16 May 2009

Cadmus and Hermione

Ovid now resumes the story of Cadmus, which was the first story in Book III. Cadmus and his wife Harmonia (aka Hermione) are turned into snakes. (public domain picture of Candice Marie Johnson right taken from wikicommons)

Faenza's Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche has a decorated dish painted around 1565 from the workshop of Virgiliotto Calamelli. It is not on their website but can be seen on the Iconos website. In the next century Lully wrote the first tragédie lyrique in 1673 and took as his subject Cadmus and Hermione. The prologue below comes from YouTube where other extracts can also be seen.



The story of Cadmus and Hermione forms part of Matthew Arnold's 1852 dramatic poem Empedocles on Etna. Evelyn de Morgan painted the picture below of Cadmus and Hermione in 1877. It is now in London's De Morgan Centre. (public domain picture from museumsyndicate)

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