented as either end of the
metamorphic dynamic image. Conversely, it can occasionally
work very well as a method of showing internal disinte
gration, as in Dorian Gray, where the outer form of the
character may stay almost the same, yet the inner person
may be regressing, splitting, or disintegrating com
pletely. Therefore, metamorphosis can be considered a
means of showing more than one similarity or complementary
265
attributes in a character or tale. One example is the
Shakespearean use of the Ovidian Pythagorean stories,
which illustrate the seven stages of man, wherein the
youth is contained within the man. As we know, a human
being at fifty is externally different, and perhaps in
ternally somewhat changed, but has the same essence or
essential inner identity he had at the ages of twelve
or fifteen. The metamorphic symbol is a facile way of
demonstrating such similarities and/or differences.
Since the cyclical structure of the study was an attempt
at relating metamorphosis to larger archetypal patterns,
it might be generally said that first the world was form
less and metamorphosis was a way of dealing with the forms
which man found around him. These forms were then seen
in man and by man in himself and in Nature. He noticed
similarities, dissimilarities, and complementary objects
and varieties. The idea of metamorphosis probably
occurred to him at that time. He then developed it
through magic, religion, the sciences, and the arts, and
in different stages of the above-mentioned cultural ex
pressions available to him in his civilized state. In
this sense one might say that metamorphosis is a mental
construct dealing with relationships which concern man,
not "God." In Chapter I we saw him in a balanced universe;
in Chapter II, in conflict with himself; in Chapter III,
266
in bondage; and finally in Chapter IV, ascending toward
freedom.
The last symbol in the dissertation dealt with
man's transformation into a star. This imaginative
rendition by both Kazantzakis and Arthur C. Clarke was
probably taken from the geological metamorphic concept
that the heart of a star changes from hydrogen to helium
to carbon to what is called "red giant," then to the
"white dwarf," finally to the "black dwarf," and then it
dwindles away back into former cosmic energy. This in
itself is an example of the metamorphic image and even the
terms utilized in this cursory geologic example are in
themselves literarily fascinating. Therefore, meta
morphosis can be, when utilized by certain authors of
mythopoeic tendency, a way of establishing, demonstrating,
determining, or indicating relationships. Those relation
ships can be within an individual, between two indi
viduals, from one physical form to another, from one state
of consciousness to another, from one idea to another,
from one psychological state to another, and between one
realm of Nature and another; finally, it can be a way of
demonstrating, through the metamorphic image, value systems
which may be in total opposition. It has also been
treated, or can be considered or viewed, historically,
trans-historically, psychologically, religiously, or as
267
literary metaphor or allegory, that area with which this
paper attempted primarily to deal.
The metamorphic image may also function as a symbol
for man's wish fulfillment. It has so functioned par
ticularly in those stories which deal with legend, myth,
symbols, or numbers. Conversely, the metamorphic image
can illustrate also the tragic implications if all such
wishes, desires, or dreams were to be fulfilled. In this
sense, the metamorphic image is archetypal when properly
utilized by the imaginative artist. It can become il
lustrative of man's deepest fears or feelings or intu
itions about his dreams, his life, his death, and in a
way denied to discursive, deductive, or plain narrative
prose. An example of this might be the Pythagorean
rendition by Ovid of the concepts of reincarnation, trans
migration, or metempsychosis.
To reiterate more generally, we have seen also
that the metamorphic image explains the "beginnings,"
the Creation, the concept of creativity. It is helpful
in describing the "middles" of things— for example, man's
becoming, descending, and ascending. In this sense, also,
it describes as we saw in the chapter on eschatological
metamorphic images, the doctrine of ends or final things.
All of these images partially and archetypally illustrate
man's desire to escape the present, return to his past,
268
or transcend to the future. We have seen also that the
metamorphic image graphically explains the relations
between man, animals, and various other forms of Nature,
as seen most particularly in Levi-Strauss's works on
totemism. The metamorphic image also enables man to
relive experiences, to relearn, to progress beyond a
certain state of intelligence and to create or (make) the
new for himself. In this sense, metamorphosis or trans
ference helps man to explain the human condition to him
self (e.g., the fact that he is sexed, mortal, or in
conflict). It also enables him to hope or wish for a
finer continuance, or a discontinuance, of his life and
to view that wish fictionally without acting it out in
actuality. The metamorphic image is also a delightful
form to use for play, for fun, for relief, for phantasiz-
ing, ritualizing, or for securing emotional balance.
Since metamorphosis is often as much a process as an
image, it helps to balance tensions, and the process it
self is never static, and therefore Protean in concept.
The image, as we have seen in some of the Ovidian
and other stories, can also be used to point up a moral.
Not just anthropomorphism, but often images such as
those utilized in alchemy or in biology have been help
ful through the metamorphic conceit to help man resolve
his difficulties. Such images as the butterfly, the
269
the grasshopper or the tadpole are illustrative of that
concept.
It is an integrative way, then, to explain and
understand or reintegrate a natural concept of disinte
gration or reformation. One might say also that in the
use of the metamorphic image the human and the natural
realms, which are usually spatially or abstractly limited,
can be exceeded. Transitiveness from one state to the
other seems to be one of its presuppositions. Between
concrete corporeality and abstract spirituality, meta
morphosis is also associated with the world of emotion.
For most humans, life needs clarification. However, the
diversity of human life is greater than thought and
speech can master by themselves. Therefore, man seeks
a series of basic forms to find his way about in the maze
of life. Such basic forms present themselves in the fa
miliar world around him, above all in the natural or the
organic world. In this sense, the metamorphoses which
he sees around him help him to resolve his own conflicts
concerning life.
Metamorphosis serves to anthropomorphize man's
spiritual attitudes and might be considered as his
transition from the symbolic mythological to the properly
mythological, i.e., as the beginning or as the basis of
many of the spiritually religious concepts in human
270
beings. In fiction it seems easier for us, because usu
ally metamorphosis is often limited to simply a change
of form, but this too rises from a still quite original
and pre-literary fabling about the natural attempts of
man to come to an understanding of himself about the
embodiments of his life and the possible glorification
and transfiguration of his being. The connection with
metaphor and fable on one hand, and yet with mythology
and mysticism on the other hand, cannot be denied. Always,
however, even in the poetic or the didactic, the desire to
invent fables and the search for truth can be seen as
closely united in the metamorphic concept. Its substance
may be that it is a sign of the human spirit, a transcend
ing or composing above his natural intelligence. In this
sense, a metamorphic image can make the fatefulness and
ultimate validity of human decisions visible in higher
or lower ranks. It clarifies spiritual decisions in the
immanent sphere of natural processes by transposing them
to the higher or the lower, by raising them to stars or
lowering them to animals. The metamorphoses, then, might
be considered as transfigurations of the spirit in the
natural realm.'*'
I would now like to add some concluding thoughts on
the meaning, significance, and larger and more general
271
implications of metamorphosis and allow these thoughts to
venture out even beyond the confines of this cyclical
study.
Some critics might consider that metamorphosis
as a symbol or process is simply a vehicle of escape from
"the limits of the human condition." However, to withdraw
from reality is one thing; to seek to understand it from
a higher vantage point, quite another. When writers try
to transcend, transform, or unify the discordant elements
of experience through the symbol of metamorphosis I feel
they are trying to comprehend those elements, not escape
them. To "escape the limitations of the human condition"
is not necessarily to leave the condition, but rather to
view these limitations from a perspective which makes
them tolerable. Metamorphosis is a part of the human
condition and of the complexity of life itself and enables
man to discern without the aid of revelation some rational
and cosmic order in the complex phenomenal world in which
he lives.
The imperfect human condition often forces man into
a reworking of his scale of values and it is through the
metamorphic concept that such a reworking is often
achieved. Even man's bestial side can be expressed in
concrete form to him in this way. Man is not more bestial
than any beast but may take his place at different points
272
on the great scale of beings, which ranges from the most
highly complex living organism down to the simplest forms
of vegetable life. Stuart Atkins in discussing Goethe's
Faust has said:
Man has the power of metamorphosis— he is the
grasshopper which, although Mephistopheles
chose to ignore the fact, moved up the scale
of life when it ceased to be a wormlike larva.
. . . The grasshopper is a symbol of man's
perfectibility, of his power to aspire to
participation in the divine, and Mephistopheles,
by his own admission unable to destroy life or
matter, must content himself with denigrating
the value of what God has created and is seek
ing to degrade living forms— man particularly—
within the order of Creation.2
Atkins comments further:
The prospect of constant achievement of something
more and more like perfection which Faust . . .
suggests is, for the purely human plane of being,
a counterpart of the progression from lower to
higher forms of life that Homunculus was promised
. . . and it is therefore with the reintroduction
of the supreme symbol of man's innate power of
metamorphosis, of growth and development, that
the Blessed Voice takes custody [Faust's body],
. . . In Faust's vision of an afterlife, there
fore, his very imperfection, the fact he has
lived a full life, endows him with attributes
that beings who can hardly be said to have lived
at all must perforce acknowledge as highest
values. . . . 3
Thus, metamorphosis can stand also for man's
constant striving for perfectibility and for a way of
concretely embodying the problems, difficulties, and
glories of the striving.
Jean Piaget in his work on children also has made
reference to an intellectual process which I believe is
273
contained in the process of transformation. Piaget ob
serves :
Every time you teach a child something you
keep him from re-inventing it . . . however,
knowledge is not a copy of reality. To know
an object, to know an event, is not simply to
look at it, and make a mental copy, or image,
of it. To know an object is to act on it.
To know is to modify, to transform the object,
and to understand the process of this trans
formation, and as a consequence to understand
the way the object is constructed. An opera
tion is thus the essence of knowledge; it is
an interiorized action which modifies the
object of knowledge.4
The process of metamorphosis might be considered
just such an operation; that is, in the process of ob
jectifying through a metamorphic event one man's interior
feelings, beliefs, or emotions one is able better to
understand the process and complexity of one's own life.
In this sense, the metamorphic symbol can be both a
clearly objective tale, story, or process and an ob
scurely emotional figuring of those deepest and most
profound images in man's unconscious.
Intense preoccupation with the subject of my
dissertation has exposed metamorphosis as a most dynamic
concept, extremely rich in meanings, facets, and aspects
worthy of further exploration; so worthy, I feel, that
I would like to suggest certain specific areas for
further research. I have already started preliminary
research on certain of these areas myself, in pursuit of
274
new findings which might possibly be of value eventually
to the field of general literary criticism. The areas
suggested for further research include the morphology of
metamorphosis; metamorphosis as a "symbolic form" and
5 . 6
sign; and the metaphorical aspects of metamorphosis.
Metamorphosis, thus, can be considered in many
diverse realms of consciousness: as a literary arche
type; in the realms of magic and myth (e.g., Ovid); in
religion (e.g., Genesis, symbols of transubstantiation);
in science, where it usually takes the form of a symbolic
equation (e.g., in mathematics, physics), and, finally,
as suggested, as a symbolic form and as a sign endowed
with both real and metaphorical independence lavishly
expressing certain aspects of the life of the mind, and
of the active and passive aptitudes of the human spirit.
Now I have done my work. It will endure,
I trust, beyond Jove's anger, fire and sword,
Beyond Time's hunger. The day will come, I know,
So let it come, that day which has no power
Save over my body, to end my span of life
Whatever it may be. Still, part of me,
The better part, immortal, will be borne
Above the stars; . . .
. . . and through all centuries,
If prophecies of bards are ever truthful,
I shall be living, always.
7
Ovid, Metamorphoses
FOOTNOTES
275
276
PROLOGUE
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), Metamorphoses, trans.
Rolfe Humphries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1955), 1.3. The original reads as follows:
In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas
corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas)
adspirate meis primaque ab origine mundi
ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen!
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), Metamorphoses,
with an English translation by Frank Justus
Miller, 2 vols. (The Loeb Classical Library;
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966),
I.2.1-5.
2
William Flint Thrall and Addison Hibbard, A Hand
book to Literature, ed. C. Hugh Holman, rev. ed. (New
York: The Odyssey Press, 1960), p. 300.
3
Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 144. A few critics
do discuss metamorphosis at some length, but they do not
discuss it as a literary archetype. See, for example,
Clemens Heselhaus, "Metamorphose-Dichtungen und
Metamorphose-Anschauungen," Euphorion, 47 (1953), 121-26
and 141-46.
4
Funk and Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary, eds.
Albert H. Marckwardt, Frederic G. Cassidy, S. I. Hayakawa,
and James B. McMillan (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World,
Inc., 1963), p. 851.
^Ibid., p. 851.
g
Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms,
II: Mythical Thought, trans. Ralph Mannheim (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1955), pp. 46-47.
"^Thrall and Hibbard, pp. 31-32.
O
Frye, p. 144.
9
Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality (New York: Harper
and Row, 196 8) , p. 1.
"^Eliade, p. 5.
1;LIbid. , p. 192.
CHAPTER I
^The English translation used in this dissertation
is Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), Metamorphoses, trans.
Rolfe Humphries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1955). The edition provides titles for each myth. Refer
ence to book and page follows each quotation in paren
theses; e.g., "Humphries, 1.3^." The superscript leads
to the note which gives the original-language version from
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), Metamorphoses, with an English
translation by Frank Justus Miller, 2 vols. (The Loeb
Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1968). The myths therein are not entitled but run one
into the other; thus, for convenience, book, page, and
lines are given; e.g., "Miller, XIII.246.254-56." The
English translation by Humphries was used rather than
Miller's because the Humphries translation is more modern
and more beautiful.
2
Theodor H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom in
the Old Testament (New York: Harper and Row, 19 69),
pp. 8-22.
3
The original reads as follows:
Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae
deerat adhuc et quod dominari in cetera posset:
natus homo est, . . . (Miller, 1.6.76-8.78)
God Creates Man
4
It is perhaps more natural for the Old Testmanent
to write of the first man created from the earth, because
in Hebrew the word for "ground" (adamah) is very similar
to the word for "man" (adam).
5
For an excellent discussion of this and other
myths and legends in the Old Testament, see Gaster, espe
cially pp. 3-22. Also compare the two Genesis creations
of man with the legend of the Golem and the physical trans
formation of matter into man; and also matter into man
then transformed into a soulful or spiritual being, as
discussed in Gershom G. Sholem, On the Kabbalah and Its
Symbolism, in particular on pp. 158-208. This translation
is based on the original edition published by Rhein Ver-
lag, Zurich, under the title Zur Kabbala und ihrer
Symbolik (1960).
r
See footnote 3.
7
The original reads as follows:
. . . "si dare cuncta potestis,
sit coniunx, opto," . . .
. . . Pygmalion "similis mea" dixit "eburnae."
sensit, ut ipsa suis aderat Venus aurea festis,
vota quid ilia velint . . .
dum stupet et dubie gaudet fallique veretur,
rursus amans rursusque manu sua vota retractat.
corpus eratl saliunt temptatae pollice venae.
. . . oraque tandem
ore suo non falsa premit, dataque oscula virgo
sensit et erubuit timidumque ad lumina lumen
attollens pariter cum caelo vidit amantem.
coniugio, quod fecit, adest dea. . . .
(Miller, X.84.274-95)
Q
John Barth's Giles Goat-Boy and Vercors1 Sylva.
9
An important myth in terms of the Creation (or
Recreation) not just of man from matter but of the human
race is the myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha (Humphries, I.
12-16; Miller, 1.24.313-34.450) involving a metamorphosis
from stone to human being or to flesh. (Ovid uses the
symbology of the hardness of stone or of marble often
throughout the Metamorphoses, to emphasize something which
is inhuman, or a person's loss of humanity.) Deucalion,
a son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha were the only
survivors of the flood inflicted by Jove (Zeus) because
of man's wickedness. A goddess orders them through the
holy oracle to cover their heads and throw stones behind
them. In a trusting way they do so.
The stones . . .
Began to lose their hardness, to soften, slowly,
To take on form, to grow in size, a little,
Become less rough, to look like human beings,
Or anyway as much like human beings
As statues do, when the sculptor is only starting,
Images half blocked out. The earthy portion,
Damp with some moisture, turned to flesh, the solid
279
Was bone, the veins were as they always had been.
The stones the man had thrown turned into men,
The stones the woman threw turned into women.
. . . (Humphries, 1.15)
The original reads as follows:
saxa . . .
ponere duritiem coepere suumque rigorem
mollirique mora mollitaque ducere formam.
mox ubi creverunt naturaque mitior illis
contigit, ut quaedam, sic non manifesta videri
forma potest hominis, sed uti de marmore coeptis
non exacta satis rudibusque simillima signis,
quae tamen ex illis aliquo pars umida suco
et terrena fuit, versa est in corporis usum;
quod solidum est flectique nequit, mutatur in ossa,
quae modo vena fuit, sub eodem nomine mansit,
inque brevi spatio superorum numine saxa
missa viri manibus faciem traxere virorum
et de femineo reparata est femina iactu.
(Miller, 1.30.400-13)
Ovid then goes on to state that the Greek virtues— Tem
perance, Justice, Fortitude and Prudence— are derived
from this simple metamorphosis of stone to man: the
toughness, the endurance, and the fortitude which man
possesses show what he comes from.
"^Mention should perhaps be made of the Borgesian
tale of the origin of ideas. See, J. L. Borges and
Margarita Guerrero, El libro de los seres imaginarios
(Buenos Aires: Editorial Kier, S.A., l9(>7) . Borg€s
(basing the tale on one by Condillac) relates the story
of a marble statue made in the likeness of the human body
and inhabited by a soul, or mind, that had never conceived
a thought. In a rather complex manner the creator of the
statue endows it with the senses of smell, hearing, taste,
sight and touch, and we are shown how consciousness,
attention, memory, judgment, imagination, and the ability
to form abstract notions develop.
"A Tree That Is Pleasant to the Sight"
■^The myrrh, the sunflower, the red berry, the
lily (and the green tree) are still utilized in the
celebration of the Christian festivals of Christmas and
Resurrection. The rose in Dante's The Divine Comedy
symbolizes his love for Beatrice and also his final reunion
280
with God in Paradise. For Goethe, in Faust, the rose
symbolizes Faust's relationship with Marguerite, and also
his soul's final ascent to heaven and to God. The cults
of the "Blue Flower" (German: die blaue Blume der
Romantik) and of the "Red Rose" (the latter cult exem
plified- today in the current practice of the Rosicrucian
religion) are further pertinent examples. The blue flower
is "a symbol for romantic longing; especially, for romantic
poetry, first used by Novalis in his novel Heinrich von
Ofterdingen (1799)." Shipley's Dictionary of World
Literature, p. 41.
12
Among the many Ovidian plant transformations,
in addition to those discussed in this dissertation, are
a girl metamorphosed into a sunflower, another into a
bush, and a third into myrrh.
13
The original reads as follows:
quod quoniam fatali lege tenemur,
semper eris mecum memorique haerebis in ore.
te lyra pulsa manu, te carmina nostra sonabunt,
flosque novus scripto gemitus imitabere nostros.
• • •
talia dum vero memorantur Apollinis ore,
ecce cruor, Tyrioque nitentior ostro
flos oritur formamque capit, quam lilia, si non
purpureus color his, argenteus esset in illis.
(Miller, X.78.203-13)
14
One such example is found in Ovid's tale of the
suicide of Ajax after he loses both verbal battle and his
arms to the more eloquent and, therefore, more respected
Ulysses. Ajax is "conquered by his [own] sorrow," to the
extent that he drives the sword into his own breast.
. . . the blood of Ajax
Flooded it [the sword] loose: from the green ground
now crimson,
A crimson flower grew, like that which blossomed
From Hyacinthus' wound. . . . (Humphries, XIII.318)
The original reads as follows:
expulit ipse cruor, rubefactaque sanguine tellus
purpureum viridi genuit de caespite florem,
qui prius Oebalio fuerat de vulnere natus;
. . . (Miller, XIII.256.394-96)
Again, the transformation is from matter to a crimson
flower, a flower which exists centuries later but still
wears the marks of Grecian grief in its corolla.
281
15
The genre of the ballet libretto is being dis
cussed, not only because it is a heretofore neglected
genre, but also because most of the ballet's physical
imagery in its early days (choreographically speaking)
belongs to the plant world. For example, the ballerina
dresses in the traditional "tutu" (an attempt to represent
the flower through costume and makeup). She dances "en
pointe" (an attempt to make her both stem-like and un
earthly) . And she is often instructed in corresponding
terminology (depending on the piece) to:
waft, wave, bend, bow or dip
like a flower
swirl, fold, enfold or close
up like petals
dance en pointe and move stem
like; to extend (both upper
and lower extensions) like
a lily, and then plant her
self in position (be it
second, or fourth or fifth—
and so on)
16
The only art form which can recreate metamorphic
images even better is the cinema.
17
Personal interviews with Adolph Bolm, 1938-40,
Hollywood, California. The rose-man-spirit's costume
was made of exact, fine-silken duplicates of rose petals
in rose, rose lavender, dark reds, and soft, soft pinks—
re-sewn individually on his torso-tight elastic each night
and painted on the legs and arms and ears and feet.
"The Tree of Knowledge"
18
Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, ab
ridged ed., 1 vol. (New York: The Macmillan Company,
1963).
19
The original reads as follows:
neve operis famam posset delere vetustas,
instituit sacros celebri certamine ludos,
Pythia perdomitae serpentis nomine dictors.
hie iuvenum quicumque manu pedibusve rotave
vicerat, aesculeae capiebat frondis honorem.
nondum laurus erat, longoque decentia crine
tempora cingebat de qualibet arbore Phoebus.
(Miller, X.32.445-34.451)
(for her body)
(for her arms)
(for her legs)
282
20
The original reads as follows:
sic deus et virgo est hie spe celer, ilia timore.
qui tamen insequitur pennis adiutus Amoris,
ocior est requiemque negat tergoque fugacis
inminet et crinem sparsum cervicibus adflat.
viribus absumptis expalluit ilia citaeque
victa labore fugae spectans Peneidas undas
"fer, pater," inquit "opem! si flumina numen habetis,
qua nimium placui, mutando perde figuram!"
vix prece finita torpor gravis occupat artus,
molia cinguntur tenui praecordia libro,
in frondem crines, in raraos bracchia crescunt,
pes modo tam velox pigris radicibus haeret,
ora cacumen habet: remanet nitor unus in ilia.
Hanc quoque Phoebus amat positaque in stipite
dextra
sentit adhuc trepidare novo sub cortice pectus
conplexusque suis ramos ut membra lacertis
oscula dat ligno; refugit tamen oscula lignum,
cui deus "at, quoniam coniunx mea non potes esse,
arbor eris certe" dixit "mea! semper habebunt
te coma, te citharae, te nostrae, laure, pharetrae;
tu ducibus Latiis aderis, cum laeta Triumphum
vox canet et visent longas Capitolia pompas;
postibus Augustis eadem fidissima custos
ante fores stabis mediamque tuebere quercum,
utque meum intonsis caput est iuvenale capillis,
tu quoque perpetuos semper gere frondis honores!"
(Miller, 1.40.539-42.565)
21
The original reads as follows:
vota fides sequitur: templi tutela fuere,
donee vita data est; annis aevoque soluti
ante gradus sacros cum starent forte locique
narrarent casus, frondere Philemona Baucis,
Baucida conspexit senior frondere Philemon,
iamque super geminos crescente cacumine vultus
mutua, dum licuit, reddebant dicta "vale" que
"o coniunx" dixere simul, simul abdita texit
ora frutex: ostendi adhuc Thyneius illic
incola de gemino vicinos corpore truncos.
(Miller, VIII.454.711-456.720)
22
The original reads as follows:
medio nitet arbor in arvo,
fulva comas, fulvo ramis crepitantibus auro:
hinc tria forte mea veniens decerpta ferebam
aurea poma manu. . . . (Miller, X.110.647-650)
283
23
Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 144.
24
Frazer, p. 817. Carl Jung, Symbols of Trans
formation, Vol. 5 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jiang,
ed. Sir Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, Gerhard Adler,and
William McGuire (executive editor) (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1956) and Robert Graves, The Greek Myths
(New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1959).
"A Fowl of the Air"
^Frye, p. 144.
26
See also Jung, who, speaking of the phoenix as
symbol of the sun hero, describes it thus:
Calmly, with glowing locks and fiery crown
. . . forever unattainable to mortal man
[it] revolves around the earth causing night
to follow day and winter, summer, and death,
life, and . . . rises again in rejuvenated
splendor to give light to new generations.
(p. 109)
27
The original reads as follows:
una est, quae reparet seque ipsa reseminet, ales:
Assyrii phoenica vocant; non fruge neque herbis,
sed turis lacrimis et suco vivit amomi.
haec ubi quinque suae conplevit saecula vitae,
illicet in ramis tremulaeque cacumine palmae
unguibus et puro nidum sibi construit ore,
quo simul ac casias et nardi lenis aristas
quassaque cum fulva substravit cinnama murra,
se super inponit finitque in odoribus aevum.
inde ferunt, totidem qui vivere debeat annos,
corpore de patrio parvum phoenica renasci;. . .
(Miller, XV.392.392-402)
2 8
The Firebird ballet (music by Igor Stravinsky;
choreography by Michel Fokine) was first presented in
Paris on June 25, 1910. See George Balanchine, Balan
chine 's New Complete Stories of the Great Ballets, ed.
Francis Mason (New York: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1968),
pp. 161-66.
284
"A Beast of the Field"
29
The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Richard
Wilhelm. Rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes. One-
volume ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1950).
30
The original reads as follows:
quippe ubi temperiem sumpsere umorque calorque,
concipiunt, et ab his oriuntur cuncta duobus,
cumque sit ignis aquae pugnax, vapir umidus omnes
res creat, et discors concordia fetibus apta est.
ergo ubi diluvio tellus lutulenta recenti
solibus aetheriis almoque recanduit aestu,
edidit innumeras species; partimque figuras
rettulit antiquas, partim nova monstra creavit.
Ilia quidem nollet, sed to quoque, maxime Python,
turn genuit, populisque novis, incognita serpens,
terror eras: tantum spatii de monte tenebas.
(Miller, 1.32.430-440)
31
Examples: Ladon, guarding the golden apples in
the Greek garden of the Hesperides; the dragon, watching
over Apollo's gold in Scythia. A serpent also served as
a sentinel in the Temple of Athene at Athens. In Norse
and Siberian myths the serpent lies at the foot of the
world tree, and as an emblem the snake was frequently
depicted on ancient Mesopotamian boundary stones and on
memorial deeds. The serpent, or dragon, guarding the
pot of gold, is familiar, indeed, to every reader of
European folk tales. Gaster, p. 35.
32
A pestilence-ridden city sent its elders to
Delphi, where the oracle told them that Aesculapius
(or Asclepius), son of Apollo, legendary Greek physician,
in Homeric hymns the God of Medicine, would come to their
aid. In the dusk of the evening the god seemed, as if
in a dream, to stand before them. He addressed them thus:
Be not afraid; I shall come. . .
But see this serpent, as it twines around
The rod I carry: mark it well, and learn it,
For I shall be this serpent, only larger,
Like a celestial presence.
(Humphries, XV.385)
The original reads as follows:
pone metus! veniam . . .
hunc modo serpentem, baculum qui nexibus ambit,
285
perspice et usque nota visu, ut cognoscere possis!
vertar in hunc: sed maior ero tantusque videbor,
in quantum devent caelestia corpora verti."
(Miller, XV.410.658-62)
When Aesculapius does come down to the people, changed
into his serpent form, he is all crested with gold, and
speaks with a terrible hiss, but a hiss which signifies
deep devotion and tenderness. Ovid then tells how the
god "wound his way" through all the towns, looping and
coiling and gliding, and "the scales rasped like metal."
He even "wound upward" to board a ship going to Rome it
self, the capital of the world.
And [he] climbed the mast, and swung his head about
As if to seek his proper habitation.
Just at this point the river breaks and flows,
A double stream, around a mole of land
Men call The Island. Here the serpent-son,
Apollo's offspring, came to land, put on
His heavenly form again, and to the people
Brought health and end of mourning.
(Humphries, XV.388)
The original reads as follows:
erigitur serpens summoque acclinia malo
colla movet sedesque sibi circumspicit aptas.
scinditur in geminas partes circumfluus amnis
(Insula nomen habet) latumque a parte duorum
porrigit aequales media tellure lacertos:
hue se de Latia pinu Phoebeius anguis
contulit et finem specie caeleste resumpta
luctibus inposuit venitque salutifer urbi.
(Miller, XV.416.737-44)
In this story, then, of the metamorphosis of god into
snake and back into god, the snake is an anti-death
symbol.
33
"The White Swan," pp. 80-85 in Grimm's Fairy
Tales by the Brothers Grimm, trans. Mrs. E. V. Lucus,
Lucy Crane and Marian Edwardes (New York: Cronet and
Dunlap, Publishers, 19 46).
34
Among the many beautifully told metamorphoses in
Goethe's Faust is that of the dwarf Zoilo-Thersites, whom
Mephistopheles transforms into an adder, and of course
the snake is one of the many guises under which Mephis
topheles is discussed within that great work.
286
35
The original reads as follows:
quid, Agenore nate,
peremptum
serpentem spectas? et tu spectabere serpens.
(Miller, III.130.97-9 8)
36
The original reads as follows:
inde (fide maius) glaebae coepere moveri,
primaque de sulcis acies adparuit hastae,
tegmina mox capitum picto nutantia cono,
mox umeri pectusque onerataque bracchia telis
exsistunt, crescitque seges clipeata virorum:
sic, ubi tolluntur festis aulaea theatris,
surgere signa solent primumque ostendere vultus,
oetera pullatim, placidoque educta tenore
tota patent imoque pedes in margine ponunt.
(Miller, III.130.106-132.114)
37
The original reads as follows:
Cadmus ait "fuerate, turn cum Sidone profectus
vipereos sparsi per humum, nova semina, dentes?
quem si cura deum tarn certa vindicat ira,
ipse precor serpens in longam porrigar alvum."
dixit, et ut serpens in longam tenditur alvum
durataeque cuti squamas increscere sentit
nigraque caeruleis variari corpora guttis
in pectusque cadit pronus, commisaque in unum
paullatim tereti tenuantur acumine crura,
bracchia iam restant: quae restant bracchia tendit
et lacrimis per adhuc humana fluentibus ora
"accede, o coniunx, accede, miserrima" dixit,
"dumque aliquid superest de me, me tange
manumque
accipe, dum manus est, dum non totum occupat
anguis."
ille quidem vult plura loqui, sed lingua repente
in partes est fissa duas, nec verba volenti
sufficiunt, quotiensque aliquos parat edere questus,
sibilat: hanc illi vocem natura reliquit.
(Miller, IV.218.572-220.589)
3 8
The original reads as follows:
cur non
me quoque, caelestes, in eandem vertitis anguem?"
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
. . . at ilia
lubrica permulcet cristati colla draconis,
287
et subito duo sunt iunctoque volumine serpunt,
donee in adpositi nemoris subiere latebras,
nunc quodque nec fugiunt hominem nec vulnere
laedunt
quidque prius fuerint, placidi meminere dracones.
(Miller, IV.220.593-603)
O Q
Maude Bodkin, Archetypal Patterns m Poetry
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934), p. 232.
^Jung, Vol. V, p. 375.
^Ibid., p. 379.
CHAPTER II
'''Northrop Frye, The Return of Eden (Toronto,
Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1965), p. 27 (cit
ing Milton, The Christian Doctrine).
Man Becomes Sexed
2
Among the early transformation myths is a story
in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, where Atman is thought
of as originally bisexual or hermaphroditic:
He [Atman] was as big as a man and a woman
joined together; he divided himself into two,
and thus husband and wife were born. . . . He
joined himself to her, and thus men were born.
She thought: "How should he lie with me
after having produced me? I will hide myself."
She became a cow, he became a bull; they joined
and cattle were born. She became a mare, he a
stallion; she became a she-ass, he an ass; they
joined and hoofed animals were born. She became
a she-goat, he a goat; she became a ewe, he a
ram; they joined and goats and sheep were born.
Thus he created everything down to the ants, male
and female. . . .
Then he knew: "I am this creation, for I
produced it all from myself." Such was creation.
He who possesses this knowledge creates his own
being in that creation.
(Found in C. G. Jung, Collected
Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 5,
288
Symbols of Transformation, eds. Sir
Herbert Read, Michael Fordham,
Gerhard Adler, and William McGuire
(executive editor) (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1956),
p. 160)
3
The original reads as follows:
nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva
corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu
deque viro factus (mirabile) femina septem
egerat autumnos; octavo rursus eosdem
vidit, et "est vestrae si tanta potentia plagae"
dixit, "ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet,
nunc quoque vos veriam." perussis anguibus isdem
forma prior rediit, genetivaque venit imago.
(Miller, III.146.324-31)
4
It may be mentioned here that in Ovid's story
of Semele (Humphries, III.64-66; Miller, III.142.253-
146.315) preceding the story of Tiresias, we learn that
Juno found out that Jove has had an affair with Semele,
daughter of Cadmus. The result of this union was a child
(the famous and jovial god Bacchus).
5
The original reads as follows:
at pater omnipotens (neque enim licet inrita cuiquam
facta dei fecisse deo) pro lumine adempto
scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore.
(Miller, III.148.336-38)
g
As in Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan, Nikolai
M. Amosoff's Notes from the Future, and Gore Vidal's Myra
Breckinridge. The first book relating in popular scien
tific form an actual case of transsexualism was probably
Neils Hoyer's Man into Woman (1933). More recent studies
of this transformation are Dr. Harry Benjamin's The Trans
sexual Phenomenon (19 65) and Drs. Richard Green and John
Money (eds.), Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment (1969).
7
In A Room of One's Own (New York: Harcourt
Brace and Company, 1929), Virginia Woolf states in essay
form her feelings about an androgynous being. She carries
these feelings into the fictional form of Orlando.
One has a profound, if irrational, instinct
in favour of the theory that the union of man
and woman makes for the greatest satisfaction,
289
the most complete happiness. [And I wondered]
. . . whether there are two sexes in the mind
corresponding to the two sexes in the body,
and whether they also require to be united in
order to get complete satisfaction and happiness?
(p. 170)
g
Virginia Woolf also uses the man-into-woman
image in another manner. Orlando, as a male, represents
the sciences; as a woman, Orlando represents the human
ities.
9
Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (New York: George
Braciller, Inc., 1959), p. 53.
■^Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York:
W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1963).
'*''*'Kate Millet, Sexual Politics (New York: Double
day and Co., 19 70).
12
See Norman Mailer's rebuttal to Kate Millet's
work, entitled "A Prisoner of Sex," in Harper's Magazine,
March 1971.
Man Becomes Mortal
13
The original reads as follows:
his et mille aliis postquam sine nomine rebus
propositum instruxit mortali barbara maius, . . . .
(Miller, VII.360.275-362.276)
14
The original reads as follows:
. . . recludit
ense senis iugulum vetermque exire cruorem
passa replet sucis; quos postquam conbibit Aeson
aut ore acceptos aut vulnere, barba comaeque
canitie posita nigrum rapuere colorem,
pulsa fugit macies, abeunt pallorque situsque,
adiectoque cavae supplentur corpore rugae
membraque luxuriant: . . .
(Miller, VII.362.285-362.292)
290
15
The original reads as follows:
Aeson miratur et olim
ante quater denos hunc se reminiscitur annos.
(Miller, VII.362.292-93)
16
"One uses everything," he [Granville] said.
"And everything suffers a sea-change, a magicking." It
is interesting to note Nathan's use of Ariel's song:
Nothing of him but doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
Into something rich and strange. . . .
(p. 15)
17
Granville speaks of his marriage of thirty years:
. . . For the artist to remember is to
be in love again. It seems that to write,
I must be in love; at my age that would appear
to create something of a problem— would it not?
(p. 32)
18
See also Robert Nathan, Portrait of Jennie (1940),
The Enchanted Voyage (1936), and A Star in the Wind (1962).
Man Becomes Alienated
19
Formerly a white woman, Aglauros is now "dark
with her evil spirit." Other myths and stories also deal
directly with color transformations: Ovid's story of the
raven, metamorphosed from white to black because he lies
and is unable to hold his tongue (Humphries, 11.45-48;
Miller, 11.100.536-104.632); Ovid's story of Pyramus and
Thisbe, in which the color metamorphosis symbolizes sad
or tragic happenings (Humphries, IV.83-86; Miller, IV.182.
55-190.166); Thom Demijohn's Black Alice (New York:
Doubleday and Co., 1968), in which the color metamorphosis
is utilized not philosophically, as in Ovid, but socio
logically; and, finally, Oscar Wilde's beautiful, bitter
sweet story, "The Nightingale and the Rose" (in The Works
of Oscar Wilde, p. 521 f f . ) , . which may also be viewed as an
example of a color metamorphosis.
20
The original reads as follows:
at illi
surgere conanti partes, quascumque sedendo
flectitur, ignava nequeunt gravitate moveri:
ilia quidem pugnat, recto se attollere trunco,
291
sed genuum iunctura riget, frigusque per ungues
labitur, et pallent amisso sanguine venae;
utque malum late solet inmedicabile cancer
serpere et inlaesas vitiatis addere partes,
sic letalis hiems paullatim in pectora venit
vitalesque vias et respiramina clausit,
nec conata loqui est nec, si conata fuisset,
vocis habebat iter: saxum iam colla tenebat,
oraque duruerant, signumque exsangue sedebat;
nec lapis albus erat: sua mens infecerat illam.
(Miller, 11.116.819-118.832)
21
To mention but a few from Ovid: the stories of
the transformation of Battus to touch-stone (p. 50),
Echo's bones to stone (p. 71), Narcissus' living self to
a water image (p. 73), the Theban women changed to stone
(p. 99), the bones of Atlas changed to boulders (pp. 101-
102); examples of singular women changed to flintstone
(p. 113); the very famous story of Niobe changed to a
stone image (pp. 13 3-39); the transformation of Peleus to
a wolf, then to a marble wolf (p. 272); the stories of
Astyages, Eryx, Thescelus, Ampyx, Nileus, and others.
(The parenthetical references are to the Humphries trans
lation. )
22
A few pertinent examples from other genres are
the ballets The Stone Flower, Coppelia, Harlequin in
April, Ballade, The Nutcracker, La Boutique Fantasque,
Le Baiser de la Fee, Narkissos, Afternoon of a Faun, Check
mate; the stories Faithful John and Tom Thumb; and the
mirror images included in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonder
land.
23
As we have seen, many stories of transformation
are based on human transgressions (the sins of pride,
rebellion, or disobedience particularly); e.g., the trans
gression of looking back when one has been warned not to
do so. One of the most famous such tales is, of course,
the Biblical story of Lot's wife being turned to salt.
In similar other popular tales the miscreant often is
turned to stone, but the idea is basically the same.
Another of the more famous such stories is an Italian
legend, which prefigures the Ovidian story of Lycaon be
ing turned into a wolf (see beginning of Chapter III).
The Italian legend, however, is a story of Jesus Christ
and concerns a stone transformation: the city of Sassari,
once known as Baracis, was deluged for its wickedness.
Jesus Christ came to that city disguised as a pilgrim. He
292
came begging, but nobody would give him anything. He
finally meets a little old lady who invites him into her
home, gives him of her meagre stock of bread, which they
eat together. Christ thereupon turns the tiny amount of
bread into huge loaves; then he tells the woman to flee
with her son but never to turn back, no matter what noise
she might hear. The woman obeys him, noticing that the
gentle man whom she has broken bread with has now become
angry. She takes her son and starts to leave the city.
When she gets halfway to the next city, there is a terrible
storm and the waters are flooding the country. She is so
terrified by the sound of the storm and by the heart
rending cries which she hears emanating from her village
that she cannot resist turning back to see what is happen
ing. At once she is turned to stone and stays rooted to
the ground. (Theodor H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom
in the Old Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1969),
pp. 158-65)
One of the favorite stone symbols is the monolith.
Other stones or doll-like or painted images as symbols
of heathen behavior and loss of God are found throughout
Biblical literature. To understand why certain images
or symbols were abhorrent and taboo to primitive man, and
to this day carry an archetypal meaning because of these
primitive beliefs, we should cursorily examine early man's
conception of death, since all those images and symbols
referred to represent a negation of life. Death, to
early man, meant death not only of his body but also of
his soul; he therefore set up certain totems and taboos,
to protect himself from other human beings, animals, or
harmful processes of inanimate nature. The processes of
inanimate nature were originally thought to be directed
by living beings working unseen. In that way the savage
explained the phenomena of life itself. These super
stitions still persist today: if an animal lives and
moves, it can only be because there is a little animal
inside which moves it. If a man lives and moves, it is
only because he has a little man, or animal, inside who
moves him. The animal inside the animal, the man inside
the man, is the soul. Frazer, in The Golden Bough
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1963) , tells us about
these primitive beliefs:
[The human soul is conceived of] as a little
man, mostly invisible and of the bigness of a
thumb, who corresponds exactly in shape,
proportion, and even in complexion to the man
in whose body he resides. This mannikin is
of a thin, unsubstantial nature, though not
so impalpable but that it may cause displace
ment on entering a physical object, and it can
293
flit quickly from place to place; it is tem
porarily absent from the body in sleep, trance,
and disease, and permanently absent after death.
(pp. 207-8)
In Chapter III, Exile, we will see that the human
soul is often conceived of not in human but in animal form.
The concept of the mannikin in Petrouchka— Petrouchka
being a sort of a mannikin soul which lives in a little
box— also coincides with primitive beliefs. Savages were
unable to conceive of life abstractly or as a permanent
possibility of sensation or a continuous adjustment of
internal arrangements to external relations. Therefore
they thought of the soul as a concrete material thing, of
a definite size or bulk, something that could be handled
and kept in a box or a jar, and thus was not liable to be
bruised, fractured, or broken.
Just as some peoples believed that man's soul was
in a little mannikin, or in the shadow of this mannikin,
other peoples believed the soul was in man's own shadow
or in the reflection of his image, either in a mirror or
in water. The reflection soul was thought to be exposed
to the same dangers as the mannikin or shadow soul. In
water, for example, it was thought that the spirits under
neath the reflection could grasp, or snatch, the soul of
man as it was now externalized in their own world, that of
water. Man, thus deprived of his soul, would perish. One
might suppose this to be the origin behind the classical
story of the beautiful Narcissus, who languished and died
through seeing his reflection in the water.
Man Becomes Inhuman
24
Other metamorphoses into horrible beasts found
in Ovid's Metamorphoses include Glaucus into a dark blue
and green half-man, half-fishlike creature (Humphries,
XIII.336-33); Picus (by Circe) into a wild, angry phoenix
like creature (XIV.350); Acmon into a birdlike creature,
webbed and beaked (XIV.353).
25
The loss of speech is symbolic in that one of
the barriers between the human and animal state is the
ability of man to symbolize his thoughts and feelings
through verbal imagery or audial expression. In the begin
ning was the Word is not a metaphor to be taken lightly;
the dumb or mute, or deaf human was often a victim of
censure and fear. Throughout literature and myth, the
loss of voice, change of voice tone, and loss of hearing
were often considered as examples of ways in which gods
294
punished humans. In the early Arabian tales, for example,
one of the favorite punishments was the cutting out of
the culprit's tongue for lying or informing. In the
example from Ovid, Jove not only removes the power of
speech but also leaves an afflicting sound.
2 6
The original reads as follows:
. . . sterilique locatas
colle Pithecusas, habitantum nomine dictas.
quippe deum genitor, fraudem et periuria quondam
Cercopum exosus gentisque admissa dolosae,
in deforme viros animal mutavit, ut idem
dissimiles homini possent similesque videri,
membraque contraxit naresque a fronte resimas
contudit et rugis peraravit anilibus ora
totaque velatos flaventi corpora villo
misit in has sedes nec non prius abstulit usum
verborum et natae dira in periuria linguae;
posse queri tanturn rauco stridore reliquit.
(Miller, XIV.306.89-100)
27
Cf. the drug-oriented literature of today: the
"transcendent" drug experience is glorified while science
is often worshiped at the expense of religion. Often,
God is described as dead until seen by a modern John or
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." (The modern folk youth
myths are set down most vividly in the poetry and ballads
and ads of the present period." And the exact reversal of
the Jekyll-Hyde story is conveniently touted as the ab
solute "truth."
2 8
Lutz Rohrich, "German Devil Tales and Devil
Legends," Journal of the Folklore Institute, 7 (June,
1970), 22.
Man Becomes Subhuman
29
The original re.ads as follows:
accimus sacra data pocula dextra.
quae simul arenti sitientes hausimus ore,
et tetigit summos virga dea dira capillos,
(et pudet et referam) saetis horrescere coepi,
nec iam posse loqui, pro verbis edere raucum
murmur et in terram toto procumbere vultu,
osque meum sensi pando occallescere rostro,
collo tumere toris, et qua modo pocula parte
sumpta mihi fuerant, . . .
(Miller, XIV.318.276-320.284)
295
30
The magic wand is representative of the magic
inherent in the golden bough (discussed in Chapter I). In
the story of Circe, it still carries with it the same
symbolic implications, but as utilized by Circe it also
represents the power to do evil rather than good. It is
destructive rather than protective. Robert Graves (The
Greek Myths) has stated that the golden bough, when taken
as a symbol for the mistletoe, which grows on the sacred
oak, may also be considered as a phallic symbol; in this
particular story of Circe, her transformation by use of
her magic wand may, by transference, then, be taken to
symbolize emasculation of the men. The potion is simply
a further extension of Circe's magical power.
31
Explanations of earlier myths deal with the
transformations from man into beast and from beast into
man in a more theological way. They show us that such
stories include warnings toward allowing the daemonic in
man to escape. Once man has become a sexed and mortal
being, with the knowledge equal to the gods of good and
evil, he takes on the responsibility for this state. He
becomes committed also to kill and to work in order to
feed himself. The animal world speaks to him not only of
its origin but also of his origin. He then becomes bound
into his animal state through his very acts and this ob
liges him to accept cruelty and murder as integral to his
mode of being. Certainly, cruelty, torture, and murder
are not forms of conduct peculiar only to primitives.
They are found throughout literature and in history.
Mircea Eliade (Myth and Reality; New York: Harper and
Row, 1968) in discussing the reasons for such transforma
tions concludes that it is the conflict or the tension
between the two states that causes man his anguish and his
fall. This tension between man's conflicting desires as
exemplified in the words "good" and "evil" often results
then in a swing to his animal nature. Eliade feels,
along with Jung, that pleasure is preceded by an appetite
that is felt in the flesh, a kind of desire like hunger
and thirst. That is, an excess of desire which changes
into lust. They both discuss the concept that man is at
once god and animal, but that when his animal nature
overtakes him, he is often unable to reconcile the con
flict. For the totality of his being is rooted in his
animal nature and reaches out beyond the merely human
toward the divine. This implies a tremendous tension of
opposites and very often this tension is resolved through
a descent into the physical side of himself. His
pleasures no longer become desires, they become violent
urges, and some urges take on the stronger form of lusts.
296
Jung cites St. Augustine's definition of libido as a
general term for all desire (De Civitate Dei, Vol. 14,
p. 15) :
There is a lust for revenge, which is
called rage; a lust for having money,
which is called avarice; a lust for victory
at all cost, which is called stubbornness;
a lust for self-glorification, which is
called boastfulness.
(Jung, Symbols of Transformation, p. 13)
Both the mythic critic Eliade and the psychologist of the
"collective unconscious" Jung seem to say that man's
physical acts and psychological state become intermingled,
particularly when he has partaken of such activities as
killing, or other acts of cruelty, justifying these as
necessary means for continuing his existence.
32
The original reads as follows:
ilia nocens spargit virus sucosque veneni
et Noctem Noctisque deos Ereboque Chaoque
convocat et longis Hecaten ululatibus orat.
exsiluere loco (dictu mirabile) silvae,
ingemuitque solum, vincinaque palluit arbor,
sparsaque sanguineis maduerunt pabula guttis,
et lapides visi mugitus edere raucos
et latrare canes et humus serpentibus atris
squalere et tenues animae volitare silentum:
attonitum monstris vulgus pavet; ilia paventis
ora venenata tetigit mirantia virga,
cuius ab attactu variarum monstra ferarum
in iuvenes veniunt: nulli sua mansit imago.
(Miller, XIV.328.403-15)
33
Jung, p. 328.
34
Aldous Huxley, "Beliefs," pp. 375-76 in Ends and
Means: Collected Essays (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1959).
CHAPTER III
■*"The original reads as follows:
nec tantum segetes alimentaque debita dives
poscebatur humus, sed itum est in viscera terrae,
quasque recondiderat Stygiisque admoverat umbris,
effodiuntur opes, inritamenta malorum.
iamque nocens ferrum ferroque nocentius aurum
297
prodierat, prodit bellum, quod pugnat arma.
vivitur ex rapto: non hospes ab hospite tutus,
non socer a genero, fratrum quoque gratia rara est;
inminet exitio vir coniugis, ilia mariti,
lurida terribiles miscent aconita novercae,
filius ante diem patrios inquirit in annos:
victa iacet pietas, et virgo caede madentis
ultimae caelestum terras Astraea reliquit.
(Miller, 1.12.137-50)
2
George Gibian, "The Grotesque in Russian and
Western Literature," YCGL, 13 (November 1964), 58.
3
Marquis de Sade, Justine, trans. Helen Weaver
(New York: Capricorn Books, 1966), pp. 66-67.
Man Descends to Wolf
“ ^The word lycanthropy comes originally from the
Greek lukos - wolf, anthropos - man. The wolf is thus
often known as werewolf, from the transformation of the
Latin vir - man, wer - wolf. The transformation of
Lycaon took place during the Iron Age, "whose base vein
let loose all evil" ("protinus inrupit venae peioris
in aevum/ omne nefas. . . ."), when men "found the guilt
of iron,/ And gold, more guilty still" ("iamque nocens
ferrum ferroque nocentius aurum/ prodierat, . . .")—
Humphries, 1.7; Miller, 1.10.128-29, and 1.12.141-42.
5
The origxnal reads as follows:
nocte gravem somno necopina perdere morte
me parat: haec illi placet experientia veri;
nec contentus eo, missi de gente Molossa
obsidis unius iugulum mucrone resolvit
atque ita semineces partim ferventibus artus
mollit aquis, partim subiecto torruit igni.
quod simul inposuit mensis, ego vindice flamma
in dominum dignosque everti tecta penates;
territus ipse fugit nactusque silentia ruris
exulutat frustraque loqui conatur: ab ipso
colligit os rabiem solitaeque cupidine caedis
utitur in pecudes et nunc quoque sanguine gaudet.
in viollos abeunt vestes, in crura lacerti:
fit lupus et veteris servat vestigia formae;
canities eadem est, eadem violentia vultus,
idem oculi lucent, eadem feritatis imago est.
298
occidit una domus, sed non domus una perire
digna fuit: qua terra patet, fera regnat Erinys.
in facinus iurasse putes! dent ocius omnes,
quas meruere pati, . . poenas.
(Miller, 1.18.224-43)
g
See the theory of "possession" as discussed in T. K.
Oesterreich, Possession (New York: Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner and Co., 1930). See also Sir James George Frazer,
The Golden Bough (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1963) ,
specifically his discussion of "The External Soul in
Animals" (pp. 792-802); also theories of manido and of
metempsychosis as discussed in Claude Levi-Strauss,
Totemism, trans. Rodney Needham (Boston: Beacon Press,
1967), pp. 22, 74. Further examples of psychic
"possession" are Dostoevski, The Double; Aldous Huxley,
The Devils of Loudun; Henry James, The Beast in the Jungle;
and St. Teresa of Avila, Una Vida. Lycaon is so evil that
he can be thought of as possessed by evil. Indeed, one
of Satan's many forms is the wolf which Lycaon becomes.
Bertrand is, strictly speaking, the victim of a curse of
multiple transformations of man to wolf, back and forth,
against his will. As a result of the curse, the wolf
eventually possesses Bertrand. And Hesse's Steppenwolf
provides an excellent example of psychic possession as
Haller delves more and more into the loneliness and hatred
of himself. In primitive times, the concept of possession
was a dominant theme of the religious and literary writ
ings and documents. It is with us today in some concepts
of psychosomatic illness and in the treatment cases of
drug abuse.
Man's fascination with, and fear of, the lycanthropic
state have assumed many forms and have given rise to an
endless number of preventatives prescribed. Belief in
such preventatives as the silver bullet, the brier-rose,
the sign of the cross and the crucifix are only a few of
the lycanthropic superstitions still practiced today.
For further examples, see Charles Mackay, Extraordinary
Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (New York:
Farrar, Strauss and Cudahy, Inc., 1932). Even some of
the rituals which we employ in dealing with death derive
from the primitive belief that there were elemental
spirits always about— souls of beasts or men that had
died, or of even more horrible beasts that had not yet
lived. Certain religions believe that when the body of a
man weakens, the soul of that man begins to detach itself
from the tentacles of the flesh in preparation for flight;
also, as the man lies dying, there are a circle of dis
possessed or beastly souls in wait around him. These
299
beings are souls which would like to have that beautiful
body for a house, that body of man which is the highest
creation ever to have come from God's sculpturing hands.
It is to guard against just such an invasion by roaming
souls that bodies stiffen in rigor mortis immediately
after derth. Then these souls will find only a stiff
shell left. Nevertheless it happens occasionally that
the soul of a beast gains entrance into a man's body
while he yet lives with the result that the two souls
start to war with each other. Then, the soul of that man
may depart completely, leaving only the beast behind.
And that explains to the superstitious, why there are men
in this world who are only monsters in disguise who simply
play at being men— just as a servant might dress in his
master's clothes. Many of the heretics of the Middle
Ages were characterized thus— as monsters in the disguise
of men. And when enough people shared this belief, the
sword of the Church became a weapon of fire, or a tool
of the state.
7
The original reads as follows:
protinus inrupit venae peioris in aevum
omne nefas . . .
(Miller, 1.10.138-39)
g
Certainly not relevant, but perhaps welcome
because adding a note of humour, and even a touch of
levity, to our discussion of the somewhat grim subject
of lycanthropy, is Christian Morgenstern's poem "Der
Werwolf"; since the difficult problem of retaining the
pun in translation has been attacked with imagination and
skill, the English version is also included here:
Der Werwolf
Ein Werwolf eines Nachts entwich
von Weib und Kind, und sich begab
an eines Dorfschullehrers Grab
und bat ihn: Bitte, beuge mich!
Der Dorschulmeister stieg hinauf
auf seines Blechschilds Messingknauf
und sprach zum Wolf, der seine Pfoten
geduldig kreuzte vor dem Toten:
"Der Werwolf,— sprach der gute Mann,
"des Weswolfs, Geni-tiv sodann,
"dem Wemwolf, Dativ, wie man's nennt,
"den Wenwolf,— damit hat's ein End'."
300
Dem Werwolf schmeichelten die Falle,
er rollte seine Augenbcllle.
Indessen, bat er, fuge doch
zur Einzahl auch die Mehrzahl noch!....... ....
Der Dorfschulmeister aber musste
gestehn, dass er von ihr nichts wusste.
Zwar Wolfe gab's in grosser Schar,
doch 'Wer' gab's nur im Singular.
Der Wolf erhob sich tranenblind—
er hatte ja doch Weib und Kind!!
Doch da er kein Gelehrter eben,
so schied er dankend und ergeben.
The Banshee
[An Approach]
One night, a banshee slunk away
from mate and child, and in the gloom
went to a village teacher's tomb,
requesting him: "Inflect me, pray."
The village teacher climbed up straight
upon his grave stone with its plate
and to the apparition said
who crossed his paws before the dead:
"The banSHEE, in the subject's place;
the banHERS, the possessive case.
The banHER, next, is what they call
objective case— and that is all."
The banshee marveled at the cases
and writhed with pleasure, making faces,
but said: "You did not add, so far,
the plural to the singular!"
The teacher, though, admitted then
that this was not within his ken.
"While 'bans' are frequent," he advised,
"a 'she' cannot be pluralized."
The banshee, rising clammily,
wailed: "What about my family?"
Then, being not a learned creature,
said humbly "Thanks" and left the teacher.
(The Gallows Songs: Christian Morgenstern*s
Galgenlieder, A selection translated, with
301
an Introduction, by Max Knight
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer
sity Press, 1964), pp. 114, 115)
Man Descends to Bear
a
Animals which are similar to both the bear and
the rhinoceros are the Behemoth; the Catoplas, which is
also green; the Un-man, which is like the bear; the shaggy
beast of La Ferte-Bernard, which is also green, long-
furred, a combination of bear and rhinoceros, the size of
a bull; and an animal called Karkadan, which is similar
to the unicorn as described by Pliny. Listed in J. L.
Borges and Margarita Guerrero, El libro de los seres
imaginarios (Buenos Aires: Editorial Kier, S.A., ± 9 6 1 ).
■^The original reads as follows:
". . . et accepti caluere sub ossibus ignes."
(Miller, 11.88.410)
■^The original reads as follows:
orbe resurgebant lunaria cornua nono,
. . . (Miller, 11.90.453)
12
The original reads as follows:
quo simul obvertit saevam cum lumine mentem,
"scilicet hoc etiam restabat, adultera" dixit,
"ut fecunda fores, fieretque iniuria partu
nota, Iovisque mei testatum dedecus esset.
haud inpune feres: adimam tibi namque figuram,
qua tibi, quaque places nostro, inportuna, marito."
dixit et adversam prenais a fronte capillis
stravit humi pronam. tendebat bracchia supplex:
braccia coeperunt nigris horrescere villis
curvarique manus et aduncos crescere in unguis
officioque pedum fungi laudataque quondam
ora Iovi lato fieri deformia rictu.
neve preces animos et verba precantia flectant,
posse loqui eripitur: vox iracunda minaxque
plenaque terroris rauco de gutture fertur;
mens antiqua manet, (facta quoque mansit in ursa)
adsiduoque suos gemitu testata dolores
qualescumque manus ad caelum et sidera tollit
ingratumque Iovem, nequeat cum dicere, sentit.
a! quotiens, sola non ausa quiescere silva,
ante domum quondamque suis erravit in agris!
a! quotiens per saxa canum latratibus acta est
302
venatrixque metu venantum territa fugit!
seapa feris latuit visis, oblita quid esset,
ursaque conspectos in montibus horruit ursos
pertimuitque lupas, quamvis pater esset in illis.
(Miller, 11.92.470-94.495)
On one of his hunts, we learn later in the story,
Areas comes upon his mother, who, as bear, is roaming
through the woods. She stops, feels inclined to embrace
him, and just as he is about to transfix her with his
spear, Jove, because of it all, snatches both of them
away and places them in heaven as the Great and Little
Bear. This causes no end of a problem with Juno, who
feels she has lost her revenge now that Callisto has been
exalted to the heavens and placed among the stars. The
thought gives her no rest, so she visits the powers of
the ocean and begs them to not allow the "guilty" couple
to ever enter their waters. The powers of the ocean
assent to her request. Consequently, the two constella
tions of the Great Bear and the Little Bear move round and
round in heaven but never sink, as the other stars do,
beneath the ocean.
The significance of the Little Bear, Areas, Cal-
listo's son, is not only that he is also known as
Cynosure and used by such poets as Milton and Lowell,
but also that he became the ancestor of the Arcadians.
In other versions of the mytfy it is Jove himself
who changes Callisto into a bear and places her in the
heaven in order to keep her closer to himself.
In yet some other versions, Callisto is identified
with the goddess Diana herself and the story is there
fore of Diana's seduction by Jove. She attempts to
escape him by transforming herself into a bear, but loses
the battle. As a result, in this earlier story, she
loses the stars, over which she had ruled.
A modern example of a transformation from man to
bear and from bear to man is found in the charming fairy
tale called "Snow-White and Rose-Red," pp. 298-306 in
Grimm's Fairy Tales, trans. Mrs. E. V. Lucas, Lucy Crane
and Marian Edwards (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1946).
It is the story of a positive transformation. Through
the love of the two girls, the bear prince is turned
back into a human. I did not utilize this story in my
discussion because, in my opinion, this section should be
concerned with transformations which are either for
bidding, terrifying, demeaning, or ludicrous. One inter
esting detail of the story, however, might be mentioned:
the red and white roses function in it as symbol for the
bear's transformation back to a human state. In several
sections of this dissertation, roses function as symbol
303
not only of man's love but, when eaten, as the actual
source of man's re-transformation (see, for example, the
story of Lucius and the ass).
13
The Ionesco short story lent itself better to
my purposes than the play version.
14
It is known that the word "totem" is taken from
Ojibwa, an Algonquin language of the region to the north
of the Great Lakes of northern America. The expression is
derived from ototeman, which means roughly: "He is a
relative of mine." The totem— object, plant, or animal—
represents the bond of unity within a group and is held
in unusual respect. For discussions of totem and taboo
see two works by Levi-Strauss: Totemism, and Structural
Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1963).
15
Martin Esslm, Theatre of the Absurd (New York:
Anchor Books, Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1961) , p. 127.
Man Descends to Ass
16
Even in modern times, the ears of the ass are
considered a mark of stupidity. Until recently, many
school children were made to sit in a corner wearing the
proverbial dunce's ears or ears of the donkey. The ass
has also symbolized the beasts of burden and the lowliest
and most humble of their kind. It is probably for this
reason that in the Bible the relationship of the ass (or
donkey) with Jesus has become a symbol for more than just
the journeys of a very special man, or those of Joseph and
Mary. In Christian times, therefore, the animal has
regained some of its symbolic dignity. The ass as a
literary symbol has also regained some dignity in post
pagan times in the New Testament (its symbolic role as
Christ bearer etc.) and in such works as Juan Ramon
Jimenez' Platero y Yo, wherein the prototype of the ass or
donkey is seen as man's best friend.
17
The original reads as follows:
. . . quorum dulcedine captus
Pane iubet Tmolus citharae submittere cannas.
Iudicium sanctique placet sententia montis
omnibus, arguitur tamen atque iniusta vocatur
unius sermone Midae; nec Delius aures
humanem stolidas patitur retinere figuram,
304
sed trahit in spatium villisque albentibus inplet
instabilesque imas facit et dat posse moveri:
cetera sunt hominis, partem damnatur in unam
induiturque aures lente gradientis aselli.
(Miller, XI.132.170-79)
18
The pink rose became known in later horror litera
ture as the brier-rose, a magical preventative against
vampires.
19
The goat is also used as an image of a sexual
athlete in a delightfully bawdy and satiric modern novel,
John Barth's Giles Goat-Boy (New York: Fawcett Crest
Books, 1966). Barth uses the goat as a transformation
symbol, replacing Lucius with Giles, and Isis with Pan.
His satiric manner shows itself in the following example
where Giles determines no longer to be put down by
others:
[I am] GILES, son of WESCAC, maternal grandson
of Reginald Hector; laboratory eugenical specimen
of the Grand-Tutorial ideal (no less rare even if
false); protege of Maximilian Spielman— and a
goat by George: a brawny-bearded bigballed buck!
Stepkid of Mary Appenzeller; stallmate of Red-
fearn's Tom; lover of Hedda of the Speckled Teats;
familiar of that late legendary sire of sires,
Brickett Ranunculus, the very dean of studs—
I should deny my pedigree and heritage, my gait
my garb my scent? Infirmity! My one infirmity,
I saw now, was having thought such goatly gifts
in need of cure, and that infirmity was overcome.
Studentdom it was that limped: hobbled by false
distinction, crippled by categories! I returned
unflinchingly the stares of male and female under
graduates thronging the sidewalks, and reasoned
one strong step further: my infirmity was that
I had thought myself first goat, then wholly
human boy, when in fact I was a goat-boy, both
and neither: a walking refutation of such false
conceits. If I chose, withal, to comport me
goatly now awhile, it was not to deny my human
ness (of what was the GILES decocted if not the
seed of the whole student body?) but to correct
it, in the spirit of my new advisings. To that
end, as I drew near the Psychiatric Annex of
the great Infirmary I goated it the more— "went
to the bathroom" where no bathroom was, as in
pasture days; bleated twice or thrice at the
passersby's dismay; and skipped up the marble
305
entrance steps on all fours— the point being
that I wasn1t just Capra hircus, any more than
the white-coat pair of watchers at the top were
simply Homo sapiens.
"A wise guy," one of them said.
"I don't know, Bill," said the other.
"George Giles the Goat-Boy," I announced,
rising proudly to shake hands. (pp. 597)
20
Grimm's Fairy Tales. In "The Salad," a merry
young huntsman comes into possession of a magical wishing
cloak. He now can be any place he wishes to be and also
"will find a gold coin under [his] pillow every single
morning when [he] wakes" (p. 135). A witch and her
beautiful daughter envy him his good fortune and deprive
him of his wishing cloak and gold. He is sad; but also
hungry.
He picked out a fine head of lettuce and began
eating it. But he had hardly swallowed a little
piece when he began to feel very odd and quite
changed. He felt four legs growing, a big head,
and two long ears, and he saw to his horror that
he was changed into an ass.
. . . he went on eating greedily. At last he
reached another kind of salad, which he had
hardly tasted when he felt a new change taking
place, and found himself back in his human shape.
(p. 140)
With this magic lettuce, the young man now has the ability
"to regain [his] own and also to punish the traitors"
(p. 140). After disguising himself, he confronts the
witch and her beautiful daighter and turns them both into
asses. After the death of the mother, the young man takes
pity on the remaining ass and gives her the second kind of
magic lettuce so that she can again become a beautiful
woman. Although the implications of this story are hardly
strong enough to permit it to be related to the Myth of
Exile, reference is made to this delightful fairy tale
because it tells of several transformations from man (or
woman) to ass and back again. As is the case with all the
examples in this section on the ass, the transformations
are very ordered, with immediate and known cause and effect.
In no way do these transformations parallel those of man
into wolf, for example, for these transformations are
light and laughable and controlled. No one is getting hurt
by the metamorphoses— except for the witch in the fairy
tale, who, of course, deserved it.
306
21
Balanchine's libretto was used rather than the
Shakespearean drama because in the ballet the character
of Bottom appears as a much stronger example of excessive
lust and thus can be more closely related to the Myth of
Exile.
Man Descends to Bat
22
See Leslie A. Fiedler on Edgar Allen Poe and
his frequent use of dark birds, bats, the night black
ness, and social alienation. Fiedler comments on Poe's
use of black (color and mood) to represent the dark side
of his soul he was most in conflict with. This is often
the case with Gothicists. See also Fiedler's remarks
on Poe's use of vampire-like birds, werewolfian dogs,
decayed flesh, and the metamorphosis of same in Gordon
Pym (pp. 393-400), Fiedler, Love and Death in the American
Novel, rev. ed. (New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc.,
1966). See also discussions of the vampire or similar
creatures in their function as one of the symbols or
"opposites" in L^vi-Strauss, Totemism (pp. 81-89), and
C. F. Jung, Symbols of Transformation (pp. 52-64).
A related subject is discussed in Frazer's The Golden
Bough ("The External Soul in Animals," pp. 792-802).
23
The original reads as follows:
iamque dies exactus erat, tempusque subibat,
quod tu nec tenebras nec possis dicere lucem,
sed cum luce tamen dubiae confinia noctis:
tecta repente quati pinguesque ardere videntur
lampades et rutilis conlucere ignibus aedes
falsaque saevarum simulacra ululare ferarum,
fumida iamdudum latitant per tecta sorores
diversaeque locis ignes ac lumina vitant,
dumque petunt tenebras, parvos membrana per artus
porrigitur tenuique includit bracchia pinna;
nec qua perdiderint veterem ratione figuram,
scire sinunt tenebrae: non illas pluma levavit,
sustinuere tamen se perlucentibus alis
conataeque loquid minimam et pro corpore vocem
emittunt peraguntque levi stridore querellas.
tectaque, non silvas celebrant lucemque perosae
nocte volant seroque tenent a vespere nomen.
(Miller, IV.206.399-415)
2 4
Not only do many of the stories of primitive
folklore interchange these creatures and their accompanying
307
rituals and meanings, but so also do some of the modern
cultures; this is true in the Haitian voodoo cults and
those of the mescal and peyote of the Yaqui sect of
Mexico.
Man Descends to Insect
25
In The Savage Mind, trans. George We&denfeld and
Nicolson LtdT (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1966) Levi-Strauss discusses the insect as a positive
societal model: examples include the scarab, which was
considered both royal and lucky; the bee-hive and the
meaningful functions of Queen and drones; and, also, the
extremely structured industrial society of the ant. There
is an interesting note, too, in regard to the ants and
their colors. In an ant society, it is the white ant
(known to us as the termite) which is the destructive
social force.
2 6
The original reads as follows:
hie nos frugilegas adspeximus agmine longo
grande onus exiguo formicas ore gerentes
rugosoque suum servantes cortice callem;
dum numerum miror, "totidem, pater optime," dixi,
"tu mihi da cives et inania moenia supple!"
(Miller, VII.386.624-2 8)
27
The original reads as follows:
at in aedibus ingens
murmur erat, vocesque hominum exaudire videbar
iam mihi desuetas; dum suspicor has quoque somni
esse, venit Telamon properus foribusque reclusis
"speque fideque, pater", dixit "maiora videbis:
egredere!" egredior, qualesque in imagine somni
visus eram vidisse viros, ex ordine tales
adspicio noscoque: adeunt regemque salutant.
vota Iovi solvo populisque recentibus urbem
partior et vacuos priscis cultoribus agros,
Myrmidonasque voco nec origine nomina fraudo.
corpora vidisti; mores, quos ante gerebant
nunc quoque habent: parcum genus est patiensque
laborurn
quaesitique tenax, et qui quaesita reservunt.
(Miller, VII.388.644-388.657)
308
2 8
The original reads as follows:
Non illud Pallas, non illud carpere Livor
possit opus: doluit successu flava virago
et rupit pictas, caelestia crimina, vestes,
utque Cytoriaco radium de monte tenebat,
ter quater Idmoniae frontem percussit Arachnes.
non tulit infelix laqueoque animosa ligavit
guttura: pendentem Pallas miserata levavit
atque ita "vive quidem, pende tamen, inproba" dixit,
"lexque eadem poenae, ne sis secura futuri,
dicta tuo generi seriesque nepotibus esto!"
post ea discedens sucis Hecateidos herbae
sparsit: et extemplo tristi medicamine tactae
defluxere comae, cum quis et naris et aures,
fitque caput minimum; toto quoque corpore parva est:
in latere exiles digiti pro cruribus haerent,
cetera venter habet, de quo tamen ilia remittit
stamen et antiquas exercet aranea telas.
(Miller, VI.296.129-298.140-45)
29
In many translations of Kafka's Metamorphosis
(Muir's, for example) the word Ungeziefer is often given as
cockroach. I think here perhaps it is better to consider
the word in a more inclusive sense, as a noxious insect,
a large verminous bug. Many critics favor this wider
interpretation, and I feel that symbolically it functions
better in that manner. The cockroach, considered in some
of its graphic aspects or physical habits, is included in
Kafka's concept of the Ungeziefer.
30
The titles of a few pertinent films are the
following: The Black Scorpion, The Cure of the Fly, The
Deadly Mantis (from the writings of William Alland); The
Fly (from a story of George Langelan); Die Spinnen (by
Fritz Lang), Tarantula (from a story by Martin Berkeley).
There are many others, including anthropomorphic films.
(Titles are from Carlos Clarens, An Illustrated History
of the Horror Film; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 196 7;
passim.)
31
The Cage (music by Igor Stravinsky, choreography
by Jerome Robbins) in George Balanchine, Balanchine's
New Complete Stories of the Great Ballets, ed. Francis
Mason (New York: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1968), pp. 63-65.
32
It is interesting to note that while metamorphosis
in English means "a passing from one form or shape into
another ..." and "a striking alteration of appearance,
309
character, or circumstances," as discussed at the begin
ning of this dissertation, and the German word Meta
morphose means the same, the German word Verwandlung is
much broader in meaning. In addition to metamorphosis,
Verwandlung means "alteration, change, modification, con
version, transformation, and transubstantiation." Ver
wandlung, thus, denotes a whole range and spectrum of
change that is not denoted in Metamorphose. (The New
Cassell's German Dictionary, ecL Harold T. Betteridge;
New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1958, 1962, 1965).
33
F. D. Luke, "The Metamorphosis," in Franz Kafka
Today, eds. Angel Flores and Homer Swander (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), p. 38.
34
Of great interest and value was Jiirg Schubiger's
thorough study: Franz Kafka, Die Verwandlung: Eine
Interpretation (Zurcher Beitrage zur deutschen Literatur-
und Geistesgeschichte, herausgegeben von ilmil ataiger;
Zurich: Atlantis Verlag AG, 1969). Particularly helpful
were the following chapters:
Chapter 3: A discussion of the relationships be
tween the transformation and the dream; also of Gregor's
earlier life as a traveling salesman and the implication
this life had for his infantile state; a discussion,
further, of his search for a way out of the inhuman
present; of his family, the functions of his sister,
mother, and father; the concepts of dirt as representa
tive of Gregor's shame; Gregor as a beetle in armor; his
final death, and the resurrection of the family.
Chapter 4: An important discussion of the bug's
physical characteristics; the bug as a monstrous vermin
and its meanings; the possibilities this leaves Gregor
for his behavior. The author quotes from Kafka: "The
insect itself cannot be drawn." He then discusses the
vermin's eyeview; its surface and the agglutinant which
it secretes; certain symbolic meanings in relation to the
bug form: it may stand for a monstrous burden, for a
shamefully exploited person; the difference between
Gregor's relationship to his human body and to his bug
body as an alien body. The way he eats his food in his
room may be taken as a symbol of his sloth. In the
section "Corporeality and Communication" we find obser
vations such as these: The verminous creature is at home
in dark and dirty areas inaccessible to others. It
remains excluded from love. Its body in its physical
characteristics expresses an inability to love. Gregor
suffers from this inability too. He remains mute; he
shows his family the armor, which is incapable of mimic
310
movement. The meaning of the meal or food is discussed by
Schubiger in terms of an image— the living execution of
participation in a common world. I would extend this food
image to include the rotten apple, which finally causes
Gregor's death. It is an important symbol, not discussed
by Schubiger, for the rottenness of human communication
and for, indeed, what one might term a Last Supper.
Chapter 5: An examination of linguistic devices
and peculiarities in the work, including repetitions, use
of subjunctive, change in the prose in descriptions of
animal movements* Negation, also, is dealt with in detail.
CHAPTER IV
^Myth and Reality (New York: Harper and Row, 1968),
p. 77. Eliade m this work goes deeply into the subject
of Eschatology and its archetypal significance.
Man Ascends through Restoration
2
This passage Kafka copied into his diary from a
letter to his fiancee (quoted by Verner Vordtriede,
"Letters to Milena: The Writer as Advocate of Himself,"
pp. 239-48 in Franz Kafka Today, ed. Angel Flores and
Homer Swander (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press,
1964) ; the quote is from pp. 245-46) •
3
The moly is a scented flower which only the gods
can recognize and cull. It is this gift which Ulysses
has received from a friend that saves him from being
drugged by Circe and which also, in an earlier version
of the myth, causes her to fall in love with him, to beg
him to marry her and to finally re-transform his men to
their human state. Ulysses is well aware that witches
have the power to enervate and destroy their lovers by
secretly drawing off their blood in little bladders.
Therefore, he exacts a solemn oath from Circe not to plot
any further mischief against him. She swears this oath
and gives him wine in a golden cup and prepares to pass
the night with him in a purple-and-gold coverletted bed.
But Ulysses does not respond to her amorous advances until
she consents to free all the other sailors enchanted by
her.
4
The original reads as follows:
inde fides dextraegue datae thalamoque receptus
coniugii dotem sociorum corpora poscit.
311
spargimur ignotae sucis melioribus herbae
percutimurque caput conversae verbere virgae,
verbaque dicuntur dictis contraria verbis,
quo magis ilia canit, magis hoc tellure levati
erigimur, saetaeque cadunt, bifidosque relinquit
rimi pedes, redeunt umeri et subiecta lacertis
bracchia sunt: . . .
(Miller, XIV.320.297-305)
5
Beauty and the Beast has its origin in some of the
oldest tales told by man. In these, the beast— the half
man, half-beast— took many different forms; it appeared as
a serpent; a half-serpent, half-man; half-wolf, half-man;
even a pig. And many countries still have their own
special interpretations of this tale originally written by
Gabrielle-Suzanne Villeneuve and published in 1740. It
was shortened by Marie Le Prince de Beaumont and became
the elegant classic we know today. A number of plays,
operas, a ballet, and a film by Cocteau have used the theme
of Beauty and the Beast and attest to its secure place in
the literature for all ages.
g
Snow-White also has within it many of the elements
of the Beauty and the Beast story; combine the seven dwarfs
arid they would make one charming Prince-Beast; and the
Witch is just a reduction of the wicked sisters into one
character. Snow-White herself transforms into the "beauti
ful lady" (or Virgin figure) of the Beauty-Beast fable.
7
For example, it is not Pygmalion's love which
transforms his statue into a woman— at least not without
divine intercedence. His love causes Venus to produce the
transformation.
Man Ascends through Resurgence
o
Some other Ovidian examples of men transformed into
birds include Cygnus (a swan); Ascalaphys (an owl); Tereus
(a hoot-owl); Perdis (a bird of the same name); Daedalion
(a hawk); Picus (a bird of the same name); and Acmon (a
bird "something like a swan").
9The original reads as follows:
quam Troius heros
insequitur celeremque metu celer urguet amore.
ecce latens herba coluber fugientis adunco
dente pedem strinxit virusque in corpore liquit;
cum vita suppressa fuga est: amplectitur amens
exanimem clamatque "piget, piget esse secutum!
sed non hoc timui, neque erat mihi vincere tanti.
perdidimus miseram nos te duo: vulnus ab angue,
312
a me causa data est! ego sum sceleratior illo,
qui tibi morte mea mortis solacia mittam."
dixit et e scopulo, quern rauca subederat unda,
decidit in pontum. Tethys miserate cadentem
molliter excepit nantemque per aequora pennis
texit, et optatae non est data copia mortis,
indignatur amans, invitum vivere cogi
obstarique animae misera de sede volenti
exire, utque novas umeris adsumpserat alas,
subvolat atque iterum corpus super aequora mittit.
pluma levat casus: furit Aesacos inque profundum
pronus abit letique viam sine fine retemptat.
fecit amor maciem: longa internodia crurum,
longa manet cervix, caput est a corpore longe;
aequora amat nomenque tenet, quia mergitur illo."
(Miller, XI.174.773-176.795)
forma mihi nocuit"— Miller, 11.100.572.
■^The original reads as follows:
fugio densumque relinquo
litus et in molli nequiquam lassor harena.
inde deos hominesque voco; nec contigit ullum
vox mea mortalem: mota est pro virgine virgo
auxiliumque tulit. tendebam bracchia caelo:
bracchia coperunt levibus nigrescere pennis;
reicere ex umeris vestem molibar, at ilia
pluma erat inque cutem radices egerat imas;
plangere nuda meis conabar pectora palmis,
sed neque iam palmas nec pectora nuda gerebam;
currebam, nec, ut ante, pedes retinebat harena,
sed summa tollebar humo; mox alta per auras
evehor et data sum comes inculpata Minervae.
(Miller, 11.100.576-88)
12
See also Aldoux Huxley's book, Heaven and Hell
(New York: Harper Brothers, 1956).
Man Ascends through Redemption
13
The original reads as follows:
per tamen et campos, per opertos arbore montes,
saxa quoque et rupes et, qua via nulla, cucurri.
sol erat a tergo: vidi praecedere longam
ante pedes umbram, nisi si timor ilia videbat;
sed certe sonitusque pedum terrebat et ingens
crinales vittas adflabat anhelitus oris.
313
fessa labore fugae "fer opem, deprendimur," inquam
"armigerae, Dictynna, tuae, cui saepe dedisti
ferre tuos arcus inclusaque tela pharetra!"
mota dea est spissisque ferens a nubibus unam
me super iniecit: lustrat caligine tectam
amnis et ignarus circum cava nubila quaerit
bisque locum, quo me dea texerat, inscius ambit
et bis "io Arethusa" vocavit, "io Arethusa!"
(Miller, V. 280.612-25)
14
The original reads as follows:
Occupat obsessos sudor mihi frigidus artus,
caeruleaeque cadunt toto de corpore guttae,
quaque pedem movi, manat lacus, eque capillis
ros cadit, et citius, quam nunc tibi facta renarro,
in latices mutor. sed enim cognoscit amatas
amnis aquas positoque viri, quod sumpserat, ore
vertitur in proprias, et se mihi misceat, undas.
(Miller, V.280.632-282.638)
15
The joining of loverand beloved in the water
depths may be compared to Undine by Friedrich, Baron de
la Motte Fouqu£. This version may be considered relevant
here because of certain omissions. The key element missing
from the Fouqu£ version of the myth, but present in
Giraudoux, is not hope or love, but faith. Ondine's
metamorphosis from woman back to water-spirit, which
follows immediately after the trial— in Giraudoux' play—
is an example of Ondine's faith, against the dictates of
her nature.
As cited in The Oxford Companion to English Litera
ture , Fouqu^'s story is as follows:
Undine, . . . 1811.. . . The story was sug-
gested . . . by a passage in Paracelsus, and
Undine is a sylph, the personification of the
watery element. A humble fisherman and his
wife have lost their child by drowning, and
Undine, a capricious roguish maiden, has come
mysteriously to them and been brought up in
her stead. A knight, Huldbrand von Ringstetten,
takes shelter in their cottage and falls in love
with Undine. They are married, and the sylph
in consequence receives a soul. But her rela
tions, and particularly uncle Kiihleborn, the
wicked water goblin, are a source of trouble.
Huldbrand begins to neglect his wife and
becomes attached to the haughty Bertalda,
who is humbled by the discovery that she is
the fisherman's lost child. One day, in a
314
boat on the Danube, Huldbrand, tormented by
Undine's kindred, angrily rebukes his wife,
and she is snatched away by them into the
water and seen no more. Presently Huldbrand
proposes to Bertalda, and they are about to
be married, when Undine, rising from a well, goes
to the knight's room, kisses him, and he dies.
(p. 810)
Man Ascends through Resurrection
X6
The original reads as follows:
lux aeterna mihi carituraque fine dabatur,
si mea virginitas Phoebo patuisset amanti.
dum tamen hanc sperat, dum praecorrumpere donis
me cupit, "elige," ait "virgo Cumaea, quid optes:
optatis potiere tuis." ego pulveris hausti
ostendi cumulum: quot haberet corpora pulvis,
tot mihi natales contingere vana rogavi;
excidit, ut peterem iuvenes quoque protinus annos.
hos tamen ille mihi dabat aeternamque iuventam,
si Venerem paterer: contempto munere Phoebi
inuba permaneo; sed iam felicior aetas
terga dedit, tremuloque gradu venit aegra senectus,
quae patienda diu est. nam iam mihi saecula septem
acta vides: superest, numeros ut pulveris aequem,
ter centum messes, ter centum musta videre.
tempus erit, cum de tanto me corpore parvam
longa dies faciet, consumptaque membra senecta
ad minimum redigentur onus: nec amata videbor
nec placuisse deo, Phoebus quoque forsitan ipse
vel non cognoscet, vel dilexisse negabit:
usque adeo mutata ferar nullique videnda,
voce tamen noscar; vocem mihi fata relinquent.
(Miller, XIV.308.132-310.153)
17
One of the most enchanting modern works to
utilize this very basic metamorphic image of the dis
solution of matter is Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland
(New York: The New American Library, 1960). The Reverend
Dodgsen combined a thorough knowledge of mathematics
and physics with a true delight not only in children but
in the absurdities of much of adult life as they might
seem to little girls in particular. The combination of
fact and fancy in his two books marks them one of the
finer works utilizing on almost every other page the
metamorphic principle. We should never be able to under
stand the books without a thorough enjoyment and
315
understanding of Carroll's double-edged (serious-humorous)
use of this image. Two of the most charming metamorphic
examples are the dissolution of the Red Queen (reminiscent
of the Sibyl) and the Cheshire Cat:
She [Alice] was looking about for some way
of escape, and wondering whether she could
get away without being seen, when she noticed
a curious appearance in the air: it puzzled
her very much at first, but after watching
it a minute or two she made it out to be a
grin, and she said to herself, "It's the
Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to
talk to."
"How are you getting on?" said the Cat,
as soon as there was mouth enough for it to
speak with.
Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and
then nodded. "It's no use speaking to it,"
she thought, "till its ears have come, or at
least one of them." In another minute the
whole head appeared, and then Alice put down
her flamingo, and began an account of the game,
feeling very glad she had someone to listen to
her. The Cat seemed to think that there was
enough of it now in sight, and no more of it
appeared, (p. 81)
Unlike the Sibyl, the Cheshire Cat is able to
appear and disappear at will. Another modern writer, H.
G. Wells, deals with a similar metamorphosis in The In
visible Man (New York: Washington Square Press, 1962).
It is physics that provides the key to Wells' story. His
main character, Griffin, becomes invisible as a result
of experiments with "refractive indices." His trans
formation, however, is not without pain:
. . . it was all horrible. I had not ex
pected the suffering. A night of racking
anguish, sickness and fainting. I set my
teeth, though my skin was presently afire,
all my body afire; but I lay there like grim
death. I understood now how it was the cat
had howled until I chloroformed it. Lucky it
. was I lived alone and untended in my room.
There were times when I sobbed and groaned
and talked. But I stuck to it. I became in
sensible and woke languid in the darkness.
The pain had passed. I thought I was killing
myself and I did not care. I shall never forget
that dawn, and the strange horror of seeing that
my hands had become as clouded glass, and watching
316
them grow clearer and thinner as the day went
by, until at last I could see the sickly dis
order of my room through them, though I closed
my transparent eyelids. My limbs became glassy,
the bones and arteries faded, vanished, and the
little white nerves went last. I gritted my
teeth and stayed there to the end. (p. 97)
TO
Perhaps the term "conceptual soul" might also be
employed here.
19
The original reads as follows:
Nostra quoque ipsorum semper requieque sine ulla
corpora vertuntur, nec quod fuimusve sumusve,
eras erimus; fuit ilia dies, qua semina tantum
spesque hominum primae matris habitavimus alvo:
artifices natura manus admovit et angi
corpora visceribus distentae condita matris
noluit eque domo vacuas emisit in auras,
editus in lucem iacuit sine viribus infans;
mox quadrupes rituque tulit sua membra ferarum,
paulatimque tremens et nondum poplite firmo
constitit adiutis aliquo conamine nervis.
inde valens veloxque fuit spatiumque iuventae
transit et emeritis medii quoque temporis annis
labitur occiduae per iter declive senectae.
subruit haec aevi demoliturque prioris
robora: fletque Milon senior, cum spectat inanes,
illos, qui fuerant solidorum mole tororum
Herculeis similes, fluidos pendere lacertos;
flet quoque, ut in speculo rugas adspexit aniles,
Tyndaris et secum, cur sit bis rapta, requirit.
tempus edax rerum, tuque, invidiosa vetustas,
omnia destruitis vitiataque dentibus aevi
paulatim lenta consumitis omnia morte.
Nec species sua cuique manet, rerumque novatrix
ex aliis alias reparat natura figuras:
nec perit in toto quicquam, mihi credite, mundo,
sed variat faciemque novat, nascique vocatur
incipere esse aliud, quam quod fuit ante, morique
desinere illud idem. cum sint hue forsitan ilia,
haec translata illuc, sununa tamen omnia constant.
Nil equidem durare diu sub imagine eadem
crediderim: . . .
(Miller, V.380.214-36.382.252-60)
20
The original reads as follows:
nihil est toto, quod perstet, in orbe.
cuncta fluunt, omnisque vagans formatur imago;
ipsa quoque absiduo labuntur tempora motu,
non secus ac flumen; neque enim consistere flumen
nec levis hora potest: sed ut unda inpellitur unda
urgueturque eadem veniens urguetque priorem, tempora
sic fugiunt pariter pariterque sequuntur et nova
sunt semper; . . .
(Miller, XV.376.177-83)
21
The original reads as follows:
Ne tamen oblitis ad metam tendere longe
exspatiemur equis, caelum et quodcumque sub illo est,
inmuta formas, tellusque et quicquid in ilia est.
nos quoque, pars mundi, quoniam non corpora solum,
verum etiam volucres animae sumus, . . .
(Miller, XV.396.453.57)
Man Ascends through Transfiguration
22
"calido velamina tincta cruore" (Miller, IX.12.
132) .
23
The original reads as follows:
incaluit vis ilia mali, resolutaque flammis
Herculeos abiit late dilapsa per artus.
dum potuit, solita gemitum virtute repressit.
victa malis postquam est patientia, reppulit aras,
inplevitque suis nemorosum vocibus Oeten.
nec mora, letiferam conatur scindere vestem:
qua trahitur, trahit ilia cutem, foedumque relatu,
aut haeret membris frustra temptata revelli,
aut laceros artus et grandia detegit ossa,
ipse cruor, gelido ceu quondam lammina candens
tincta lacu, stridit coquiturque ardente veneno.
nec modus est, sorbent avidae praecordia flammae,
caeruleusque fluit toto de corpore sudor,
ambustique sonant nervi, . . .
(Miller, IX.14.161-74)
24
The original reads as follows:
. . . et inposita clavae cervice recumbis,
haud alio vultu, quam si conviva iaceres
inter plena meri redimitus pocula sertis.
(Miller, IX.18.236-38)
318
25
The original reads as follows:
timuere dei pro vindice terrae.
quos ita, sensit enim, laeto Saturnius ore
Iuppiter adloquitur: "nostra est timor iste
voluptas,
o superi, totoque libens mihi pectore grator,
quod memoris populi dicor rectorque paterque
et mea progenies vestro quoque tuta favore est.
nam quamquam ipsius datis hoc inmanibus actis,
obligor ipse tamen. sed enim nec pectora vano
fida metu paveant. istas nec spernite flammas!
omnia qui vicit, vincet, quos cernitis, ignes;
nec nisi materna Vulcanum parte potentem
sentiet. aeternum est a me quod traxit, et expers
atque inmune necis, nullique domabile flammae.
idque ego defunctum terra caelestibus oris
accipiam, cunctisque meum laetabile factum
dis fore confido.
adsensere dei.
interea quodcumque fuit populabile flammae,
Mulciber abstulerat, nec cognoscenda remansit
Herculis effigies, nec quicquam ab imagine ductum
matris habet, tantumque Iovis vestigia servat.
utque novus serpens posita cum pelle senecta
luxuriare solet, squamaque nitere recenti,
sic ubi mortales Tirynthius exuit artus,
parte sui meliore viget, maiorque videri
coepit et augusta fieri gravitate verendus.
quem pater omnipotens inter cava nubila raptum
quadriiugo curru radiantibus intulit astris.
(Miller, IX.20.241-256,259,262-22.272)
2 6
Herman Frankel, in his book on Ovid (Ovid:
A Poet between Two Worlds; Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1945) mentions that Ovid by no means was
only a romantic, fancifully humorous writer, but that
the scope of his education and intellectual interests was
wide and included a knowledge of the science and philos
ophy of his day. His ideas in many of his writings were
based on his knowledge of the works of Pythagoras and the
scientific lectures of Samos.
27
The original reads as follows:
O genus attonitum gelidae formidine mortis,
quid Styga, quid tenebras et nomina vana timetis,
materiem vatum falsique pericula mundi?
319
corpora, sive rogus flamma seu tabe vetustas
abstulerit, mala posse pati non ulla putetis!
morte carent animae semperque priore relicta
sede novis domibus vivunt. . . .
omnia mutantur, nihil interit: errat et illinc
hue venit, hinc illuc, et quoslibet occupat artus
spiritus eque feris humana in corpora transit
inque feras noster, nec tempore deperit ullo,
utque novis facilis signatur cera figuris
nec manet ut fuerat nec formas servat easdem,
sed tamen ipsa eadem est, animam sic semper eandem
esse, sed in varias doceo migrare figuras.
(Miller, XV.374.153-376.159,165-72)
2 8
The original reads as follows:
. . . medi cum sede senatus
constitit alma Venus nulli cernenda suique
Caesaris eripuit membris nec in aera solvi
passa recentem animam caelestibus intulit astris
dumque tulit, lumen capere atque ignescere sensit
emisitque sinu: luna volat altius ilia
flammiferumque trahens spatioso limite crinem
stella micat. . . .
(Miller, XV.424.843-50)
EPILOGUE
1Clemens Heselhaus, "Metamorphose-Dichtungen und
Metamorphose-Anschauungen," Euophorion, 47 (1953), 125.
2
Stuart Atkins, Goethe's Faust: A Lxterary
Analysis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958) ,
pp. 60-61.
"^Ibid. , p. 268.
4Frank C. Jennings, "Jean Piaget: Notes on Learn
ing," Saturday Review, May 20, 1967, p. 81.
C
If one were to try to trace the morphology of
metamorphosis one might find that it was first a symbol
with the stress on content. Then the symbol of meta
morphosis, as in geology, indicated to the human mind a
process, the change of one form to another form; therefore
320
the content took on a form. That would be stage number 2.
Stage number 3 would be the process as form composed usu
ally of two separate images plus an action in the earlier
examples of metamorphosis. This action between two images
can exist in time, but in the mythic consciousness has
trans-historical implications— "as in the Ovidian myths";
that is, it can be, and was, treated as a concrete and
specific moment in time, the metamorphic event involving
the change of form, consciousness, character or condition
as being representative of "the first time." Later on,
as we see that metamorphosis as an image, usually a symbol,
recurs and is found frequently enough not only throughout
literature but throughout the different sciences and arts
to be representative of a part of one’s literary experi
ence as a whole, we find that content and form begin to
equal something beyond the original mythic use of the
symbol. A form with a "content" can be variable in all
its extremes, in all the senses of variability, but the
possibility exists that metamorphosis can become a
"symbolic form," and "expressive form," or "sign" in it
self. The concept of tension inherent in the metamorphic
process is also an important part of this idea. As form
tends usually to glide imperceptibly into content, it is
difficult to set up metamorphosis at this point as a
symbolic form in itself. That effort, indeed, requires a
separate study.
These ideas were stimulated by preliminary reading
in the difficult and fascinating work of Ernst Cassirer
(The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Vol. II: Mythical
Thought, trans. Ralph Mannheim; New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1955), Claude L^vi-Strauss (Structural
Anthropology; New York: Basic Books, 1953), and Susanne
K. Langer (Problems of Art; New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1957)1 These treatises on symbolic logic and form
have confirmed my belief that thoughtful work might very
well succeed in establishing metamorphosis as a symbolic
form. If efforts in such a direction succeeded, a new
and important achetype would be added not only to the
body of mythic criticism but to literary criticism as a
whole. Work in that direction would have to include
examination of formalist criticism and also of struc
turalism as a concept. Langer, particularly, opens up
enticing vistas of what it might be to further investigate
the field.
The concept of signs is given artistic expression
in Italo Calvino's imaginative work, Cosmicomics (New
York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968), pp. 28-39.
An article by Fredric Jameson ("Metacommentary,"
PMLA, 86 (January 1971), 9-18), although not discussing
321
metamorphosis itself, is most suggestive as to the deeper
meanings one might discover in the concept. Especially
suggestive is the article with respect to metamorphosis
considered as a metaphor. Langer, too, offers valuable
thoughts on the nature and uses of metaphor (pp. 22, 23
and passim) which might readily be related to the concept
of metamorphosis.
7
Humphries, XV.392. The original reads as follows:
Iamque opus exegi, quid nec Iovis ira nec ignis
nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetustas.
cum volet, ilia dies, quae nil nisi corporis huius
ius habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi:
parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis
astra ferar, . . .
. . . perque omnia saecula fama,
siquid habent veri vatum praesagia, viam.
(Miller, XV.426.871-79)
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322
323
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Asset Metadata

Creator Kramer, Anne Pearce (author)

Core Title Neo-Metamorphoses: A Cyclical Study. Comparative Transformations In Ovidian Myth And Modern Literature

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Comparative Literature

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, General,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Advisor Malone, David H. (committee chair), Arnold, Aerol (committee member), Von Hofe, Harold (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-488073

Unique identifier UC11362440

Identifier 7221680.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-488073 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 7221680

Dmrecord 488073

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Kramer, Anne Pearce

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA