Borne on the fair winds brought by the near-sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia, the thousand Greek ships sail for the shores of Troy. The Trojans had already become aware that they were on their way, and were ready guarding its shores. Protesilaus, the first of the Greek forces to land, is quickly killed by Hector.

Achilles then flies off in his chariot, in pursuit of Hector or Cycnus to redress the balance for the invading force. Finding Cycnus, Achilles drives his chariot at him and implants his spear in Cycnus’ shield, but that makes little impression. Cycnus responds by throwing his lance at Achilles, but he too fails to make any impact. After a second attempt, Achilles is still thwarted, and becomes angry with his enemy.

To test his weapon, Achilles throws his spear at Menoetes, pierces his armour, and kills him instantly. He tries the same combination of spear and throwing arm against Cycnus’ shoulder, but the projectile just bounces off. For a moment, Achilles thinks he may have drawn blood, but realises it’s that of Menoetes, not Cycnus.

Achilles grows even angrier, so draws his sword and attacks Cycnus at close quarters, but that only blunts the sword. As Cycnus is forced to step back from Achilles’ assaults, he backs up against a large rock. Achilles throws his opponent to the ground and strangles him with the thongs of his own helmet. As Cycnus dies, he’s transformed into a white swan. Following that, there’s a pause in the fighting while Achilles sacrifices to Pallas Athene, and the Greeks feast his victory over Cycnus. During that, Nestor tells the story of Caeneus of Thessaly, who survived a thousand wounds in battle, but had been born a woman.

Caenis, as she was previously, had been the prettiest girl in Thessaly, although she remained unmarried. When walking on the beach one day, Neptune raped her, but offered to fulfil her request. She asked to be turned into a man, and Neptune not only granted that wish, but made Caeneus the warrior proof against all wounds inflicted by spear or sword.

Johann Ulrich Krauss tells a fragment of the story of Caenis and Neptune (before 1690), although he doesn’t make any allusion to the transformation to Caeneus. As is usual, the flying Cupid indicates entirely inappropriately the rape of Caenis, and Neptune’s horses are held ready for his return.

Virgil Solis’ Caenis and Neptune from about 1560, moves the story on to the rape itself. Neptune puts his arms around Caenis, who doesn’t reciprocate. The god’s trident has been dropped to the ground, and his horses are prancing in the waves. In the distance is a walled city, possibly a reference to Troy, although this rape took place in Thessaly, Greece, on the opposite shore of the Aegean Sea.

After that story, Nestor tells of the battle between the Lapiths and Centaurs, at which he claims to have been present. This is one of a pair of primaeval battles said to have established world order: that between the Titans and the Gods ended the heavenly Titanomachy, and that between the Lapiths and Centaurs ended the earthly Centauromachy.

When Pirithous married Hippodame, the couple invited centaurs to the feast. Unfortunately, passions of the centaur Eurytus became inflamed by drink and lust for the bride, and he carried Hippodame off by her hair. The other centaurs followed suit by each seizing a woman of their choice, turning the wedding feast into utter chaos, like a city being sacked.

Theseus castigated Eurytus and rescued the bride, so the centaur attacked him. Theseus responded by throwing a huge wine krater at Eurytus, killing him. The centaurs then started throwing goblets and crockery, and the battle escalated from there.

Nestor details a succession of grisly accounts of Lapiths and Centaurs killed. Gryneus the centaur ripped up the altar and crushed two Lapiths with its weight, only to have his eyballs gouged out by a Lapith using the prongs of some antlers. Not content with using the objects around them as weapons, they started using their own lances and swords.

When the centaur Petraeus was trying to uproot a whole oak tree, Pirithous, the groom, pinned the centaur to the tree-trunk with his lance. Nestor also tells of the success of Caeneus, formerly Caenis, in killing five centaurs. The centaur Latreus taunted Caeneus, so the latter wounded the centaur with his spear. Latreus thrust his lance in Caeneus’ face, but was unable to hurt him, so he tried with his sword, which broke against the invulnerable Caeneus, leaving him to finish the centaur off with thrusts of his own sword.

The centaurs then united to try to overwhelm Caeneus by crushing him under their combined weight. Just as they thought they had succeeded, Caeneus was transformed into a bird and flew out from underneath them. With that the survivors dispersed, the Lapiths having won the day.

Piero di Cosimo’s The Fight between Lapiths and Centaurs (1500-15) is my favourite among the earlier paintings, and remains one of its best-structured and complete accounts. In the centre foreground, Hylonome embraces and kisses the dying Cyllarus, a huge arrow-like spear resting underneath them. Immediately behind them, on large carpets laid out for the wedding feast, centaurs are still abducting women. All around are scenes of pitched and bloody battles, with eyes being gouged out, Lapiths and Centaurs wielding clubs and other weapons at one another.

Towards the end of his life, Peter Paul Rubens painted this brilliant oil sketch of The Rape of Hippodame (c 1637-38). At the right, Eurytus is trying to carry off the bride, with Theseus just about to rescue her from the centaur’s back. At the left, Lapiths are attacking with their weapons, and behind them another centaur is trying to abduct a woman.

That became the finished painting, The Rape of Hippodame (Lapiths and Centaurs) (1636-38), which remains faithful to Rubens’ sketch and its composition. Facial expressions, particularly that of the Lapith at the left bearing a sword, are particularly powerful.

Luca Giordano’s later painting of the Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs from 1688 lacks the narrative structure of Piero di Cosimo’s, and covers later action than Rubens’. As a result, its story has become a little lost in the mêlée of battle.

Sebastiano Ricci’s The Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs from about 1705 has similar problems, although it does use multiplex narrative to help. In the left background, Hippodame is seen being carried away by Eurytus, and to the right there are scenes of abduction at the wedding feast.

Francesco Solimena’s Battle between Lapiths and Centaurs (1735-40) puts multiple abductions in the foreground, with pitched battles taking place behind.

There’s a moral, of course: never invite centaurs to your wedding feast, as they’ll go way beyond smashing the crockery.

With Peleus and Thetis safely married and the birth of their son Achilles, Ovid brings Book Eleven of his Metamorphoses to a close with a series of less-known myths that have also been rarely depicted.

Peleus, with his sheep and cattle, was forced to flee from Aegina to Trachis after he had been involved with his brother Telamon in the killing of their brother Phocus. When in Trachis, Peleus kept company with King Ceyx, son of Lucifer (the Morning Star, not the devil). The king told the story of his brother Daedalion, whose daughter Chione was raped on the same night by both Mercury and Apollo. She conceived by them, and gave birth to twins, Autolycus and Philammon. However, Chione was very beautiful, and boasted that she was fairer than the goddess Diana.

Diana decided to silence her, so shot an arrow through Chione’s tongue, causing her not only to fall dumb, but to bleed to death. Her father Daedalion tried to throw himself on Chione’s funeral pyre four times. Eventually, in his grief, he ran off and threw himself from the top of Mount Parnassus, and was turned into a hawk by Apollo.

Johann Wilhelm Baur’s set of engravings to illustrate Ovid’s Metamorphoses include a particularly fine account of Chione (c 1639), with rich multiplex narrative. At the left, in the foreground, the vengeful Diana has just loosed an arrow, still in flight, at Chione on the right. She is shown with her twins Autolycus and Philammon. Behind them, in the centre, Daedalion tries to throw himself on Chione’s funeral pyre, then hurls himself from the sea cliff, being transformed into a hawk.

As Ceyx was telling of Daedalion being turned into a hawk, the royal herdsman rushed in and reported that a monster wolf was killing their cattle down by the beach. Ceyx had his men prepare to go and tackle the beast, but Peleus offered to deal with this by praying to the sea-goddess who was responsible. They went down to a lighthouse tower above the beach, and saw the bodies of many mutilated cattle and the wolf covered in their blood. Peleus prayed to Psamathe, and his wife Thetis secured the solution as that goddess turned the monster wolf into marble.

Ovid’s penultimate story in this book concerns King Ceyx and his wife Halcyone (or Alcyone), and is told at length, with several lyrical passages, particularly those describing the storm and shipwreck.

Ceyx was still troubled by his brother’s transformation into a hawk, and wanted to visit an oracle. However, the road to that at Delphi was blocked by bandits, so he was forced to go by sea to the oracle at Claros in Ionia. That troubled his wife, but Ceyx pointed out that his father Aeolus ruled the winds so should ensure his safe passage.

Ceyx set out, Halcyone sobbing as he left. At first the ship’s crew had to row because of the lack of wind, but soon there was enough to stow the oars and proceed under sail. By nightfall the wind was blowing a gale, and the sails were fully reefed as they tried to weather the storm out. The waves grew larger until they came crashing down on their ship.

With water pouring in, the tenth wave (by legend always the largest) broke the vessel up, it sank, and its terrified crew drowned. Ceyx, his thoughts turning to his wife, clung to wreckage, fighting for his life. Just before he too drowned, he prayed for the waves to carry his body to the shore, so his wife could tend to it before burial. Still muttering her name, he sank into the black water and died.

Knowing nothing of this, Halcyone prepared for Ceyx’s return, and worshipped at Juno’s shrine. The goddess took pity on her, and despatched Iris to wake Sleep and break the news of Ceyx’s death to his wife. Sleep did this through his son Morpheus, who appeared to Halcyone in her sleep as the ghost of her dead husband. Halcyone woke as Morpheus went away, realised that he was only a ghost, and descended into profound grief. In the morning, she went to the shore to look for her husband’s body, which she saw slowly washing in on the tide. Ceyx and Halcyone were then transformed into kingfishers.

Herbert James Draper’s oil painting of Halcyone from 1915 shows the widow looking out to sea, watching Ceyx’s body float slowly in. He completes the story with a pair of kingfishers flying above her head, matching the kingfisher blue of her clothes.

Helen Stratton’s illustration of Ceyx and Halcyone, published in 1915, doesn’t follow Ovid’s account as closely. The sea is still rough, and spume covers the beach. Halcyone is walking past flotsam from the wreck, but the birds appear to be terns and are definitely not kingfishers, however inappropriate they might be on a beach.

A man watching kingfishers fly together tells the final story of Book Eleven, of one of the sons of Priam king of Troy, thus Hector’s brother. While Hector’s mother was Hecuba, this brother, Aesacus, was secretly born of Alexiroe. Unlike his more famous brother, Aesacus shunned Troy and populous places. He often pursued Hesperia, daughter of the river-god Cebren, but one day as she was fleeing from him, she was bitten on her foot by a venomous snake. She died immediately, and Aesacus held her limp body in his arms, blaming himself for being the cause of her death. He went straight to the top of a sea cliff and flung himself from it. Tethys took care of him as he entered the water, and transformed him into a diver (a seabird).

Although seldom painted, this myth does have the benefit of a fine engraving by Virgil Solis of Aesacus and Hesperia for sixteenth century editions of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the foreground, Aesacus has just caught up with the dead body of Hesperia, the offending snake still by her foot. Behind them is the sight of Aesacus throwing himself from the top of a cliff, with Tethys ready to catch him below.

The great nineteenth century narrative painter Jules-Élie Delaunay, a friend of Gustave Moreau, is probably the only painter to have depicted this story in a significant work, The Death of the Nymph Hesperia (1859). I apologise for the poor image quality, which lacks sufficient detail to determine whether the snake is still present. Hesperia lies, cold, white and dead, as Aesacus blames himself for the tragedy. At the top right corner are the overhanging cliffs from which Aesacus will shortly hurl himself.

This brings us to the end of Book Eleven.