The earliest known story in the Western canon to end with the suicide of frustrated lovers, it was the precursor to Romeo and Juliet, and extensively depicted.
Ovid
Pentheus pours scorn on the cult of the new god Bacchus, son of Semele. When interrupts revels, he is torn apart by his own mother and aunts, as foretold by Tiresias.
Linked stories of Tiresias, the trans-gender soothsayer, Narcissus who fell in love with himself, and Echo who could only repeat what others said.
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.
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.
The Eclectic Light Company 