Translating Ovid'sMetamorphosesin Tudor Balladry

Abstract

This article provides the first sustained overview and analysis of the reception of Ovid's “Metamorphoses” in sixteenth-century English ballad culture. It highlights a significant tradition of translating materials from this ancient Roman source into the stuff of vernacular song—a phenomenon that can be traced back as far as 1552. Positing that popular music must have played a crucial role in shaping Tudor ideas about the “Metamorphoses,” this study draws attention to the textual, visual, aural, and kinetic dimensions of the Ovidiana that was regularly read, seen, heard, sung, and even danced to by early modern consumers of mythological ballads.