Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.316-38 —translated by James Carney.

Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.316-38

dumque ea per terras fatali lege geruntur

tutaque bis geniti sunt incunabula Bacchi,

forte Iovem memorant diffusum nectare curas

seposuisse graves vacuaque agitasse remissos

cum Iunone iocos et “maior vestra profecto est,

quam quae contingit maribus” dixisse “voluptas.”

illa negat. placuit quae sit sententia docti

quaerere Tiresiae: Venus huic erat utraque nota.

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 feriam.” percussis anguibus isdem

forma prior rediit, genetivaque venit imago.

arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite iocosa

dicta Iovis firmat: gravius Saturnia iusto

nec pro materia fertur doluisse suique

iudicis aeterna damnavit lumina nocte;

at pater omnipotens (neque enim licet inrita cuiquam

facta dei fecisse deo) pro lumine adempto

scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore.

A queer, Butlerian translation by James Carney

And while his upbringing was tended to by the law of fate on earth,

and the cradle of twice-born Bacchus was safe,

by chance, sources recall that nectar-flushed Jove

aborted his swollen worries, and performed soft flirtation

with barren Juno, and he said ‘yours is undoubtedly more majestic

than that which skims husbands. Pleasure.’

She is in denial. It is arousing to discover 

what the palate of colourful Tiresias might be:

Venus has illuminated sex to him on both wings. 

For in a green forest, he slashed two copulating bodies

of great snakes with the crack of a stick; 

and from a man, a miraculous woman is crafted,

and she performed for seven Autumns. In the eighth, she saw the same snakes again

and said, ‘if the power in your tear is so powerful 

that it might transform the fate of the tending into the opposite,

now I will strike you again.’ After the same snakes were impaled

the previous form returned, and an unsullied disposition emerged.  

Therefore, this judge, who was charmed for the playful lawsuit 

confirmed Jove’s arguments: more harshly than by legality, Saturn’s daughter

was brought to grief, and not in proportion to the performances, 

and she cursed the bright eyes of mature Tiresias with eternal darkness.

But illustrious Jove (for it is not licensed for each god

to corrupt what another god has done), instead of the hacked eye,

gifted Tiresias knowledge of the future, and he lightened the punishment with the honour. 

Notes on the translation

In translating this episode, I wanted primarily to explore the creative potential of Ovid’s ambiguity of gender and accentuate the erotic quality of its presentation, which I find frequently overlooked in other translations. Maybe this has to do with the Met’s history of adaptation to medieval Christian allegory or classical literature’s place in conservative Victorian pedagogy. I was inspired specifically by two primary writers: the queer literary theorist Judith Butler and the non-binary poet Kae Tempest. 

Butler conceives of gender as a social construct coded as masculine or feminine that we perform, much like theatre actors. Her theories have been influential in recognising and dismantling often oppressive gender binaries. I wanted to recognise her influence on my own thought and exploit the connections I found between her theory and Ovid’s language choices. This started for me with ‘egerat’ (3.327) which comes from the verb ‘agere.’ ‘Agere’ can mean ‘to do’, ‘to drive’, ‘to pass time’ but, crucially, ‘to act.’ It has theatrical connotations. Ovid deploys the perfect tense of the verb to describe Tiresias’ experience as a woman, which is feasibly prophetic of Butler’s theory if we interpret the verb in terms of performance. From this telling choice of verb, I considered the possibility of further Butlerian readings to fascinating results. 

As Tiresias transforms ‘deque viro’, he is ‘factus femina’ (3.326) - ‘factus’ can be a deponent verb meaning ‘became’ or ‘made.’ The latter meaning is significant – it implies that gender is constructed. However, ‘factus’ could also be verbally adjectival here acting almost like a Homeric epithet that traditionally demarcates admiral male qualities or exemplary women in epic, in relation to their male partners. Yet here its masculine form is paired jarringly with the feminine ‘femina’ translating as ‘(masculine) crafted woman.’ The ambiguity of gender both grammatically and the potential epithetic function transferred to a woman independently emphasises gender’s fluidity, demonstrating ample scope for a Butlerian reading. I reflected this in my translation by referring to Tiresias’ behaviours and experiences through theatrical semantics. 

The idea that ‘factus’ could be epithetic (mirabile) made me think of Kae Tempest’s recent collection Hold Your Own where they explore their non-binary gender identity through the story of Tiresias. Tempest depicts the performance of gender, their queer sexuality and coming of age in late-stage capitalism as a brutal process of raw survival, oscillating between didactic polemics and intimately sexual love poems. As the US Supreme Court has legalised discrimination against LGBT+ people, the UK government and media repeatedly spread misinformation about transgender people, and violence against queer youth reaches unprecedented heights, I thought it important to emphasise the epic quality of Ovid’s poetry. Exploring one’s identity can be a battle, so layer on the epithets like ‘nectar-flushed’ and battle imagery in ‘slashed’ and ‘impaled’!

Tempest’s collection closes with three socially critical poems decrying the diagnosis of difference outside rich, white heteronormativity institutionalised in capitalism. The ironically titled ‘Radical Empathy’ exhibits how political apathy violates possibilities of future peace, equality and justice through the prophetic speaker’s visceral corporeality: 

‘Why should I concern myself with people that I’ve never met?

And no one’s got my back, so why should I have theirs?

My heart throws its head against my ribs,

It’s denting every bone.’

Tempest’s interpretation of Tiresias in terms of his acquired social consciousness through queer experiences intrigued me as a concept, with his blindness being deliberately defensive because of alienation: in the final poem ‘Prophet’, they write ‘All my life I’ve watched men wrestle/Stealing land to fly their flags./He keeps his eyes in a plastic bag.’ I wanted to revisit the Ovidian original with a perspective of love and kindness for this character whom Tempest receives as troubled. To match the absence of ‘Radical Empathy’ in contemporary crises of cruel capitalism, I accentuated Ovid’s erotic undertones to advocate for exploration, transformation, and power of identity to come from a place of love that we, hopefully, as a global community can actualise. Abort the ‘swollen worries’ as is your choice, and be aroused to discover your ‘colourful palates’!