Ovid's Metamorphoses

A poetic voice is difficult to impersonate in translation. One or another translated version should not be thought of as strictly speaking coming closer to or departing farther from an original, as if on a straight line. A fairer metaphor might be that each version hovers in the vicinity of the original, with each approaching it from different directions and along different lines.

One translator might better convey Ovid's meterical line while another better conveys the shadings of his word choices. One might emphasize the accuracy of his psychology while another emphasizes his cosmopolitan irony. If you really want to understand Ovid better without knowing Latin, read a few translations and triangulate them.

The three I am familiar with are Ted Hughes, Rolphe Humphries and Arthur Golding. Humphries is a good middle ground, bread-and-butter translation - but weak on passion. Hughes's Ovid sounds very Hughes-like, but is stronger on preserving Ovid's passion and imagery. Golding is Elizabethan, unmodern and gnarly - but full of interest for the very strangeness of his word-sense and the consequent flashes of brilliance that strike out from the page.

ive been reading golding's translation recently and its definitely an "entertaining" read. im reading it more for its own idiosyncratic merits though, and i dont feel im really "getting" ovid through it. its a translation with merits of its own outside of the source document.