At the center of The Metamorphoses, a work thought by many to be the wittiest poem by the wittiest author of antiquity, lies the theme of change and transformation. Composed of a series of kaleidoscopic narratives in which human and divine characters meet with paradoxical and always arbitrary fates, The Metamorphoses is alternately humorous, pathetic and bizarre, but always surprising and entertaining. A. D. Melville's translation admirably reproduces the grace and fluidity of Ovid's style, with the subtle addition, for occasional special effect, of rhyming couplets to the traditional blank verse form.