In this article I will explore the relationship between man and animal as presented by Ovid in some of his rape stories narrated in the Metamorphoses. The stories I will discuss are those of Actaeon and Callisto, the rape of Europa and the rape of Proserpina. Against Ovid’s background, I will examine Rembrandt’s version of these stories. In other words, I will investigate how Ovid’s textual construction of animals vs. humans relates to Rembrandt’s painterly construction of them. Accordingly, I will explore how Rembrandt’s presentation of animals in his mythical images may reflect some of the prevalent attitudes of the period towards animals. My final goal is to address the question of the sublime in Rembrandt’s myths of human-animal transformation. Specifically, I will try to show that in his work the animals become agents of the sublime on a par with humans and gods. I will argue that similarly to Ovid’s reader, Rembrandt’s viewer experienced awe, amazement, even terror in front of his depictions of sublime passions, impossible disguises and transformations, his stories of violence, enacted collaboratively between man and animal.

在本文中，我将探讨奥维德在《变形记》中叙述的一些强奸故事中提出的人与动物之间的关系。。我将讨论的故事包括Actaeon和Callisto，欧罗巴的强奸和Proserpina的强​​奸。在奥维德（Ovid）的背景下，我将研究伦勃朗的这些故事。换句话说，我将研究奥维德关于动物与人类的文本构造与伦勃朗对其绘画的绘画构造之间的关系。因此，我将探讨伦勃朗在其神话般的图像中对动物的表现如何反映出这一时期对动物的一些普遍态度。我的最终目标是解决伦勃朗人与动物转化神话中的崇高问题。具体来说，我将尝试表明，在他的作品中，动物成为了与人类和神灵同等的崇高代理。我会说，伦勃朗的观众与奥维德（Ovid）的读者一样，经历了敬畏，惊奇，