Ovidian Ambivalence and Responses to Myrrha in Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses and Bidart’s Desire

Abstract

In the Metamorphoses Ovid authorizes opposing responses to the figure of Myrrha and her incestuous desire. While Ovid’s Orpheus (who narrates Myrrha’s story) condemns Myrrha at the outset of the tale, Ovid’s portrayal of Myrrha may invite an audience’s sympathy. The unclear cause of Myrrha’s desire and Myrrha’s own recognition of the social force of pudor allow her to be viewed as a mortal caught in an impossible predicament rather than as a unclean criminal. Ovid allows audience members to decide how they will respond to Myrrha. Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses reshapes the story of Myrrha to fit an economy of reward and punishment. In Zimmerman’s play Myrrha becomes a representative of abnormal and culpable desire who is punished and then made to disappear, like a bad dream. Frank Bidart takes an opposite tack in his Desire. Bidart presents Myrrha as an embodiment of the difficulties of desire and encourages an audience to offer her not merely sympathy but even empathy, since her desire cannot be decisively distinguished from our own.