Ovid’s Metamorphoses : The Arthur Golding Translation of 1567

“Absolutely essential”—Library Journal

“This 1567 translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses…is tough, surprising, and lovely…To read it is to understand the Renaissance view of the classical world, storytelling and also Shakespeare’s language and worldview.”—A. S. Byatt

“It is a tour de force of translation, and it deserves, more than 400 years after its composition, to be read.”—Rain Taxi

“The most beautiful book in the English language.”—Ezra Pound

Since its first publication in 1567, Arthur Golding’s translation of Ovid has had an enormous influence on English literature and poetry. This is the translation that Shakespeare knew, read, and borrowed from. Golding’s witty and beautiful verse continues to delight today’s readers. This volume promises to be a valuable resource for students and teachers of Ovid and Shakespeare indeed, for anyone interested in the foundations of English literature.

“[Golding’s translation] was the English Ovid from the time of publication in 1567 until about a decade after the death of Shakespeare in 1616. The Ovid, that is, for all who read him in English during the greatest period of our literature. And its racy verve, its quirks and oddities, its rugged English gusto, is still more enjoyable, more plain fun to read, than any other Metamorphoses in English.”—From the Introduction by John Frederick Nims

“Ovid was Shakespeare’s favorite classical poet. Both are writers who probe our humanity with great rigor, but ultimately do so in a spirit of sympathy for our frailties and indulgences. Ovid’s world shuttles between human passions and natural phenomena. Shakespeare, with the assistance of Arthur Golding, carried the magic of that world into the medium of theatre.”—From Jonathan Bate’s Essay