ABSTRACT
Canace, daughter of Aeolus, fell in love with her brother Macareus and got pregnant by him. When the baby was born, her father found out about its birth and was furious. He ordered the child to be taken out to a lonely spot and left as prey for the wild animals, and he sent her a sword so she could kill herself. This chapter talks about Ovid, who was interested in unusual and perverse forms of love, had handled the rather lurid topic of incest in Heroides 4 and would return to it in the Metamorphoses. In Ovid's day most people viewed sexual relations between close relatives with revulsion, and marriage between them was prohibited in law. So accusations of incest were used to attack political opponents. John Dryden tried to minimize any offence to delicate sensibilities by omitting Ovid's remarks about Canace being the mother of her brother's baby and the child being the crime of her womb.
