Sunday, September 4, 2022

From Man to Woman and Back Again: Tiresias, Lactantius Placidus, Narr. 3.5

Name: Lactantius Placidus

Date:  5th or 6th century CE

Region:    Unknown

Citation:  Plots of Ovid’s Myths, Book 3, Story 5

Tiresias had experienced the nature of being a man and a woman. For at some point in his life he had transformed into a woman when he had struck a pair of mating serpents with a stick. He changed back into a man the following spring the same way.

[Tiresias] qui utramque naturam maris ac feminae fuerat expertus. nam quodam tempore cum serpentes concubitu haerentes baculo percussisset, in mulierem conversus fuerat ac rursus proximo vere eadem usus ratione ac tactu in virum cesserat. 

Lactantius Placidus [5th or 6th century CE] is the name of the author attributed to a prose summary of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, but little is known about the author or his time period.


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