One of Ovid’s weirdest tales, in which Juno convinces the pregnant Semele to demand her lover Jupiter reveals himself, resulting in her death, caesarian section and his surrogate pregnancy.
Metamorphoses
The grandson of the founder of Thebes happens into Diana’s sacred wood when out hunting, and sees the goddess naked. She changes him into a stag, with fatal consequences.
Killed by Jupiter’s thunderbolts when she insisted he proved his identity, this myth is a reminder that making something more secure isn’t always a good answer.
Europa’s brother Cadmus is told to found a new city wherever a cow leads him. After killing a man-eating dragon, he sows its teeth in the soil.
Left as a cliffhanger ending to Book 2, Jupiter assumes the form of a white bull, and lures Europa to sit astride his back before whisking her away across the sea.
Mercury takes a fancy to Herse, but Minerva makes her sister Aglauros jealous. When she tries to block the god, he turns her to stone.
The raven’s feathers are changed from white to black, the crow replaced by an owl originally threatened by Neptune’s rape, and more.
Jupiter rapes an Arcadian nymph and follower of Diana, who is then cast out, turned into a bear by Juno, and almost killed by her son.
Young Phaëthon challenges the god of the sun, Phoebus, to prove he is his father, and takes his chariot on a ride to disaster and death.
Jupiter wants Io, but after raping her turns her into a cow for safe-keeping. Juno suspects, though, and puts the cow under the watchful hundred eyes of Argus.
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