At the Ovidian Pool: Christine De Pizan’s Fountain of Wisdom as a Locus for Vision Patricia Zalamea In memory of Rona Goffen, who first encouraged me to follow this path. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, pools often provide the site of transformation, a process that is repeatedly triggered by the act of looking. Ovidian pools sometimes function as reflective mirrors, allowing the figures to recog- nise their transformed image, as in the stories of Io and Actaeon. In other instances, pools serve as transparent display cases for beautiful ivory bodies, as in Ovid’s ekphrastic descriptions of Narcissus and Hermaph- roditus. Pools may also become the place of metamorphosis, as in the story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus. 1 Indeed, these Ovidian pools are a metaphor for the act of looking, where seeing involves self-conscious realisation and contemplation, sometimes leading to a metamorphosis or as a result of it. 2 For vision is how the process of transformation initiates and culminates: with seeing, comes desire; desire leads to metamorphosis; metamorphosis invites self-reflection. As Leonard Barkan has noted, “Metamorphosis becomes a means of creating self- consciousness because it creates a tension between identity and form, and through this tension the individual is compelled to look in the mirror.” 3 1 For Io’s vision of herself, see Met. 1.639–641; for Actaeon, see Met. 3.200–201. For Ovid’s ekphrastic description of Narcissus, see Met. 3.416–423, and of Herma- phroditus, see Met. 4.352–355. 2 On the nature of water and its transformative qualities as a binding element in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, see Viarre, L’image et la pensée, 336–347. Although Viarre does not suggest this specific metaphor, she discusses the Ovidian pool as a mirror that “represents the soul or consciousness” and allows figures to discover their transformed selves (342–343). 3 Barkan, “Diana and Actaeon,” 322.