Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Canens.
The gallery
Picus and Circe
Luca Giordano, c. 1670–1680
Giordano stages Circe's rejected courtship of Picus — the Latian king who stays faithful to Canens before the spell that turns him into a woodpecker.
Circe Turning King Picus into a Woodpecker
Teodor Lubieniecki, c. 1680–1700
Lubieniecki paints Ovid's metamorphosis: Circe's wand raised as feathers break on Picus — the husband Canens will search the Laurentine shore for, singing until she wastes into air. National Museum in Warsaw.
Circe Changing Picus into a Bird
Antonio Tempesta (after), 1606
Metamorphoses plate: Circe's companions drive Picus as wings break from his body — the Ovidian crisis that strands Canens as the singing widow of Latium. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In play
Canens (mythology)
Personification of song, wife of Picus — she searches six days for her transformed husband and dissolves into the thin air her voice once moved.
Metamorphoses (Picus and Canens)
Ovid
Ovid's Latian episode (Met. 14): Circe's revenge on Picus and Canens' six-day lament — the singer who gives her name to song.
Picus
Canens' husband — Latian king turned woodpecker for refusing Circe, the bird still linked to Roman augury.