"Nam vos mutastis et illas" (Ovid)

Question

This is a phrase from the opening lines of the Metamorphoses. (1.1–4) I am curious about a couple of things when it comes to this phrase. First, mutastis is an alternative form of the second-person perfect plural. How did this alternative come about? Also, which grammar references should I look at to find these alternatives?

The literal translation of the phrase is "For you have changed them also". But what exactly does Ovid mean by this? I have reproduced the context, below, along with my English translation.

In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas
corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas)
adspirate meis primaque ab origine mundi
ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen.

My mind inclines me to speak of bodies changed into new forms; gods, breathe on my undertakings (for you have changed them also) and from the first origin of the world to my age lead my perpetual song.

I appreciate any help in understanding what Ovid means by this phrase and the peculiarity of its verb mutastis. Thanks!

Answer 1

The form of mutastis is called a "syncopated perfect." From Gildersleeve, section 131:

The perfects in āvī, ēvī, īvī, often drop the v before s or r, and contract the vowels throughout, except those in īvī, which admit the contraction only before s.

The syncopated forms are found in all periods, and in the poets are used to suit the metre.

As far as the meaning, there's a good reason you're having trouble: in the last few decades, if I understand correctly, the scholarly consensus has more and more been that illas, which can only refer to formas—a reference that people have tied themselves in knots over for centuries, because it doesn't make any sense—is a textual corruption and that what Ovid probably wrote was illa, referring to cœptīs (from cœpta). (E.J. Kenney published the first suggestion of this in 1976; David Kovacs produced an alternative explanation of the same correction in 1987.)

With the new reading—nam vos mutastis et illa—Ovid is juxtaposing the change the gods have made to the shapes (formas) in transforming them into new bodies (nova corpora) with the change the gods have made to his undertakings (cœptis). I won't presume to speak on what Ovid means, but several possible interpretations occur to me:

I, Ovid, intended to talk about something else, but you, gods, have changed my undertakings so that I'm going to talk about metamorphoses.

I, Ovid, have undertaken many things in the past, and you, gods, have often changed them to suit your will; I beg you, therefore, to look favorably on this one.

And so on. Note that the change also occurs at the point in the line where his audience would be expecting elegiac meter—but he gives them hexameter. So he's playing around with form and reflecting it in the content.

Smart cookie, that Ovid.