Set in the ninth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the tale of “Iphis and Ianthe” is a homosexual love story. It is the last tale in the ninth book and is directly preceded by the tale of Byblis, a young woman who tries, unsuccessfully, to seduce her brother. It is suggested that Ovid placed these two stories, both about unusual love, next to each other to show a theme of forbidden desires. “Iphis and Ianthe” is one of the only homosexual love stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In ancient Rome, there was no exact term for homosexuality. Single-sex relationships occured, yet they were not publicly sanctioned: people were expected to marry the opposite sex. In “Iphis and Ianthe”, it is interesting to note that although Ovid focuses on a homosexual love, he ultimately concludes the tale with the transformation of the relationship into a heterosexual marriage. I chose to translate the middle portion of the tale, from line 704 to 740. The beginning of the tale introduces Ligdus, a poor farmer, who lives in the Phaestos region of Crete. Ligdus wishes that his pregnant wife, Telethusa, will give birth to a male child because in his eyes, having a daughter is an economic burden. He tells Telethusa, with teary eyes, to kill the child if it is a girl. One night, as Telethusa is sleeping, the goddess Isis appears at the foot of her bed. Isis is the Egyptian goddess of fertility and motherhood. Isis speaks to Telethusa, instructing her to disobey her husband and to raise the child if it is a girl. Isis promises that she will help Telethusa raise her child, regardless of the sex. My thirty-five line passage begins with Telethusa giving birth to a daughter. Being “deceitful”, Telethusa raises the child as a boy; the wet nurse is the only one aware of the lie. Ligdus, ignorant of his child’s sex, names his son ‘Iphis’ after a grandfather. Telethusa is pleased with the name, as it can be used for both girls and boys. When Iphis is thirteen, Ligdus sets up a marriage between his son and the beautiful, golden-haired Ianthe. They quickly fall in love, but Ianthe comes to realize that her betrothed is a woman. My passage concludes with Ianthe wailing about her frustration with being in love with a woman. She calls upon Hymen, the goddess of marriage, to have pity on her situation. The metamorphosis of this story occurs after my chosen thirty-five lines. The day before the wedding, Iphis and Telethusa venture to the temple of Isis to pray. Their prayers are answered, and Iphis leaves the temple as a young man. Iphis and Ianthe marry, and live happily ever after, man and woman. The tale of “Iphis and Ianthe” is similar to the Greek myth of Leucippus, a maiden of Phaestus, who magically changes sex by the goddess Leto. In Leto’s honor, the people of Phaestus held a feast called Ecdysia, Greek for “to undress”, because immediately after his transformation, Leucippus’s clothes disappeared from his body. Ovid’s Metamorphoses has inspired countless works of contemporary literature, including interpretations of “Iphis and Ianthe”. According to Appleton Morgan’s The "Doubtful," or Pseudo-Shakespearean Plays, Part IIpublished in 1892, a 17th century publisher Humphrey Moseley claimed to possess a William Shakespeare manuscript based on the Iphis and Ianthe story. The manuscript does not exist today. In 2007, British novelist Ali Smith published Girl Meets Boy, a modern-day interpretation Ovid’s “Iphis and Ianthe”. Unlike Ovid’s ending, Smith concludes the tale with the two characters remaining as women, with one assuming the more masculine role.