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Book 6: The Lycian Peasants
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Metamorphoses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Metamorphosis
Humanity vs. Nature
Love and Destruction
Gods and Humans
Time, Fate, and Poetry
Summary
Analysis
Another story of Latona’s power tells of how she punished a satyr who claimed to be as good at playing the pipe as Latona’s son Apollo. Latona peeled away the satyr’s skin, exposing his intestines. The satyr’s fellow nymphs and naiads cried for him, and their tears turned into a spring that feeds the sea.
The cruelty of Latona’s punishment of the satyr far exceeds the severity of his crime. This shows that the gods hate arrogance more than any other vice and detest when humans claim to be better than them at anything.
Themes
