Ariadne and Ovid

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the depiction of Ariadne by Ovid. Ovid gives extended attention to the story of Ariadne in three of his works, following later events along the narrative line in later poems, moving from Ariadne freshly deserted in Heroides 10, to the approach of Bacchus in Ars Amatoria 1, to a later moment when she finds herself deserted once more, this time by her divine husband, in Fasti 3.2 Although the same, or similar, elements naturally recur in all three episodes, there is a palpable sense of difference and of development which can be perceived in Ariadne's movement from a well-known mythical figure speaking for herself, through an incarnation as didactic exemplum, and into the realization of a future life which, it turns out, cannot escape from its troubled past even whilst theoretical happiness and immortality beckon.