In limine sedit: Aglauros and the barring of the lover in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (original) (raw)

Metamorphoses ', Ovid's Metamorphoses is one of the finest examples in Classical literature of the elimination of boundaries between genres. 1 Only in form an epic, this poem brings together Homeric grandeur and Alexandrian tenderness. The list of models and influences is endless: epic, hymns, lyric, tragedy, comedy, philology, epyllion, epigram, folk stories. Last but by no means least comes elegy, a genre in which Ovid made his first steps and to which he returned in a different mood in his exile. It is this latter type of poetry I will be concerned with in the present paper. Admittedly, it has been widely explored ever since Heinze's time. 2 I believe, however, that there still remain a few issues to be investigated, and this is why I now turn to consider a story with origins in Archaic Greek myth where Ovid inserts elegiac motifs to create a parody of elegiac love, namely, the tale of Aglauros and Herse in Met. 2.708-835.