Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Metamorphoses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Metamorphosis
Humanity vs. Nature
Love and Destruction
Gods and Humans
Time, Fate, and Poetry
Summary
Analysis
Peleus is happy with his new wife Thetis, but he is soon banished from his city when he kills his half-brother. He goes to Trachis, a peaceful city ruled by a king named Ceyx. Peleus enters Ceyx’s palace with his few companions and asks Ceyx for a home in Trachis. He tells Ceyx who he is but doesn’t tell him that he killed his brother. Weeping, Ceyx welcomes Peleus to Trachis, saying that Peleus is a famous man and the grandson of Jupiter.
When the world had just been created, travel and war were signs of humanity’s corruption. This passage shows that war and travel are interconnected. For instance, when a person kills someone, they flee to escape the consequences; or, when people from one nation travel to other nations, they often want to engage them in war. In this way, war and travel create constant unrest.
Themes
