Through all the stories I find my self very drawn to Pythagoras’ speech. His forwardness addressing the issue of metamorphoses is quite literally a moving piece of literature. In college years I fell that most students are in period of transformation themselves, many of us are searching for spiritual enlightenment or at least a sense of direction. Before reading Ovid, I held some belief in reincarnation, I had always liked to believe that I was true but could never quite bring to words a way of describing it, nor had I ever heard the words put as poetically as done in Ovid. The 5 (5 ½) lines that portray the meaning most directly in my opinion are as follows:
For all things change, but no thing dies.
The spirit wanders: here and there, at will,
The soul can journey from an animal
Into a human body, and from us to beasts;
It occupies a body, but it never perishes.
Now I don’t know if these lines might be overplayed, Pythagoras itself might be overplayed but there is no other passage that I found that directly, and beautifully spoke of the essence of metamorphoses itself.
For all things change, but no thing dies.
The spirit wanders: here and there, at will,
The soul can journey from an animal
Into a human body, and from us to beasts;
It occupies a body, but it never perishes.
Now I don’t know if these lines might be overplayed, Pythagoras itself might be overplayed but there is no other passage that I found that directly, and beautifully spoke of the essence of metamorphoses itself.
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