Editing Metamorphoses (section)

==In English translation==
[[File:Caxton Ovid, 1480.jpg|thumb|An illumination of the story of [[Pyramus and Thisbe]] from a manuscript of [[William Caxton]]'s translation of the ''Metamorphoses'' (1480)—the first in the English language]]
The full appearance of the ''Metamorphoses'' in English translation (sections had appeared in the works of Chaucer and [[John Gower|Gower]]){{sfn|Lyne|2006|p=249}} coincides with the beginning of printing, and traces a path through the history of publishing.{{sfn|Lyne|2006|p=249}}{{sfn|Gillespie|Cummings|2004|p=207}} [[William Caxton]] produced the first translation of the text on 22 April 1480;<ref name="Blake 1990">{{cite book|last=Blake|first=N. F.| author-link = Norman Blake (academic)|title=William Caxton and English literary culture |year=1990 |publisher=Hambledon |location=London |isbn=978-1-85285-051-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/williamcaxtoneng0000blak/page/298 298] |url=https://archive.org/details/williamcaxtoneng0000blak|url-access=registration}}</ref> set in prose, it is a literal rendering of a French translation known as the ''Ovide Moralisé''.{{sfn|Lyne|2006|pp=250–251}}

In 1567, [[Arthur Golding]] published a translation of the poem that would become highly influential, the version read by Shakespeare and Spenser.{{sfn|Lyne|2006|p=252}} It was written in [[rhyming couplet]]s of [[iambic heptameter]]. The next significant translation was by [[George Sandys]], produced from 1621 to 1626,{{sfn|Gillespie|Cummings|2004|pp=208–209}} which set the poem in [[heroic couplet]]s, a metre that would subsequently become dominant in vernacular English epic and in English translations.{{sfn|Lyne|2006|p=254}}

In 1717, a translation appeared from [[Samuel Garth]] bringing together work "by the most eminent hands":{{sfn|Gillespie|Cummings|2004|p=212}} primarily [[John Dryden]], but several stories by [[Joseph Addison]], one by [[Alexander Pope]],{{Sfn|Soucy|2023|p=xxx}} and contributions from [[Nahum Tate|Tate]], [[John Gay|Gay]], [[William Congreve|Congreve]], and [[Nicholas Rowe (writer)|Rowe]], as well as those of eleven others including Garth himself.{{sfn|Lyne|2006|p=256}} Translation of the ''Metamorphoses'' after this period was comparatively limited in its achievement; the Garth volume continued to be printed into the 1800s, and had "no real rivals throughout the nineteenth century".{{sfn|Lyne|2006|p=258}}

Around the later half of the 20th century a greater number of translations appeared{{sfn|Gillespie|Cummings|2004|pp=216–218}} as literary translation underwent a revival.{{sfn|Lyne|2006|p=258}} This trend has continued into the twenty-first century.{{sfn|Gillespie|Cummings|2004|p=218}} In 1994, a collection of translations and responses to the poem, entitled ''[[After Ovid: New Metamorphoses]]'', was produced by numerous contributors in emulation of the process of the Garth volume.{{sfn|Lyne|2006|pp=259–260}}