BCE – Before Christian Era

• Pantone 18-2328 Fuchsia Red
• Fuchsia Red evokes a powerful emotional response, blending feelings of confidence and assertiveness with a sense of excitement and energy. This vibrant hue inspires creativity and self-expression, encouraging individuals to embrace their unique personality and stand out from the crowd. While it can be invigorating and uplifting, fuchsia should be used judiciously in design and decor, as its intensity can potentially lead to overstimulation if overused.

Fragrance

• Tom Ford Rose Prick (2019)
• A pristine scent, Rose Prick's beauty stems from a wild bouquet of rare blooms inspired by the ones found in a private rose garden. A patchouli note exhales the woody breath of chypre to the floral heart, while the warmth of roasted tonka smolders with notes of caramel and vanilla.

Tree

• Myrtle
• Known for its sweet fragrance and sacred status, the myrtle tree represents love and purity, reflecting the role of scent in Ovid’s stories as a mark of divine favor and emotional resonance.

Artwork

• John William Waterhouse’s Echo and Narcissus (1903)
• The painting is set in an idyllic wooded landscape beside a stream with rocky edges. The young Narcissus is lying prone, with his head over the water, fascinated by his own reflection. He is half-clad in a red robe, symbolising his flaming self-desire. The nymph Echo sits nearby across the stream, clasping a tree with her right hand, gazing at Narcissus in despair. She is symbolically separated from Narcissus, who does not look back towards her. Her cramped posture reflects her unrequited love. She is wearing a pink robe that has fallen off the left shoulder to reveal one breast; the milder pink of her robe reflects less passionate, smouldering love for Narcissus. Near her grow some yellow flag irises, Iris pseudacorus, and she wears a red poppy in her auburn hair. Some white narcissi have emerged from the grass beside the youth's foot, and a yellow water lily, Nuphar lutea, is in the water.

Literature

• Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
• The story revolves around Emma Bovary, a young woman with romantic ideals who becomes disillusioned with her mundane provincial life after marrying Charles Bovary, a kind but unremarkable doctor. Seeking excitement and passion, Emma engages in two extramarital affairs, first with Rodolphe Boulanger and later with Léon Dupuis, while simultaneously indulging in luxurious purchases that lead her into significant debt. As her financial situation deteriorates and her romantic fantasies crumble, Emma becomes increasingly desperate, ultimately consuming arsenic in a tragic suicide.

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We're using a new translation of this wide ranging masterpiece that covers the history of the world, from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar in 42 BC in a mythico-historical framework comprising over 250 myths, 15 books, and 11,995 lines. The translation is by Stephanie McCarter, a Classics professor at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee: Metamorphoses (A Penguin Classics) – Published November 8, 2022.

This will take us well into 2025. BCE read the Metamorphoses before in 2020/2021.

A Latin text is online at https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.02.0029 (Hugo Magnus. Gotha (Germany). Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892).

The prototypical color for this session is Pantone 17-5641 Emerald Green (Color of the Year, 2013) but let's not forget about the whole palette. The fragrance is Jo Malone’s Red Roses (2001). Tree is Cherry Blossom. Art work is Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (1889), Novel is ***My Name is Red ***(Turkish: Benim Adım Kırmızı), a 1998 Turkish novel by Orhan Pamuk. Musical work is Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune (1905)

This session explores the significance of colors in Metamorphoses, focusing on how Ovid uses color to enhance imagery, symbolize transformation, and evoke emotions, all the time being aware that the color vocabulary of the Romans, and even more so of the ancient Greeks, was more limited than in moderns times.

Colors appear in descriptions of nature, divine interventions, and metamorphoses, serving as markers of change, beauty, or power. Through descriptions of colors, Ovid bridges the sensory and the symbolic, allowing students to appreciate how color heightens the poetic and emotional resonance of his stories.

Read these key passages related to the theme

• Metamorphoses 6.1-155 (Arachne’s Tapestry)
• 11.1-69 (The Singing Head of Orpheus)
• 1.289-290 (Iris's association with the rainbow)
• 10.1-92 (Orpheus in the Underworld)
• 5.411-611 (Proserpina’s Abduction and Return)
• 4.432-465 (The Story of Clytie)
• 11.616-636, 11.637-679(Iris at the ending of The Storm at Sea and in The House of Sleep)

Pantone Color

• Pantone 17-5641 Emerald
• This vibrant green symbolizes renewal and transformation, capturing for us moderns the life-affirming power of nature and the vivid imagery in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Fragrance

• Jo Malone’s Red Roses (2001)
• This lush, floral fragrance evokes the passion and beauty of Ovid’s use of red, particularly in stories like Pyramus and Thisbe or Venus and Adonis.

Tree

• Cherry Blossom Tree
• Known for its vivid pink and white blooms, the cherry blossom represents ephemeral beauty and the fleeting yet impactful nature of transformation.

Artwork

• Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (1889)
• Van Gogh’s swirling blues and yellows capture the dynamic interplay of celestial and earthly colors, reflecting the cosmic and transformative elements in Ovid’s narratives.

Musical Work

• Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune (1905)
• This piece evokes a palette of silvery moonlit tones, paralleling the delicate interplay of light and shadow that Ovid uses to describe transformations and emotions.

Literature

• Red Colors My Name by Orhan Pamuk (1998)
• Orhan Pamuk’s novel My Name is Red explores the intersection of art, perception, and individuality in 16th-century Istanbul. The novel delves into the subjective experience of color and its interpretation in art. It presents debates about color perception, including how color signifies meaning and its role in illuminating or obscuring truth.

*****
We're using a new translation of this wide ranging masterpiece that covers the history of the world, from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar in 42 BC in a mythico-historical framework comprising over 250 myths, 15 books, and 11,995 lines. The translation is by Stephanie McCarter, a Classics professor at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee: Metamorphoses (A Penguin Classics) – Published November 8, 2022.

This will take us well into 2025. BCE read the Metamorphoses before in 2020/2021.

A Latin text is online at https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.02.0029 (Hugo Magnus. Gotha (Germany). Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892).