“Metamorphoses” is the most famous work of Ovid (43 BCE-17 or 18), one of the greatest of Roman poets, and has huge cultural importance, inspiring poets, painters, and other artists. A translation into English by Arthur Golding in 1567 was an inspiration and source for Shakespeare. I have a copy of Golding’s translation, but it’s much longer and a much tougher read than Ted Hughes’s (1930-1998) version of some of the poems, which is a favourite book of mine. Hughes’s version is not a translation, but the poems sparkle with life, humour, stories, and images—and are easily read. The one below tells the story of Tiresias, a man who was transformed into a woman after killing two copulating snakes. After seven years as a woman, he was transformed back to a man. He was thus in a unique position to answer the question of Jupiter “In their act of love/Who takes the greater pleasure, man or woman?’ Ovid was exiled from Rome, and I have seen his statue in the middle of a dreary housing estate in Constantia, Romania. Hughes is notorious for making love to another woman while Silvia Plath, his poet wife, killed herself with her two young children in the next room.

Tiresias

One time, Jupiter, happy to be idle,

Swept the cosmic mystery aside

And draining another goblet of ambrosia

Teased Juno, who drowsed in bliss beside him:

‘This love of male and female’s a strange business.

Fifty-fifty investment in the madness,

Yet she ends up with nine-tenths of the pleasure.’

Juno’s answer was: ‘A man might think so.

It needs more than a mushroom in your cup

To wake a wisdom that can fathom which

Enjoys the deeper pleasure, man or woman.

It needs the solid knowledge of a soul

Who having lived and loved in woman’s body

Has also lived and loved in the body of a man.’

Jupiter laughed aloud: ‘We have the answer.

There is a fellow called Tiresias.

Strolling to watch the birds and hear the bees

He came across two serpents copulating.

He took the opportunity to kill

Both with a single blow, but merely hurt them –

And found himself transformed into a woman.

‘After the seventh year of womanhood,

Strolling to ponder on what women ponder

She saw in that same place the same two serpents

Knotted as before in copulation.

“If your pain can still change your attacker

Just as you once changed me, then change me back.”

She hit the couple with a handy stick,

‘And there he stood as male as any man.’

‘He’ll explain,’ cried Juno, ‘why you are

Slave to your irresistible addiction

While the poor nymphs you force to share it with you

Do all they can to shun it.’ Jupiter

Asked Tiresias: ‘In their act of love

Who takes the greater pleasure, man or woman?’

‘Woman,’ replied Tiresias, ‘takes nine-tenths.’

Juno was so angry – angrier

Than is easily understandable –

She struck Tiresias and blinded him.

‘You’ve seen your last pretty snake, for ever.’

But Jove consoled him: ‘That same blow,’ he said,

‘Has opened your inner eye, like a nightscope. See:

‘The secrets of the future – they are yours.’