Abstract
The article argues that an analysis of Ovid's narrative of the myth of Apollo and Hyacinthus in Met. 10 and its context, the song of Orpheus, reveals important insights into the relationship between Ovid and the epic genre. The pain felt by Apollo for having caused the death of Hyacinthus harmonizes with the song of Orpheus in which a bitter reflection is made on the arbitrariness with which the gods interact with mortals. A comparison with the poetic battle between the Pierides and the Muses in Book 5 then sheds light on a possible intertextual connection between the poem of Orpheus and Ovid, with a consequent meta-textual reference to the originality of the Metamorphoses as an epic poem.
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