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Book 7: Theseus and Aegeus
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
War soon puts a stop to Aegeus’s happiness at Theseus’s return. King Minos of Crete is seeking revenge for his son Androgeos who was killed in Athens. The king travels around, gathering allies. Several kingdoms join his cause, but many also refuse to side with him. Eventually, King Minos arrives at Aegina where a king named Aeacus rules. A large party gathers to greet the Minos. Minos asks King Aeacus to help him get his revenge against Athens, but Aeacus refuses. Aegina and Athens have a treaty of friendship, and Aeacus doesn’t want to break it.
Athens—a city in Greece—and Crete—another city on a Greek island—are engaging in a war and asking the rest of the nations to choose sides. In this way, war is continuing to escalate in the world, suggesting that humanity is steering towards corruption again. However, although war is a kind of corruption, it also seems to spur history forward—a movement that Ovid set out to trace in the Metamorphoses.
Themes
King Minos threatens to return and involve Aegina in war. As he sails away, a ship from Athens enters Aegina’s port. King Aeacus’s three sons—Telamon, Peleus, and Phocus—greet Cephalus, an aged hero, as he deboards with his two companions, Clytus and Butes, and welcome them into the palace.
This passage introduces two characters who will be important later on in the Metamorphoses. Telamon and Peleus—King Aeacus’s three sons—will later be important in founding yet another monumental city.
Themes
