Chasing Shadows
The Latin Qvarter is looking for partners to help us bring to the stage Chasing Shadows, an adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The show will combine myth, music, comedy, Ovid’s original Latin, with the brilliant work of the Ukrainian dance troupe, Shadow Theatre Verba. See the preview here (and below for the Latin and English translations):
Actaeon discovers Diana and her nymphs bathing:
Quī simul intrāvit rōrantia fontibus antra,
sīcut erant nūdae vīsō sua pectora nymphae
percussēre virō subitīsque ululātibus omne
implēvēre nemus circumfūsaeque Diānam
corporibus texēre suīs; tamen altior illīs
ipsa dea est collōque tenus superēminet omnēs.
As soon as he entered the grotto and felt the fountain spray, just as they were, naked, the nymphs see this man, and beat their breasts. Their cries went up filling the whole wood, as they crowded around Diana and covered her with their bodies. The goddess, however, was taller than they, and from her neck appeared above them all.
Metamorphoses 3.177-82
Diana speaks:
Nunc tibi mē positō vīsam vēlāmine narrēs,
sī poteris narrāre, licet!
‘Now you may say you saw me unrobed – if you’re able to speak!’
Metamorphoses 3.192-3
Actaeon’s hounds catch his scent:
Dum dubitat, vidēre canēs, prīmīque Melampus
Ichnobatēsque sagāx lātrātū signa dedēre,
Cnōsius Ichnobatēs, Spartānā gente Melampus.
He hesitates, and his hounds catch sight of him: first Melampus and keen-scented Ichnobates take up the cry, Cretan Ichnobates and Melampus of Spartan stock.
Metamorphoses 3.206-8
The chase:
Inde ruunt aliī rapidā vēlōcius aurā,
Pamphagos et Dorceus et Orībasos, Arcades omnēs,
Nebrophonosque valēns et trux cum Laelape Thērōn
et pedibus Pterelās et nāribus ūtilis Agrē
Hȳlaeusque ferōx nūper percussus ab aprō
dēque lupō concepta Napē pecudēsque secūta
Poemenis et nātīs comitāta Harpȳia duōbus
et substricta gerēns Sicyōnius īlia Lādōn
et Dromas et Canachē Stictēque et Tigris et Alcē
et niveīs Leucōn et villīs Asbolos ātris
praevalidusque Lacōn et cursū fortis Aellō
et Thoos et Cypriō vēlōx cum frātre Lycīscē
et nigram mediō frontem distinctus ab albō
Harpalos et Melaneus hirsūtaque corpore Lachnē
et patre Dictaeō, sed mātre Lacōnide nātī
Labros et Argiodus et acūtae vōcis Hylactor …
Then others pick up the chase, faster than a rush of wind, Pamphagos, Dorceus, Oribasos, Arcadians all, mighty Nebrophonos, wild Theron with Laelaps, and surefooted Pterelas and keen-scented Agre, and fierce Hylaeus recently gouged by a boar, and Nape the wolf-pup, Poemenis the sheepdog, and Harpyia with her two youngsters close by, and Sicyonian Ladon with hollow flanks, and Dromas and Canache and Sticte and Tigris and Alce and white-haired Leucon and dark Asbolos, and powerful Lacon, and the stayer Aello, and Thoos, and swift Lycisce with her brother Cyprius, and Harpalos known by the white star in the middle of his dark brow, and Melaneus, and Lachne shaggy all over, and Labros and Argiodus of a Cretan father but Spartan mother, and shrill-voiced Hylactor …
Metamorphoses 3.209-24
See more of Shadow Theatre Verba here
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