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“Beyond here lies nothing but chillness, hostility, frozen waves of an ice-hard sea.”

~Ovid in Poems from Exile

The title song for the last episode of season 2, Beyond here Lies Nothin’ by Bob Dylan was inspired by a line from one of Ovid’s poems that was written when he was in exile,

Dylan’s song talks about love being the only thing that can be counted on. This is a departure from Ovid whose exile separated him permanently from his wife. He pines for her in many of the poems from this period. Ironically the reason for Ovid’s exile to the Black Sea appears to be his poems in Ars Amatoria, the subject of which was adultery, a serious crime in Rome. This ties in with True Blood because exile is reflected in the S3 cast poster with its expulsion from Paradise setting.

Like Ovid and his wife, Bill and Sookie’s separation, due to politics beyond their control, will alienate the lovers and will lead to betrayal. Ovid has an even deeper connection to True Blood. His collection of myths in Metamorphoses is one of the foundational works of literature in the Western Canon. Some say it has been more influential than Homer. Wikipedia describes this work as, “a narrative poem in fifteen books that describes the history of the world from creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework.” If Charlaine Harris were contracted for fifteen books instead of thirteen, this would be a nearly perfect description of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels because when read on an allegorical level, they begin soon after the creation in the Garden of Eden and will most likely conclude with Eric becoming king and figuratively deified.

Of course the series raison d’etre is to bring about Sookie’s metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a beautiful majestic butterfly, but that’s just the starting point. Harris and Ball have both been mining Metamorphoses for characters and storylines. In fact, it is their mythological source book. While they use some myths allegorically with  one to one correspondents, most have much more loose connections to the SVM and TB, serving mainly as inspiration for storylines.

In book 1 Jupiter turns Lycaon into the raving wolf he always was on the inside. Daphne flees the the rational Apollonian world and forever becomes part of the Dionysian natural world when she is transformed into a tree. Jupiter rapes the nymph Io and transforms her into a cow to protect her from his jealous wife Juno. Here we have the first werewolf, Daphne’s love and devotion to Maryann and her cause, and Bill protecting Sookie from Lorena in Club Dead. Recall that the name Sookie is a cow call in the South to this day.

Book 2 starts with Callisto, the name CH chose for her maenad, is in book two. In the story of Jupiter disguising himself to meet and have sex with her is the kernel that leads to Sam and his first meeting with Maryann. Ovid describes a conversation between a white raven and a black crow. The raven is privy to secret information because of  his vantage point high in the sky. The crow wisely counsels to keep his information to himself. The crow doesn’t listen and tells Apollo that his lover, Coronis, has been unfaithful. In anger, Apollo turns the raven black and kills Coronis with an arrow. Eric staking Long Shadow when Sookie reveals that he has been unfaithful seems to echo this myth. AB may have used the second part of this folktale as his inspiration for the creation of Jessica. After Coronis is dead, Apollo realizes that she was pregnant, so he saves the child and finds someone else to raise it. The child is prophesied to bring healing to the world, so AB may have an important role for Jessica to fill. If Sookie is the crow in this myth, who is the wise black bird who knows to stay out of other people’s business? Sam who, in his animal from, no doubt witnesses a lot of what Sookie hears.
The name ‘Merlotte,’ means black bird. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that Sam’s s3 flashbacks will depict how he was transformed from an innocent white bird into a wiser and more experienced black one.  While Apollo is dealing with other business, Mercury steals his sheep and falls in love with a beautiful maiden. This develops into a love triangle when another maiden falls in love with Mercury and is so overcome with jealousy that she turns to stone. This triangle seems to be the inspiration for the Alcide, Sookie, Debbie one. In book two there is also the myth of the prideful Phaethon whose rash act nearly caused the world to be destroyed, and some interesting parallels to AB’s Godric could be drawn from it.

Book 3 relates completely to Maryann’s storyline. There is Actaeon who transforms into a deer and is devoured by his own hunting dogs and his mother, Semele, who becomes pregnant with Jupiter’s child, Dionysus, and a bacchanalia complete with the frenziers who rip their beloved son and newphew to shreds much as the folks in Bon Temps wanted to do to Sam.

Book 4 has the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. They try to run away to Vermont to be together but have a Romeo and Juliet ending. There is also the myth of Perseus who flies to the rescue of the beautiful princess Andromeda and saves her from the sea serpent who is about to devour her. This myth fits perfectly with the Christian allegory at the heart of True Blood with Eric as the Christ figure and Bill as the serpent in Paradise.

In the fifth book is all Bill. Andromeda’s fiance shows up to cause trouble for the the happy couple, and Perseus has to defeat him. This book also includes the story of Persephone, the goddess of spring, and Hades, the King of the Underworld. Their story, which includes Hades plotting with Jupiter to abduct and rape her, has many parallels with the sun loving Sookie who is dragged into the dark vampire world due to a surreptitious plot to make her fall in love with the personification of death. Throughout all the books are many stories of humans turning into animals. While traditionally they lost their humanity in the transformation, CH and AB are using them as the basis for all their different were-animals. I’m skipping over most these stories, but this book includes the tale of the first human who transformed into a lynx.

Book 6 includes Arachne who Minerva transforms into a spider. She weaves a tapestry that depicts the gods conquering humans and turning them into animals. This is also the book that was the inspiration for Aristophanes’s comedy, The Birds. It tells how a king was transformed into a hoopoe bird. No doubt an ancestor of Maryann’s.

The hero Jason and his involvement with the witch Medea is the subject of the seventh book. Exactly how this relates to Jason and/or Eric waits to be seen. TB Jason seems to be on the road to becoming a mythological hero, none of whom were known for their brain size.  As for Eric, I think his backstory will reveal that at some point in the past he had a romantic relationship with a witch like his historical antecedent, Eric Bloodaxe.

Aurora, the Goddess of the Dawn is in book 7, and I’ve already written about how she relates to True Blood.

To be continued…