The Timelessly Trans Tale of Caeneus, ft. Stephanie McCarter and Joe Watson
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Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host, Liv. Here with a very special re-air episode, and I say that when, at this point, when I'm recording this introduction, I don't even actually know what episodes exactly I'm going to choose to put together into this re-air, but I can tell you the theme. The theme is pretty much the same as the episode,

trans people have always been here, that trans people are people in the exact same way that cis people are people. And I mean, maybe that's not so much a theme as it is an acknowledgement of the basic laws of humanity. But as I think all of us are aware, this is somehow something that is more and more contentious every day. And that...

is horrifying in a way that I just have so much trouble even like talking about. I, you know, throughout the last six months, I guess. Oh, fuck. Throughout the last six months, you know, there has been so much horrific shit coming out of the government in America and

particularly when it comes to trans issues, also the government in the UK. And I just like, I feel like, I mean, under normal circumstances, this is stuff that I'd want to be addressing in episodes. But, you know, it's happening at such speeds that it's almost impossible. And that's horrifying in itself, you know? Like, that's so scary. And that's kind of the point, right? Because if they overwhelm us with the horrors of,

trying to convince us that trans people aren't real i don't even know what it is because it's so lax in logic or the horrors of an active genocide happening in gaza no matter what we no matter what all of us scream about the the fact that all human life matters you know

All of this is just happening so fast. And that is the point, right? It's to exhaust us. And, you know, I won't be the first to say this to you and I shouldn't be the last. But, you know, there's a reason they say the revolution won't be televised. And that does apply to social media, to podcasts. Like this is stuff...

That we need to be working on in real life. And I won't pretend I have any answers at all. But we do need one. We do need a revolution of the left and just like people who think everyone deserves rights. Like, it's wild. Like, I just think that all humans are created equal.

Anyway, this intro was actually supposed to, I mean, simply introduce that I'm going to be re-airing some trans stories here because I think it's really important. Unfortunately, there aren't that many, so...

I mean, there isn't really a point in me trying to do these episodes again because for the most part, I've done them all fairly recently with my current, you know, knowledge and sources and all of that. And so I'm just going to be sharing them again with you. Obviously, this also helps me because I am also trying to write a book and form this collective into something that

benefits all of us particularly in this time um so i appreciate you you listening to this re-aired episode um but i also want to say before this starts that you know aside from the basic logic of like trans people are human and we should just let them be who they are and just stop giving a shit what is in another person's pants because it's not my fucking business i

But, you know, there are there are so many people who will parrot the same propagandic bullshit, you know, let this protect cis women in bathrooms or whatever. And, you know, I hope this won't be the first you're all hearing about how absolutely absurd that argument is because, you know,

I mean, in order for that, anything to be informed. One, I don't feel unsafe if a trans person is in the bathroom with me. Never. Literally never in a million years would I feel unsafe unless they were behaving in a distinctly unsafe way, which I can't fathom happening based on all of my life experiences. But you know who I can imagine feeling unsafe around, particularly in a bathroom? Men.

Just cisgender men. Cisgender men are the ones who are a threat statistically and based on, I would say, all

Almost all of my listeners, I would assume, are lived experiences. And the reason... I heard this on TikTok a while back and I really wish I'd bookmarked it or recorded it. I wish I remembered who said this because I don't want to pretend that what I'm going to say is something that I came up with. It was absolutely trans person I heard it from and so I feel very bad that I don't remember. But it was sort of...

In answer to a question about, you know, why does the right, why do conservatives and

have so many, you know, feel so threatened by trans people. Like, why are they so obsessed with trans people, I guess, is really the point. And this person's answer was to really just point out that trans people are one of the biggest threats to the patriarchal structure that we are all forced to live under. And I think it's so interesting to view people

people that way and the concept that way, because the idea is that, you know, the patriarchal structure that rules us all that has since before the ancient Greeks, this patriarchal structure that I've devoted so much of my life to breaking down when it comes to ancient Greek myth and the ancient Greek world more broadly. But that structure hinges on the idea that women are inherently inferior to men. And if...

A trans person, a trans woman, you know, could be a person who was born physiologically, you know, biologically as a man, but is a woman and, you know, has that transformation in whatever way they feel is right. Right.

That basic structure of men being inherently inferior, and of course this applies to trans men as well, right? That someone could be born biologically a woman and then be a man in practice and in their life, like, that...

completely tears apart the entire structure of the patriarchy because it points out the fact that all humans are human and that there is no inherent power structure in the nature, the biology of it all, that the entire patriarchal structure under which we live, you know, under which our necks, you know, I don't even, that was a terrible way of just boot on the neck analogy that I failed, but

That entire structure falls apart if we recognize the fact that gender is a construct, that gender is a human invention. Gender, the word in English, comes from genre. It is a construct in the same way that romance versus action is a construct. It is a way that we as humans understand sex.

the world around us, but it is not inherent. It is not objective. It is not any kind of real truth. And when trans people exist in their truest and most wonderful forms, their mere existence is a threat to the patriarchy. And that is why conservatives and those terrible women who have aligned themselves with the patriarchy

you know, why they are so obsessed. Because, I mean, take, for example, the woman we all fucking hate. The woman who ruined so many of our childhoods by showing herself to be the most horrific of bigots.

She has attained all of the patriarchal power that she possibly can. She is a white woman from the privileged West who is a billionaire, right? She has achieved every single thing that she physically can under the patriarchal capitalistic world that we live in.

And so she now has reached this only point where in order for her to gain any kind of like leverage, I guess, in this patriarchy, she has to take down the people who threaten that patriarchal structure. Like she has achieved so much in this patriarchal structure that she is so completely obsessed with maintaining it. Right. Because the thing is,

that those people who call themselves feminists don't want you to realize is that when feminism excludes trans people, not only is it not feminism because feminism is the basic idea of equality among genders,

But it also, it reveals the fact that their version of feminism defers to men. That their version of feminism is so in line with the patriarchal structure and the requirements of the patriarchy that it ceases to function as...

feminism. Because if your entire concern is upholding the gender binary, then your entire concern is upholding the patriarchal boot on our necks. There's the analogy.

And so this intro was not meant to be 10 minutes, but I think it's important in an episode like this. And it's important right now. And I haven't had the chance to really have a rant like this just because of how I've had to be putting out these episodes so that I can work on all of these other projects. And I needed this. And I hope you all did too. But for now, let's listen to some stories that are...

Just some of the really, really large, like enormous amount of proof that exists that trans people are just as natural as cis people, that trans people are timeless, that gender is a complete construct. And even the people in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, let alone beyond, these stories are just from there, but it was certainly true so far beyond. But yeah,

I mean, if people 2,500 years ago could recognize that gender is fluid and can be shifted depending upon how the person living it feels, why the fuck can't we? Before we get fully into the story of Canis transforming into Cuneus,

A quick trigger warning, there is a salt here and it's Poseidon, so you know it's a bit worse to talk about than most. I'm not going to dwell on it though because I want to tell Euchenius' story more positively this time. Just a heads up. But a character like Cainius, who starts out life as Cainius, does seem to me genuinely to be a transgender character.

I used he pronouns as much as I possibly could for Kainios. Ovid clearly identifies Kainios as masculine throughout, except there is the scene when Kainios is still inhabiting a female body where he's raped by Neptune. And Neptune wants to make some kind of recompense afterwards. It's not unusual for gods to want to do that. He says, well, what would you like? And Kainios says,

well, I want to be a man. I want to have a male form. And I see that as, yes, it means that he thinks that this would make him less likely to be a victim of rape. But I also think that Cain has been living in a way that conforms to expectations of masculinity. And so he wants a male form. And so he's a really fascinating character. And immediately, Ovid describes Cain as a

wandering through um the he uses a word that's often used as a penetration he's penetrating the the the plow lens the arwa of peneus and it's a very very clear you know sexual reference he becomes a penetrator immediately and yeah charles martin translated this is like he delights in his new felicity or something like that i um

I tried to, I tried to get, I think I said like bushlands. I tried to get some kind of, you know, thing that would evoke female genitalia. But at any rate, yeah, I mean, so kineos is a way that Ovid can explore transgender identity very interestingly. And then you have this, kineos becomes a sort of impenetrable warrior in the Centauromachy.

And you have this centaur who comes out and obviously doesn't like Kainas. And the way that he chooses to insult Kainas is by essentially calling him by his dead name. And it's so interesting that that is such a source of, you know, insult and disrespect in Ovid. And of course, transgender people would say,

That is a source of disrespect and insult as well. And so it's interesting that the insult comes from the same place. But none of the warriors around Cainus see him as anything other than a really amazing male warrior. And I have a soft spot for Cainus. I really love him. Yeah.

I'd always read that story similarly, just in terms of it not being because I think a lot of people will come to me with like, oh, but is it just, you know, an attempt not to be raped? And I just think.

like it's not that that's not a way you can read it but it is so much nicer and and more like validating I think to read it as that's what he wanted all along um you know yeah it's an interesting it's an interesting story but I remember really enjoying that one as well you basically talking about this has made me think like okay I need to jot down all these names so I can like re-imagine them as well because so many I've done like years ago on the podcast like it's been too long I need to do it again uh

But that's definitely one of them. But it's clear to me that Cagnus, if it's about identity and the body, Cagnus so identifies with his new body. I mean, he's... And when he does end up dying, which is very sad. And one of the Greek characters hails him as the Moxomay Weir. He's the greatest man. And so there's a real...

Yeah. He identifies clearly to me as a, not just a man, but like a warrior. He does manly masculine things. And, and in the, the fight he has with the centaurs is so laden with sexual innuendo and he he's penetrating with his sword. It's, you know, it's, I tried to really play that, play that up a lot. Oh, I really want to reread this. Yeah. It's been too long. And I'm like, I remember, I definitely remember,

talking about him as a trans character. But I'm glad to hear that there's also so much backing on that too. The level of like, no, he is thrilled to be the manliest man. So thrilled. I mean, the language of penetration that Ovid uses throughout, you can know that Ovid is so delighting in this. I mean, I had a lot of thrusting and swiveling and things like that that would clearly...

clearly suggest this is this is battle but it's really you know it's really sex yeah yeah

Oh, that's great. There's just, there's so much in the Metamorphoses. I was like, I mean, every time I open it up again, I'm like, oh my God, there's just truly, he manages to fit so much incredible content and so many stories into this. Even just reading the Medea, I was reminded how much, like even just her dragon chariot rides are also Ovid's way of like peppering in these other transformations that he is like,

He didn't have enough time to devote whole stories to them. So he's like, okay, here you go. Like these ones are also just, she sees them down below. So they're also happening, but I'm not going to tell you much about them. It's just so interesting.

Yeah, it's just so lovely. And any one of them could have been a major story, right? Yeah, exactly. And I was like Googling each individual one to see what the story was behind it. And so often it was just like, it's just this reference in Ovid. I was like, okay, cool. So he's just like kind of really into just bringing up these, like either he had a source that we don't know, which is certainly possible, or he's just like, no, I just love transformations. Right, right. Yeah.

The first mention of Cineus' origin story is not about the female that he was born as, but the man that he is at the time the story is being told. His story is being told by Nestor during the Trojan War. He's speaking around a fire to a group of gathered Greeks. Achilles is among them. He's telling stories from his past, since he's the oldest and full of great stories of greater heroes. One of them is Cineus.

Nestor introduces Cineas, quote, I once saw Thessalian Cineas bear a thousand wounds with no harm to his body. Thessalian Cineas, who won fame through deeds and lived on Othris and, what's more amazing, had been born female.

At this introduction, Achilles is absolutely sold on the story of Cineas and immediately asks Nestor to speak more about him. Who was he? What did he do? How did he change sex? And it is changing sex, not gender, in these myths because it is its magic divinity, a god's will. Nestor is very happy to tell Achilles all that he knows.

In Thessaly, Cainus was born a girl and given the name Canis. Her beauty became famous, known all over the region, and of course this meant that there were many, many men wishing to marry her. Nestor tells Achilles that Canis was from the same region as him, and Peleus, Achilles' father, might have even sought to marry her, had he not already been meant to marry Achilles' mother, Thetis.

None of that matters, though, because Canis had absolutely no desire to marry any man at all. She had no interest in turning down every single suitor that ever came to her. Someone born biologically a woman, and we can imagine who sees herself at this time as such, by then still wants to avoid marriage, and that rarely ends happily. And so one day when Canis was walking along the beach, she was found by none other than Neptune. Poseidon.

And gods, is that always a horrifying idea? Poseidon really just likes to- he lurks just below the surface as the most dangerous man of myth. Pun intended. And he assaults Canis. And then when he's finished, he wants to give her something in return. Quote, Whatever you desire, you'll have it. Now make a wish. Canis, who's just experienced a seriously traumatic event, is-

surprisingly level-headed and more than aware of what to ask for. Quote, Such an assault demands a major wish. Make it impossible for me to suffer such a thing again. Make me not female. That is all I want. By the time the final sentence is spoken, Cineas' voice was already deeper. But not only did Neptune immediately grant the wish, he made Cineas...

Almost invincible. He can't be wounded now, he can't be killed by a sword, and gods, Cainius is thrilled. Quote, Cainius rejoicing in this gift sets off. He spends his life in masculine pursuits, rambling through the bushlands of Peneus. Today's episode is brought to you by Olive and June. I don't know about you guys, but...

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That's the entirety of Kineas' transformation story, though we're going to return to the rest of his story in a minute. First, I want to dwell here, because when I first told this story, I really focused on the trauma response, the idea that Kineas had been assaulted and saw that the only way to avoid another experience like that was to be a man. And while that's fucking depressing as shit...

But it was my conversation with Stephanie McCarter about this new translation that made me want to revisit this story. She talked about the language that Ovid uses here and how it seems to emphasize the idea that actually this kind of transformation was what Caineus wanted all along. He was always a trans man, he just didn't really know it. Or maybe he just didn't have the chance to live it until Neptune granted him the wish.

Stephanie mentioned this in our chat, but this use of the word bushlands is so evocative here. So I'm going to read the end note that she has about it. Quote, Ovid uses a sexual pun as he presents Cainius in a masculine, penetrative role roaming through the countryside. Arvum, plowable field, is a slang term for female genitalia and plowing is a euphemism for sex.

She even goes on to add that some scholars suggest that Peneus the Fields is actually a play on penis.

All to say that with phrasing and innuendos like that so intentionally included by Ovid, it certainly seems like this was exactly what Kineas wanted, rather than a last-ditch effort to avoid more trauma. It also implies that just like Iphes and Nianthe, Ovid also saw their transformations as positive outcomes for their characters.

The transformations just solidified what these trans men already knew about themselves or gave them the opportunity to know it about themselves. They just had the fortune of having the gods there to help them transition biologically.

And alternatively to Iphes, whose story is a bit more confused, uncertain in terms of how he feels about gender and himself, Caineus' story had additional layers that really emphasize that he is, and perhaps always knew, that he was trans.

The whole story is actually told as a rumor that Nestor heard, whereas most of the story Nestor is telling during the war is his own experiences. Like this bit of backstory has come to him from elsewhere. He makes clear that while he doesn't know it for certain, he's telling the rumor about Nestor.

Caineus's transformation, and not for any salacious, gossipy reason, but because the history of this incredible hero only makes him more interesting, more incredible. Not for overcoming anything, mind you, just for being who he was.

Also, and this is coming from the article that I mentioned, which is linked in the episode's description for anyone who wants to read more. Cainius, unlike Iphes, is often described using not only masculine forms of Latin words, but ones that are like awkward and ill-fitting to the sentence because they're coming when Cainius is still Canis. Like speaking specifically of him being born a woman and yet some masculine endings are used.

I won't pretend like I know enough Latin to dive too deep into that. And I don't think you want me to anyway. But the point is that Ovid is being really intentional. He's using intentional and oftentimes weird and awkward and inappropriate almost language to speak about this distinctly masculine hero who happened to start his life as a biological woman.

It's also important that Nestor's first mention of him isn't about his origins as a woman, but as the man that he was when Nestor knew him. This epic Greek hero who'd done great epic Greek hero things. He was all man. And then we get this history where we learn a bit more about him and what he went through to become the great man that he always was meant to be.

All to say, while the story of Iphes can be read as either the story of a trans man or a masculine lesbian who just wanted to be accepted and love who she loved, the story of Canaeus is, very explicitly, the story of someone trans. Even if Ovid didn't have the same terminology to use. He is very clear that this was someone who was born biologically a woman but was always meant to be a great man. And so just...

Just a god helped him do it. Cainius' story picks up later in the Metamorphoses, still in a story being told by Nestor during the war, but he picks it back up when he shifts to speaking about the war between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. We're back now to how he introduced Cainius to begin with as a man that he knew in his past.

Cineas, in all his almost invincible glory, is fighting the centaurs alongside Nestor. But we also know that before this battle, Cineas had also participated in the Caledonian boar hunt with our girl at Atlanta, and even maybe was one of the Argonauts. Cineas doesn't appear in any great detail in Greek surviving sources, but his general importance and bravery and skill in battle is pretty clear from what little that we know.

He was always meant for greatness. And Ovid, too, seems to be the first source that actually gives Cainius a backstory that includes being assigned female at birth, whereas in the Greek story, Cainius only ever features described as a man. By the time we return to Cainius as he is fighting these centaurs, he's already killed five of them. Quote, I don't recall their wounds. I marked the count and names.

And Nestor goes on, detailing the battle as it happened before him. The centaurs coming at them from all angles. He describes the centaur that Cineus is about to go up against, named Letreus. And Letreus seems hardcore. He's one to be reckoned with. Nestor describes him stalking his enemy, flashing weapons, just waiting to take them all out. When?

This asshole centaur starts making transphobic jokes to Cainius, misgendering him and calling him by his dead name, telling him that he'll always be female, that he can't escape it, even reminding Cainius of the assault that he had experienced, how it was that, that he was transformed into a man, that he is now. He even has the nerve to suggest that this epic hero who's just killed five of his centaur brothers...

Go off and pick up weaving instead. Centaurs are usually pieces of shit. Like, it's kind of their thing. But this one really goes above and beyond. Like, we've got a turf centaur. Reminds me of a certain woman that I used to praise and how we now speak of her with disdain and disgust. She is that centaur.

But Cineus isn't taking any shit, he knows himself, knows who he is, and so while this centaur runs his asshole mouth, Cineus just lets loose an arrow from his bow, piercing the centaur's side as he screams in pain. Latreus tries to come at Cineus in response, but Cineus's flesh can't be pierced by any weapon, so the centaur's spear just rebounds right in his face.

He tries again and he fails again. Then he starts trying to taunt Kineas, suggesting he'll use his blade to slice instead of spear. That'll do it. He even takes aim at Kineas' groin. Not unintentional, I'm certain. But nope, that won't do it either. Kineas just can't be wounded that way. It's almost as though transitioning made his skin thicker than most. His very own defensive shield for transphobic turfy centaurs!

Finally, he turns on Letreus and, with a sneer, says, quote, Now let me try your body with my blade. Before he thrusts his spear into the centaur, giving it a few twists. Once again, it is not a coincidence that Cainius kills this turfy centaur with a bit of penetration because, well, he is truly a penetrator.

Now, all of the centaurs try to injure Cainius, but they can't do it either. And gods, does this make them angry. They are so pissed off and embarrassed. They can't handle that they're being bested by this man, that he's going to take them all out.

One of them yells to the others, quote, one man defeats our tribe. Hardly a man. And yet he is the man. Our impotence makes us what he once was. Which like, OK, centaurs, if you weren't shitty enough, you're just all just going to throw in transphobia and unnecessary jabs at women. Fuck you guys.

They begin to question what good they are if they can't beat this one man. What good is their horse-like strength, their divine origins, if they can't best Cainius? But unfortunately, then one of them gets an idea. Or rather, an idea is spawned from their raging, from their fury about being so utterly useless against Cainius...

They think to overwhelm him, to crush him under the weight of trees ripped just from the earth. And that is what they do. They strip the mountain of trees, piling them atop Cineus quickly enough that he can't free himself before it's too late.

Nestor tells that some say the weight of the trees on Canaeus pushed him straight to Tartarus, but he doesn't believe that. Instead, both Nestor and another man, Mopsus, saw a golden-winged bird fly up from the pile of trees and into the air. It hovered over the camp long enough to be seen before screeching and flying off.

And so Mopsus at the sight cried out, quote, Hail Cainius, glory of the Lapiths, the greatest man once, now a matchless bird. And the rest of the Lapiths that were fighting the centaurs used their rage and their grief over the fate of their friend, and they didn't stop until half the centaurs were dead at their hands and the other half had fled in fear.

The way Ovid tells these stories of Iphes and Ceneas is just as important as the stories themselves when it comes to examining what he's intending with their genders. While he does sometimes gender them as female at the beginning of their stories and before their respective transformations, just as I have done, as this article by J.L. Watson says...

Even when he's doing this, quote, he is careful to undercut any feminizing words, either through immediate use of a counterbalancing masculine or through distancing and challenging the discourse that seeks to feminize these men. But the question itself, the statement itself, making a woman is so ambiguous. And again, people like scholars have gone in different directions on this. Is this just saying patriarchy is shit?

which it is. So I don't want to be a woman under this system. Or is this saying, I actively want to be a man? To me, in my reading, the fact that the first thing that Cainus does after being transformed is go out and

some Thessalian fields. Yeah. I'm like, that's what I read too. I was like, this is what tells me that I'm going to read this story as a nice thing that happened instead of a horror show because it is. Yeah. I mean, one that's a more enjoyable way of reading it. Neptune is bad enough without, you know, adding anymore, but then, yeah, I forgot about that until you said it was like, oh, I can hear myself like reading that to the listeners because it was so, it was a lot. Yeah. It,

it's so like to me that just feels like a deliberate explicit thing yeah but the other really interesting thing that's going with kinase that i don't really talk about in the article because i might have missed this five years ago when i wrote the article well you've got it now but you know have the great opportunity when you're teaching students now to be like this is why scholarship can be rubbish because sometimes your humble lecturer can fully forget or not put something in an article but at least you get to have it in the classroom now five years later

is that Ovid doesn't invent the character Cainaeus. Cainaeus has a literary history before he turns up in Ovid. And most of that's pretty simple, right? So he turns up in Homer. He's one of the heroes. It's all good. He turns up in the Argonautica where he's one of the heroes there. He's a great soldier. And that's where we first get the first idea that maybe his skin is unbreakable, which in the Ovid really plays with it, that his skin is unbreakable. But

He also turns up in Virgil, and that's the thing I think I completely forgot when I read this article. So briefly he turns up in Virgil. But when he turns up in Virgil, it's during book six of the Aeneid, where Aeneas is going down into the underworld to find out about how great Rome is going to be. And he goes down, he's just about to go and see Dido again after fucking her over in book four.

And he sees this crowd of women from mythology. So he goes down and sees like Phaedra and Erythale and Pacify and all these kind of women from Greek mythology, particularly Greek tragedy. And he also sees Cainaeus, who is called Cainaeus there. So you have this like masculine name. Yeah. Who I think Virgil says was once transformed into a man. Huh. But has clearly or maybe reverted back to being a woman once in the underworld. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's quite ambiguous, like exactly what's going on there. You know, once a man, now a woman is what seems to be the force there in the underworld. So that's, whether Virgil invents that or not, we don't know. But there's already before of it this little suggestion that maybe we can play with the gender in this mythology a little bit. And actually, Cainus has already turned up in the Mesomorphoses at least once as well.

Right. Back in book eight. So this story basically takes place in book 12. Yeah. Book eight in the story of Atalanta and the Caledonian boar hunt. Right. Because he's another one of those, right? He's another one. Exactly. He's another one of those. In every hero story. Yeah, exactly. Which I think is all part of it. Like, if, again, if thinking about what your reader who's never read the Mesomorphoses is reading the Theses and Kainaius, they go, I know that man. That, you know, that is...

a powerful, heroic superhero man from the Age of Heroes, from the Iliad, from all these other books. So I think Virgil's already saying, ooh, but what if he was a woman? And then Ovid goes, what if I can exploit this even more and make this into the whole story? What if the whole story is not really about him being this heroic man, but it's actually about how he became that heroic man? Yeah. Because in book eight, when he turns up, he's there, and I'll give you the Latin because it's quite...

You can read it in a couple of ways. We get... So it's a long category of all the heroes who are helping out Meliega and Athelan to kill Caledonian War. And we get Yam Non Femina Kainaius. So no longer a woman Kainaius. Right.

But Ovid's not mentioned him before. So clearly, Ovid's going, you remember in Virgil when he was a woman, but he's now a man and then was a woman again. Well, now he's no longer a woman. Yeah. And now four books later, I'm going to tell you the story of why he's no longer a woman. So he's playing around with that so much liberally.

Well, and I wonder if the Virgil is necessarily attempting to say that he was a woman again in the underworld, or if he was just included because he was once a woman. Because by saying Canaeus and not... Well, though I guess we can't necessarily know if the name Canaeus would have been known as the alternative. But yeah, that's interesting. He definitely says that. Yeah, and it's a little bit ambiguous. Because it's literally...

He goes as a companion also who was once a man, once a young man, now a woman, Kainéas, once again turned back into his old form by fate. But what's the old form? It's the old form, a man or a woman. Yeah. Huh. It's so deliberately playing around with it. So Ovid just clearly goes, there's a myth I can exploit. And if I'm doing my poem all about transformation, here's a story where I can talk about transformation and

look, maybe I'm not just transforming the gender of this character. I'm also transforming the literary tradition. Do you see what I did there? You know, this is something Ovid loves to do. Yeah, that's very Ovid.

Let's Talk About Myths, Baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Panguish is the Hermes to my Olympians, my incredible producer. Select Music by Luke Chaos. The podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network, a group of creators and educators dedicated to sharing knowledge that is accessible, contextualized, socially conscious, and inclusive.

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