British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

 

BA PDF Symposium 2004: Abstracts

21 April 2004

Dr Ben Henry

Narcissus and Others in Unpublished Greek Verses from Oxyrhynchus

Only one full poetic account of the myth of Narcissus survives from classical antiquity, that of Ovid in the third book of the Metamorphoses. A papyrus leaf from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt has now been found to contain an earlier version of the story in Greek elegiac couplets, together with portions of two other mythical narratives involving metamorphosis. The new evidence provides a unique insight into the nature and quality of the Greek poems on metamorphoses that once existed alongside Ovid’s Latin treatment of the theme. In this paper, I shall present the text of the papyrus, an edition of which is to appear in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and discuss its place in literary history.

Dr Ben Henry took up his British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Oriel College, Oxford, in 2001. He studied for his first degree, in Literae Humaniores (Classics and Philosophy), and for his DPhil at Merton College, Oxford. His main research interests are in Greek literary papyrology and the Greek lyric poets. He is currently working on the text of Pindar.