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Ovid Met.

Petrus Berchorius, Ovidius moralizatus [Ovid moralized], ca. 1340

Text describing Perseus as a Christ figure, saving the human soul from sin and Satan, signifying Christ's pact with humanity

Daniel Javitch, “Rescuing Ovid from the Allegorizers,” Comparative Literature 30 (1978): 97 – 107. In the passage at right, Javitch summarizes Berchorius’ allegorization (99–100).

Even though the moralizer’s rendering may seem far-fetched, it is highly characteristic of readings of Ovid’s Metamorphoses that were common well into the 16th Century.

Berchorius’ treatise is not to be confused with the like-titled anonymous French allegorical poem called Ovide moralisé from earlier in the 14th Century.

Cf. Christine de Pizan’s didactic romance, L’epistre d’Othéa à Hector (ca. 1400), chapter 5 in which Andromeda represents the human soul and Perseus rescues her, saving her fama or “good name.”
OGCMA0875PerseusAndromeda_dePizan

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.