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Pygmalion derives its name from the famous story in Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which Pygmalion, disgusted by the loose and shameful lives of the women of his era, decides to live alone and unmarried. With wondrous art, he creates a beautiful statue more perfect than any living woman. The more he looks upon her, the more deeply he falls in love with her, until he wishes that she were more than a statue. This statue is Galatea. Lovesick, Pygmalion goes to the temple of the goddess Venus and prays that she give him a lover like his statue; Venus is touched by his love and brings Galatea to life. When Pygmalion returns from Venus' temple and kisses his statue, he is delighted to find that she is warm and soft to the touch--"The maiden felt the kisses, blushed and, lifting her timid eyes up to the light, saw the sky and her lover at the same time" (Frank Justus Miller, trans.).
Pygmalion In Modern Stories And Literature. Pygmalion was a sculptor who falls in love with an ivory statue he had carved. The most famous story about him is the narrative poem Metamorphoses by Ovid. ... He kissed it again, and found that the ivory had lost its hardness.
Modern treatments of the Pygmalion myth sometimes explore Pygmalion’s side of things; others, the perspective of his lady (named Galatea much later by Jean-Jaques Rousseau). Irrespective of the point of view, Pygmalion stories always focus on the idea of making someone into someone else. Sometimes this metamorphosis (or attempted metamorphosis) is played for comedy, sometimes for drama, or straight-up horror. Whatever any particular case may be, there’s something undeniably and enduringly fascinating about the central idea; given the volume of Pygmalion retellings out there,
