The tile from Ovid's poem Metamorphoses literally translates as “transformation”. The collection is in fact itself a work of transformation, merging a multitude of Greek and Roman historical traditions into a single massive epic poem. There are many types of transformations that occur for different reasons throughout the poem: people and gods transform into plants and animals, love into hatred, chaos into existence. Love is the catalyst that creates these changes in the stories that make up Metamorphoses. This love is described as a turbulent force that possesses the power to create both positive and negative change. Those affected by this force are entirely in its power, to the exclusion of reason and often morality. The transformations in the Metamorphoses arise from the pursuit or effects rendered by love. As we have noted, this love does not always have a positive outcome; in fact, it is often quite the opposite. Five main subcategory causes arise from the transformations brought about by love: sexual encounters, escape, heartbreak, punishment, and romantic love. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Sexual encounters are diverse and common in the Metamorphoses stories. The two recurring types of encounters are those of rape and relationships resulting in pregnancy. Rape is common in the plots of these stories. These instances occur in plots such as that found in Book X, which documents Neptune's rape of Caenis. Afterwards, Caenis transforms into a male so that she can never be sexually violated again. In Book VI, Tereus rapes his sister-in-law, Philomela, who ends up transforming, along with her sister, into a bird to escape. When, in Book X, Myrrha satisfies her sexual appetite for her father and becomes pregnant, she flees her homeland and prays for her transformation; subsequently, it is transformed into myrrh which gives birth to the illegitimate child. Many characters in these stories experience transformation in their attempt to escape a person, god, or situation. In Book I, Apollo pursues Daphne, a disciple of Diana determined to preserve her virginity. When Apollo persists against Daphne's wishes, she flees and calls on her father, the river god, to transform her beauty. Daphne becomes a laurel tree and thus manages to escape. In the next example, we again see a human fleeing the unwanted affections of a god. In book 5, Arethusa is transformed into a river by the goddess Diana to escape her servant, Alpheus. In both cases, the gods take pity on humans, changing their physical makeup. Grief often becomes the cause of a transformative narrative as the human or divine form the character occupies becomes unbearable. By transforming, typically into plant form, this character not only escapes their mourning, but forever preserves the memory of what they mourned. In Book X, the young man Cyparissus accidentally causes the death of his favorite deer, and in his inability to stop his mourning, Apollo transforms him into a cypress tree. Book VIII tells the story of Byblis, whose unrequited love afflicts her so much that it turns into a spring eternally fed by her tears. Punishment is a constant theme throughout the epic, usually inflicted by the gods on human beings or each other due to indignation in the face of pride or simply out of revenge. These types of punishment are linked to love in that revenge is.