# Thracian Women Transformed to Trees explained — Metamorphoses

> Chapter companion for Metamorphoses by Ovid.

## What happens

Bacchus punishes the Thracian women for murdering Orpheus by transforming them into trees. Their feet become rooted, their legs covered in bark, and their arms become branches, turning them into a grove.

## Themes in this chapter

### Transformation and Metamorphosis

The Thracian women are physically transformed into trees as a punishment for their cruelty.

### Divine Power and Human Folly

Bacchus exercises divine authority to punish the women for their wicked actions against Orpheus.

## Character check-ins

### Bacchus

Resolves to revenge the murder of Orpheus by transforming the Thracian women into trees.

### Orpheus

Mentioned as the murdered victim whose wrong Bacchus avenges.

## Key lines

> Bacchus, resolving to revenge the wrong, Of Orpheus murder’d, on the madding throng, Decreed that each accomplice dame should stand, Fix’d by the roots, along the conscious land.

Bacchus decided to punish the frenzied women who killed Orpheus by turning each guilty woman into a tree rooted in the ground.

_Describes Bacchus's motivation and the decree of transformation._

> Their wicked feet, that late so nimbly ran To wreak their malice on the guiltless man, Sudden with twisted ligatures were bound, Like trees, deep planted in the turfy ground

The feet that had swiftly run to harm the innocent Orpheus were suddenly bound and rooted into the earth like trees.

_Highlights the irony of the punishment: the feet used for evil are now immobilized._

> One smites her thighs with a lamenting stroke, And finds the flesh transform’d to solid oak; Another, with surprise and grief distress’d, Lays on above, but beats a wooden breast.

One woman strikes her thigh in grief and discovers it has become hard oak; another, shocked and sorrowful, hits her chest only to find it is wood.

_Illustrates the physical transformation and the women's horrified realization._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/metamorphoses_se/chapters/thracian-women-transformed-to-trees
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/metamorphoses_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/metamorphoses_se/chapters