The Link to Blackboard Course Documents will be on by Saturday evening. The word document prints better.

Students need to log in and print from:    OR highlight text below, paste into Word and then print.

Dramatic Interpretation:   4^th Quarter Project for Ovid’s Metamorphoses 

This performance will be counted as your 4^th quarter class project (20% of overall class grade) and will also be judged for the “Celebration of the Classics” performance competition for recognition and awards.

Objective:  Memorize and perform (recite) dramatically one of the three passages for your class.

Rules:           

1.  You must write out verbatim (word for word) the entire passage from memory proving that   

      you have memorized it completely on _____________________________.

2.  You must recite the passage in class on ____________________________for teacher & classmates

3.  You must pronounce all words correctly with proper pronunciation and enunciation.

       See your teacher if you need help.

4.  You must speak loudly so that everyone will hear well. 

5.  You must have eye contact with audience; do not close your eyes or stare at the floor.

6.  You must maintain proper posture; there should not be swaying back and forth.

 **** We recommend practicing in front of family and friends many times. ****

      The more you practice (especially in front of other people) the more confident you will be.

Grading Rubric:

1. 60%:  Following directions 1-6 above  

2. 10%:  Effectiveness in telling the story dramatically with feeling and understanding.

              This includes facial expressions, eye contact and hand/body gestures.

3. 10%:  Effective use of voice to distinguish various characters and narrator of story.

4. 10%:  Degree of confidence while reciting and ability to engage the audience in the story.

5. 10%:  Polished, written version of summary, details and other project information (see below)

          Pre-Project Preparation Homework/Quiz Grades prior to turning in project:

Prior to performing the story and submitting the polished, written work, each student will demonstrate full understanding of his/her story by doing the following homework/quiz assignments.

1. Write a summary of your story in five to eight sentences.  No more, no less. 

N.B. Everyone doing dramatic interpretation will do THAT STORY instead of the one given to you.    

     Use the whole story, not just the part which is the recitation excerpt.

2. Find and list 15 characters or details in your recitation that you would be able to represent in a performance by a distinctive voice, tone of voice, hand or body gesture, etc.

3. Tell HOW you would represent each of them.

4. Explain the relevance of each one in the context of your story.

YOU MUST USE THE RUBRIC TO COMPLETE THE PRE-PROJECT WORK

Dramatic Interpretation #1:  Apollo’s Speech to Daphne

"Don't run away, dear nymph! Daughter of Peneus,

Don't run away! I am no enemy,

⁵¹⁵Only your follower: don't run away!

The lamb flees from the wolf, the deer the lion,

The dove, on trembling wing, flees from the eagle.

All creatures flee their foes. But I, who follow,

Am not a foe at all. Love makes me follow,

⁵²⁰Unhappy fellow that I am, and fearful

You may fall down, perhaps, or have the briars

Make scratches on those lovely legs, unworthy

To be hurt so, and I would be the reason.

The ground is rough here. Run a little slower,

⁵²⁵And I will run, I promise, a little slower.

Or wait a minute: be a little curious

Just who it is you charm. I am no shepherd,

No mountain-dweller, I am not a ploughboy,

Uncouth and stinking of cattle. You foolish girl,

⁵³⁰You don't know who it is you run away from,

That must be why you run. I am lord of Delphi

And Tenedos and Claros and Patara.

Jove is my father. I am the revealer

Of present, past and future; through my power

⁵³⁵The lyre and song make harmony; my arrow

Is sure in aim—there is only one arrow surer,

The one that wounds my heart. The power of healing

Is my discovery; I am called the Healer

Through all the world: all herbs are subject to me.

⁵⁴⁰Alas for me, love is incurable

With any herb; the arts which cure the others

Do me, their lord, no good!"

He would have said

Much more than this, but Daphne, frightened, left him

⁵⁴⁵With many words unsaid, and she was lovely

Even in flight, her limbs bare in the wind,

Her garments fluttering, and her soft hair streaming,

More beautiful than ever. But Apollo,

Too young a god to waste his time in coaxing,

⁵⁵⁰Came following fast. When a hound starts a rabbit

In an open field, one runs for game, one safety,

He has her, or thinks he has, and she is doubtful

Whether she's caught or not, so close the margin,

So ran the god and girl, one swift in hope,

⁵⁵⁵The other in terror, but he ran more swiftly,

Borne on the wings of love, gave her no rest,

Shadowed her shoulder, breathed on her streaming hair.

Her strength was gone, worn out by the long effort

Of the long flight; she was deathly pale, and seeing

⁵⁶⁰The river of her father, cried "O help me,

If there is any power in the rivers,

Change and destroy the body which has given

Too much delight!" And hardly had she finished,

When her limbs grew numb and heavy, her soft breasts

⁵⁶⁵Were closed with delicate bark, her hair was leaves,

Her arms were branches, and her speedy feet

Rooted and held, and her head became a tree top,

Everything gone except her grace, her shining.

Dramatic Interpretation #2:  Famine Attacks Erisychthon

                             She looked for Famine

And found her, in a stony field, her nails

Digging the scanty grass, and her teeth gnawing

The tundra moss. Her hair hung down all matted,

Her face was ghastly pale, her eyes were hollow,

²¹⁰Lips without color, the throat rough and scaly,

The skin so tight the entrails could be seen,

The hip-bones bulging at the loins, the belly

Concave, only the place for a belly, really,

And the breasts seemed to dangle, held up, barely,

²¹⁵By a spine like a stick-figure's; and her thinness

Made all her joints seem large; the knees were swollen

Balloons, almost, the ankles lumpy tubers.

Keeping far off, the messenger of Ceres

Called her commands, and though she stayed no longer

²²⁰Than possible, and kept the utmost distance

Between them, still she seemed to feel pollution,

The taint of hunger, and soared high in air

And drove the dragons back to Thessaly.

Famine, whose task is always opposite

²²⁵To that of Ceres, none the less obeyed her,

Flew through the air on the wind's wings, and came

To Erysichthon's palace, where the king,

In the dead of the night, was lying sunk in slumber.

She twined her skinny arms around him, filled him

²³⁰With what she was, breathed into his lips, his throat,

And planted hunger in his hollow veins,

Then, with her duty done, fled from the land

Of harvests to her sterile home, the caverns

She knew so well.

²³⁵                         And Sleep, on peaceful wings,

Still hovering over Erysichthon, soothed him,

But in his sleep he dreamed of food, his jaws

Closing on nothing, and he ground his teeth

On nothing, and his throat kept swallowing nothing,

²⁴⁰His feast was empty air, and when he wakened,

He was ravenous. He called for all that sea

And land and air could furnish, and with tables

Heaped high before him, groans that he is starving,

Craves feast on feast. Enough to feed a city,

²⁴⁵Enough to feed a nation, is not enough

For Erysichthon's hunger. The more he wolves,

The more he wants, insatiable as ocean,

Insatiable as fire. All the food in him

Is appetizer only; he is filled

²⁵⁰With emptiness, and still consuming fire

Burns in his gullet, all his treasure is gone,

Is spent on foodstuff; he had nothing left -

there was nothing, nothing, only

His own flesh for his greedy teeth to seize,

²⁷⁵To gnaw on, and the wretch consumed his body

Feeding upon a shrinking self.

Dramatic Interpretation #3: 

The Song of the Cyclops & Death of Acis

¹²⁰                                   'Galatea,

Lift up your shining head from the blue water,

Now come, and do not scorn my gifts. I know,

Surely I know, myself; I saw me lately

In a clear pool, and liked myself. Just look

¹²⁵How big I am! Jove up there in the sky—

You always talk about some Jove or other

Who rules up there—he can't be any bigger.

Plenty of hair gets in my eyes and shadows

My shoulders like a grove. Don't think it ugly

¹³⁰If my whole body is covered thick with bristles:

A tree is ugly without its leaves, a horse

Ugly without a mane, and birds have feathers

And sheep have wool, so beards and hair on the chest

Are the sign of a man. In the middle of my forehead

¹³⁵I have one eye, so what? Does not the Sun

See all things here on earth from his high Heaven?

And the great Sun has only one eye.

My father

Rules in your seas, and I am giving him to you

¹⁴⁰For father-in-law. Oh, pity me and listen!

I bow to you alone, I, who scorn Jove,

His sky, his thunderbolts, I fear you only,

Your anger is more deadly than the lightning,

And this I could endure with greater patience

¹⁴⁵If only you scorned the others, but why, oh why,

Reject a Cyclops and fall in love with Acis,

Prefer this Acis to my hugs and kisses?

Let him please himself, but I wish, I wish, he did not

Please Galatea! Let him give me a chance,

¹⁵⁰He will find me just as strong as I am big,

I will tear his guts out, I will pull him to pieces,

Scatter him over the fields and over the seas,

To lie with you so! I burn, and my passion, slighted,

Rages more hotly in me; I seem to carry

¹⁵⁵All Etna in my breast, and Galatea,

You do not care at all.'

"All his complaining

(The nymph resumed) was vain, and up he rose,

I saw him, like a bull in rut, who cannot

¹⁶⁰ still when someone has taken a heifer from him,

But charges through the woodlands and the pasture,

And when he saw my lover and me together,

Both unsuspecting, he bellowed out, 'I see you,

I'll make this the last time you get together!'

¹⁶⁵His voice was big and terrible as a Cyclops

Should roar with in his anger, Etna heard it

And trembled, and I dove into the ocean

In panic terror, but Acis turned to run

Crying 'O help me, Galatea, help me,

¹⁷⁰Father and mother, take me to your kingdom

Before I die!' And Polyphemus chased him,

Wrenched off a piece of the mountain, flung it at him,

And though it was only the smallest edge and corner

That struck him, that was enough to bury Acis.

¹⁷⁵But I, it was all I could do, saw that Acis

Assumed the magic of his ancestors:

Red blood came trickling from the mass, and faded,

And turned the color of a torrent swollen

By the spring rains, and then it cleared entirely,

¹⁸⁰And the bulk of the earth was split, and through the cleft

A reed grew tall, and the rock's hollow sounded

With gushing water, and, wonderful to tell,

A youth was standing there, waist-deep in the current,

Rushes around his new-formed horns, my Acis,

¹⁸⁵But larger than in life, and with the color

Of blue-green water-gods, but still my Acis,

Whose waters keep their former name."