Erysichthon’s terrible hunger, the punishment inflicted on him by the Goddess Ceres, drives him to sell his own daughter: she finds a way to escape her new master, but there is no way for Erysichthon to escape a terrible death.

Hear Ovid’s Latin and follow in English translation here.

The Thessalian King Erysichthon holds the Gods in contempt. He has not only cut down Ceres’s sacred oak and killed the Dryad within, but boasted that he would do the same for Ceres herself, given the opportunity. We have already met the agent that Ceres has chosen to revenge herself on him: Fames, the personification of Hunger. Now, having received her orders, she slips down to the Earth to carry them out …

Hear Ovid’s Latin and follow in English here.

Ovid vividly tells the tragic story of Phaethon, the son of the Sun God, Phoebus Apollo, who unwisely dared to try to drive his father’s fiery chariot across the sky.

Hear Ovid’s Latin and follow in English here, as Phaethon sets out on his doomed adventure.

To be continued …