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Literary Imagination Advance Access published online on February 4, 2008
Literary Imagination, doi:10.1093/litimag/imn002
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. All rights reserved. For permissions please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

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M.J. Fitzgerald*

*Email: fitzg007@umn.edu

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

I had proposed to tell you the story of Iphis, stubborn Ligdus’ daughter, whom Telethusa raised as a boy, who fell in love with fair Ianthe and prayed the Egyptian gods—suddenly present in Roman late antiquity—that she may change to man and marry the girl of her dreams.

In Book IX of Metamorphoses her prayer was answered: as she walked to the altar her striding leg lengthened, her hair shortened, her shoulders broadened and hips narrowed, and the soft flesh of her breasts was absorbed into her chest. By the time he reached Ianthe and looked into his bride's gay eyes, a down of curly hair had developed.

I was going to tell you the true story behind this stretch and reach of the human imagination, this Ovidian fantasy. A blow by blow account of how masculinity in one born a woman is really achieved.


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