Metamorphoses · Chapter
Fate of Marsyas explained
Marsyas, a skilled flute player, challenges Apollo to a musical contest and is brutally flayed alive as punishment.
What happens
Marsyas, a skilled flute player, challenges Apollo to a musical contest and is brutally flayed alive as punishment. His death is mourned by fauns, satyrs, and nymphs, whose tears form the river Marsyas in Phrygia.
Themes in this chapter
Divine Power and Human Folly
Apollo's severe punishment of Marsyas illustrates the dire consequences of human pride and challenging divine authority.
Transformation and Metamorphosis
The tears of mourners transform into the river Marsyas, a literal metamorphosis from grief to a natural feature.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“Why do you tear me from myself? he cries; Ah! cruel; must my skin be made the prize? This for a silly pipe?”
Marsyas cries out in agony, asking why Apollo is flaying him alive and whether his skin is the reward for losing a contest over a mere flute.
Marsyas's lament highlights the disproportionate punishment for his hubris.
“The fauns and sylvans, with the nymphs that rove Among the satyrs in the shady grove, Olympus, known of old, and every swain That fed, or flock, or herd, upon the plain, Bewail'd the loss, and with their tears, that flow'd, A kindly moisture on the earth bestow'd, That soon, conjoin'd and in a body ranged, Sprung from the ground, to limpid water changed; Which, down through Phrygia's rocks, a mighty stream, Comes tumbling to the sea, and Marsya is its name.”
All the woodland creatures and shepherds mourn Marsyas's death, and their collective tears soak the ground, eventually coalescing into a clear spring that becomes the river Marsyas flowing through Phrygia to the sea.
The transformation of tears into a river symbolizes the lasting impact of Marsyas's tragic fate.