"In transforming Ovid, Hughes follows a well-traveled path. Even as Ovid himself pillaged Greek and Roman mythologies in composing his ''Metamorphoses'' Chaucer, Milton, Dryden and especially Shakespeare (in whom, one contemporary noted, ''the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives'') ransacked Ovid's stories to furnish their own artistic worlds. Hughes makes clear his admiration for the gift that Shakespeare shares with Ovid: insight into ''what a passion feels like to one possessed by it. Not just ordinary passion either, but human passion in extremis -- passion where it combusts, or levitates, or mutates into an experience of the supernatural.''
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Hughes, too, is blessed with this gift, and this book brilliantly succeeds at bringing Ovid's passionate and disturbing stories to life. One of the many pleasures offered by this splendid book is discovering that ''the sweet witty soul of Ovid'' now lives in Ted Hughes."