| Table of Contents |
| | Preface | |
| 1 | The myth-kitty | 5 |
| 2 | A rough guide to the gods | 21 |
| 3 | A mythical history of the world in one chapter | 36 |
| 4 | Orpheus | 61 |
| | 1 | from Argonautica, c. 250 B.C. / Apollonius of Rhodes | 75 |
| | 2 | from the Georgics, c. 29 B.C. / Virgil | 76 |
| | 3 | from The Art of Poetry, c. 10 B.C. / Horace | 80 |
| | 4 | from the Metamorphoses, c. A.D. 10 / Ovid | 81 |
| | 5 | from The Consolation of Philosophy, c. A.D. 520 / Boethius | 88 |
| | 6 | Medieval mythographers | 90 |
| | 7 | from Sir Orfeo, c. 1330 | 91 |
| | 8 | from Orpheus and Eurydice, later fifteenth century / Robert Henryson | 96 |
| | 9 | Edmund Spenser on Orpheus | 101 |
| | 10 | from The Art of English Poesy, 1589 / George Puttenham | 104 |
| | 11 | from Astrophil and Stella, 1591 / Philip Sidney | 105 |
| | 12 | from Ovid's Banquet of Sense, 1595 / George Chapman | 106 |
| | 13 | William Shakespeare | 107 |
| | 14 | from The Wisdom of the Ancients, 1609 / Francis Bacon | 109 |
| | 15 | from Christ's Victory and Triumph, 1610 / Giles Fletcher | 111 |
| | 16 | Song: 'When Orpheus Sweetly Did Complain', 1620s? / William Strode | 113 |
| | 17 | from Ovid's Metamorphoses Englished, 1632 / George Sandys | 114 |
| | 18 | from 'An Elegy upon the Death of ... Dr. John Donne', 1633 / Thomas Carew | 116 |
| | 19 | from Mystagogus Poeticus, 1647 / Alexander Ross | 118 |
| | 20 | John Milton on Orpheus | 118 |
| | 21 | 'On the Death of Mr. Purcell', 1696 / John Dryden | 123 |
| | 22 | 'Ode for Music on St. Cecilia's Day', 1713 / Alexander Pope | 124 |
| | 23 | Countess of Winchilsea, 'To Mr. Pope', c. 1714 / Anne Finch | 128 |
| | 24 | 'A Song', 1724 R. M. | 130 |
| | 25 | from Fables: 'The Monkey Who Had Seen the World', 1727 / John Gay | 131 |
| | 26 | 'Impromptu, to a Young Lady Singing', 1736? / Mary Wortley Montagu | 133 |
| | 27 | from Eurydice, 1737 / Henry Fielding | 134 |
| | 28 | from 'On the Use and Abuse of Poetry', c. 1750 / William Collins | 136 |
| | 29 | from 'Elegy on Captain Cook', 1780 / Anna Seward | 137 |
| | 30 | from The Prelude, 1805 / William Wordsworth | 138 |
| | 31 | from 'Hints from Horace', 1811 / Lord Byron | 139 |
| | 32 | from 'The Four Ages of Poetry', 1820 / Thomas Love Peacock | 140 |
| | 33 | 'Orpheus', c. 1820 / Percy Bysshe Shelley | 141 |
| | 34 | from Orpheus and Eurydice, 1852 / Robert B. Brough | 144 |
| | 35 | 'Eurydice to Orpheus', 1864 / Robert Browning | 147 |
| | 36 | 'Orpheus', 1864 / Richard Watson Dixon | 148 |
| | 37 | 'Eurydice', 1876 / Edward Dowden | 153 |
| | 38 | from 'Orpheus in Hades', 1893 / Lord De Tabley | 157 |
| | 39 | 'Eurydice', 1917 / H. D. | 159 |
| | 40 | 'Orpheus', 1937 / W. H. Auden | 163 |
| | 41 | from 'Orpheus', 1948 / Sydney Goodsir Smith | 163 |
| | 42 | from The King Must Die, 1958 / Mary Renault | 165 |
| | 43 | Muriel Rukeyser | 167 |
| | 44 | 'Fragment of a Legend', 1965 / Rolfe Humphries | 169 |
| | 45 | 'Orpheus Street, SE5', 1967 / Michael Hamburger | 171 |
| | 46 | from Kleinzeit, 1974 / Russell Hoban | 173 |
| | 47 | 'Orpheus without Music', 1975 / Lauris Edmond | 176 |
| | 48 | 'The Feast of Eurydice', 1980 / Elaine Feinstein | 177 |
| | 49 | three poems, 1984 / Margaret Atwood | 183 |
| | 50 | 'Bas Relief: Bacchante', 1984 / Sandra M. Gilbert | 186 |
| | 51 | 'The Story of Orph', 1985 / John Heath-Stubbs | 187 |
| | 52 | 'Orpheus', 1991 / A. D. Hope | 190 |
| 5 | Venus and Adonis | |
| | 1 | Idyll 15: The Festival of Adonis, third century B.C. / Theocritus | 211 |
| | 2 | 'Lament for Adonis', c. 100 B.C. / Bion | 217 |
| | 3 | from 'Lament for Bion', c. 100 B.C. / Moschus | 221 |
| | 4 | from the Metamorphoses, c. A.D. 10 / Ovid | 225 |
| | 5 | from The Library of Greek Mythology, first or second century A.D. / Apollodorus | 230 |
| | 6 | from The Faerie Queene, 1590 / Edmund Spenser | 231 |
| | 7 | from Venus and Adonis, 1593 / William Shakespeare | 241 |
| | 8 | Sonnet 17 from Cynthia, 1595 / Richard Barnfield | 262 |
| | 9 | Sonnet 3 from Fidessa, 1596 / Bartholomew Griffin | 263 |
| | 10 | from The Fair Maid of the Exchange, 1607 / Thomas Heywood | 264 |
| | 11 | Song, from Britannia's Pastorals, 1616 / William Browne | 266 |
| | 12 | from Ovid's Metamorphoses Englished, 1632 / George Sandys | 267 |
| | 13 | from Mystagogus Poeticus, 1647 / Alexander Ross | 268 |
| | 14 | John Milton on Adonis | 269 |
| | 15 | from 'Bion: A Pastoral', 1680 / John Oldham | 271 |
| | 16 | from 'On the Death of Mr. John Oldham', 1684 / Thomas Andrews | 272 |
| | 17 | 'Valentine's Day', c. 1740 / Richard Savage | 273 |
| | 18 | 'Venus and Adonis: A Cantata', 1755 / Samuel Derrick | 278 |
| | 19 | from The Botanic Garden, 1791 / Erasmus Darwin | 280 |
| | 20 | from Endymion, 1818 / John Keats | 282 |
| | 21 | Adonais, 1821 / Percy Bysshe Shelley | 288 |
| | 22 | 'Adon', 1855 / Robert Bulwer-Lytton | 305 |
| | 23 | 'A Lament for Adonis', c. 1865 / Lord De Tabley | 306 |
| | 24 | 'Adonis', 1892 / Wilfrid Scawen Blunt | 308 |
| | 25 | from The Golden Bough, 1906 / James George Frazer | 309 |
| | 26 | 'Adonis', 1917 / H. D. | 315 |
| | 27 | from The Waste Land, 1922 / T. S. Eliot | 316 |
| | 28 | from 'The Pot of Earth', 1925 / Archibald MacLeish | 319 |
| | 29 | 'Her Vision in the Wood', 1926 / W. B. Yeats | 327 |
| | 30 | 'Adonis in Winter', 1944 / Kenneth Rexroth | 328 |
| 6 | Pygmalion | 332 |
| | 1 | from Metamorphoses, c. A.D. 10 / Ovid | 346 |
| | 2 | from Exhortation to the Greeks, c. A.D. 200 / Clement of Alexandria | 348 |
| | 3 | from Against the Pagans, c. A.D. 300 / Arnobius of Sicca | 349 |
| | 4 | from Confessio Amantis, c. 1390 / John Gower | 350 |
| | 5 | from Six Books of Metamorphoseos, c. 1480 / William Caxton | 352 |
| | 6 | from 'Pygmalion's Friend and his Image', 1576 / George Pettie | 353 |
| | 7 | 'The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image', 1598 / John Marston | 358 |
| | 8 | from The Winter's Tale, c. 1610 / William Shakespeare | 366 |
| | 9 | from 'The Fifth Satire: On Dotage', 1621 / Richard Brathwait | 371 |
| | 10 | 'On the Discovery of a Lady's Painting', 1630s? / Edmund Waller | 373 |
| | 11 | from The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, 1751 / Tobias Smollett | 374 |
| | 12 | 'On a Lady's Picture', early eighteenth century / Thomas Tickell | 378 |
| | 13 | 'The Choice', mid-eighteenth century / Soame Jenyns | 379 |
| | 14 | from The Town Before You, 1795 / Hannah Cowley | 381 |
| | 15 | 'Pygmalion', 1762/1811 / Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Mason | 385 |
| | 16 | from Frankenstein, 1818 / Mary Shelley | 390 |
| | 17 | 'Pygmalion, or The Cyprian Statuary', 1825 / Thomas Lovell Beddoes | 391 |
| | 18 | 'Drowne's Wooden Image', 1846 / Nathaniel Hawthorne | 398 |
| | 19 | from Aurora Leigh, 1856 / Elizabeth Barrett Browning | 408 |
| | 20 | from 'Pygmalion the Sculptor', 1864 / Robert Buchanan | 409 |
| | 21 | from 'Pygmalion and the Image', 1868 / William Morris | 413 |
| | 22 | from Pygmalion and Galatea, 1871 / W. S. Gilbert | 417 |
| | 23 | 'Galatea', 1885 / Elizabeth Stuart Phelps | 424 |
| | 24 | from Pygmalion, 1912 / Bernard Shaw | 425 |
| | 25 | 'Pygmalion', 1917 / H. D. | 437 |
| | 26 | Robert Graves | 439 |
| | 27 | 'The Perverse', 1928 / C. Day Lewis | 441 |
| | 28 | from 'The Loves of Lady Purple', 1974 / Angela Carter | 441 |
| | 29 | 'Ivory and Water', 1994 / Michael Longley | 446 |
| | Bibliography | 450 |
| | Index of mythological names | 453 |
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