Plautinisches Im Ovid: The Amphitruo And The Metamorphoses

Abstract

Not unlike Plautus' tragicomic Amphitruo, Ovid's Metamorphoses intersperses genuinely funny passages with unsettling hints at the pains its characters have to endure for the sake of our entertainment. In a sampling of passages ranging from the epic's Birth-of-Hercules episode to its programmatic proem, I will show how Ovid alludes to that original tragicomoedia to achieve this effect. Even as he exploits Plautine humour for comic relief, Ovid recreates the play's tension between comic and tragic elements. The true bleakness of his worldview comes into focus if we realise that where his Plautine model (in spite of all darkness) preferred a last-minute happy ending, Ovid's resolutions tend to embrace tragedy more fully.