Traditions: Greek hymn, Callimachus; Roman poetry, Ovid Motif: A desecrator receives an insatiable hunger Connection verdict: Related named punishment retold in contrasting genres Article status: Expanded Date: 2026-10-29
Summary
Callimachus, Hymn to Demeter 6, and Ovid, Metamorphoses 8, tell of Erysichthon felling a sacred tree and being consumed by hunger.
Read the two scenes
The sacred tree is not an ordinary resource in these stories. Erysichthon cuts it and receives a hunger that ordinary wealth cannot satisfy. Callimachus makes the episode serve a hymn to Demeter and stresses the rupture between human appetite and divine honor. Ovid gives the abstract condition a figure named Hunger and follows how the punishment spreads into exploitation of the household, including his daughter. Neither account should be flattened into a modern diagnosis of an eating disorder. The stories are about desecration and the social reach of greed.
What connects—and what does not
Callimachus frames the episode in a hymn to Demeter; Ovid develops Hunger as a personified force and extends the costly consequences for his daughter.
The rare named figure and punishment show a shared mythic tradition; the different narrative devices are not interchangeable.
Why read them side by side?
Insatiable appetite becomes more than private suffering when its costs spread to family and community.
Sources and reading notes
- Callimachus, Hymn 6 to Demeter — Textual witness; verify the named section and edition.
- Ovid, Metamorphoses Book 8 — Public-domain edition; locate the named book or episode.
Research limit
A named parallel can establish literary reuse or related tradition; a general resemblance alone cannot prove borrowing. Linked editions and translations vary. Where a source is identified as secondary orientation, the comparison does not claim direct close reading of that tradition’s primary text.