THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
8<br />
LIFE AND WRITINGS <strong>OF</strong> OVID.<br />
visited some of the cities of Asia, and, on his way to Rome, passed into Sicily.<br />
He and his companion spent nearly a year in the island, during which time they<br />
visited almost every part that promised either amusement or pleasure.<br />
On his return to Rome, Ovid became a professed advocate, and often harangued<br />
with great force and elegance in the centumvir's court. He was appointed to<br />
several minor judicial offices of the state, which he filled with success; and often<br />
acted as arbiter in private causes, in which his decisions were judicious, and<br />
made in so conciliating a manner that they were satisfactory to the litigants. He<br />
was at length made one of the triumvirs, who were magistrates of great authority,<br />
intrusted with the administration of justice in criminal causes. In this position<br />
also he discharged the functions of his office with ability, and to the satisfaction<br />
of the state:<br />
Nee male commissa est nobis fortuna reorum,<br />
Usque decem decies inspicicnda viris.<br />
Res quoque privates statui sine crimine judex.<br />
Deque viris quondam pars tribus unr. mi. TRIST. Lib. ii.<br />
But all these efforts, however successful, were but a struggle against his<br />
natural inclination to literature: and as Horace and Virgil had now risen to<br />
court-favor and opulence through poetry, he entertained the idea of relinquishing<br />
the engagements of the forum for pursuits more congenial to his taste, and Ftill<br />
affording considerable chances of distinction. The death of his brother at this<br />
time left him sole licir to an ample fortune, so that he could bestow his time and<br />
attention in a manner perfectly agreeable to his literary predilections. He be<br />
came, therefore, a professed votary of the Muses; hut mingled with their jjure<br />
worship the grosser pleasures of sensuality, by indulging in the fashionable vices<br />
of the capital. Though now possessed of an extensive farm and villa at Sulmo,<br />
lie preferred to reside in Rome. He had a beautiful house on the Capitoline hill,<br />
and another between the Claudian and Flaminian Ways, with beautiful gardens<br />
adjacent. His affectionate disposition, brilliant wit and elegant manners ren<br />
dered him an agreeable companion, and his genius, wealth, and rank, gave him<br />
access to the best society, and secured to him a grateful reception by the em<br />
peror. At the court of Augustus, he was treated with consideration by the most<br />
polite and influential of the courtiers, among whom were Messala, Sextus Pom-<br />
peius, and Fabiiis Maximus; while he enjoyed the familiar friendship of the<br />
poets Tibullus, Horace, Sabinus, Macer, Severus, and Propertius.<br />
The versatile genius of the young bard seemed adapted to every kind of<br />
poetry; but his love of ease and pleasure, joined with affluence of fortune, and<br />
his fondness for company, both of hia own and the fair sex, indisposed him to<br />
attempt any labored efforts. In compliance with this temper, he first composed<br />
light articles, elegies, epigrams, and amatory verses, to which he was incited by<br />
his natural propensities and tho fashionable vices in which he was engaged.<br />
Non ego, Phcebe, datas a tc rnuiiiiar aries;<br />
Nee nos aeriaj voce moncniur avis.<br />
Nee mibi sunt visae Clio, Clmsque sorores:<br />
Vera canarn. Cceptis, mater ainoris, ades. ARS AMATOH. Lib. i .<br />
Besides tliese, he composed some other poems of a more serious character. His<br />
Jtmoret, Jtrs Jtmnluria, Remedia Jlinarh, Heroidcs, Medea, HaKeulica, Gi^anloma-<br />
chia, Phxnomena, a poem against bad poets, and one on the triumphs of Augus<br />
tus, were the fruits of this early period. The five last-named productions are<br />
lost. - Of his Medea and llnlieulica, the former of which was highly praised by<br />
Qiiintili.in, and the latter copied by Oppian, but a few fragments remain. His<br />
Jtmures, Lib. ill., have all the freshness of feeling and the exuberant fancy of<br />
youth, and abound with ingenious thoughts and agreeable images. The Jlrs<br />
Mmaloria, Lib. ill., and the Jtf medium Jmnri', Lib. i ., Jiave for the most part the<br />
sprightlinuss of our author, but the sensual inculcations and the glowing lan<br />
guage drr calculated to inflame the pjssions, and corrupt the heart OvicI, like<br />
LIFE AND WRITINGS <strong>OF</strong> OVID. 9<br />
the author of Don Juan, is supposed, in this production, to have drawn largely<br />
upon his own vicious experience. His lleroides, Epist. xxi., are amorous epis<br />
tles from distinguished ladies of the Heroic age, abounding in passion and pathos,<br />
and are the most polished of his productions.<br />
The next work in order, and on which Ovid intended to rest his chances of<br />
immortality, was the Melmnurphoses, Lib. xv. Tliese are a series of agreeable<br />
transformations, founded upon the fictions of the Greeks, with some few Latin,<br />
Oriental and Etruscan fables. Tiie introductory |. irt of the work, describing<br />
Chaos, the Creation, the deterioration of morals, and the Flood, are in strikinu<br />
accordance with the Biblical record, so that we can hardly persuade ourselves<br />
that the author was unacquainted with the sacred writings of the Hebrews. The<br />
work is of the cyclic kind, and the different parts are connected together in the<br />
most ingenious manner, like the interfacings of network, so that the poet pro<br />
ceeds in uninterrupted recital of the successive stories, lifting link-by link in the<br />
golden chain of fiction. In some, few cases where no imagination could connect<br />
the fables in a regular order, he gives the poem a dramatic form, and the. inter<br />
locutors narrate them as separate stories.<br />
In the fables of the Metamorphoses', there is an endless variety of character<br />
and incident, the gay and the grave, the amusing and the pathetic, the familiar<br />
and the wonderful, the simple and the sublime, the human and th divine, over<br />
which the poet, with a versatility of style suited to every character and passion,<br />
in all the exuberance of thought and expression, has supcrfused the glory of his<br />
own immortal genius. No poetic work of ancient times was so varied in the<br />
character of its subjects as the Metamorphoses, and no Greek or Latin poet, of<br />
whom we have any knowledge, could, in treating of them, have succeeded so<br />
well. The idea of the work was probably suggested to the poet by the mythic<br />
poem of Partlienins the Greek, which is now lost. The Metamorphoses of<br />
Ovid were highly esteemed by the Greeks, and were translated into their language<br />
by their countryman Planudcs. The Metamorphoses may be regarded as the<br />
propijlxum to the great temple of Grecian mythology; and though that temple<br />
is now in ruins, from its majestic gateway we may form some idea of the mag<br />
nificence of the mighty structure to which it led, and of the sublime splendors<br />
of its ceremonial pomp.<br />
In explaining the Fables of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, different theories<br />
have been adopted. Some persons, having discovered that allegory is sometimes<br />
employed by the poet, have attempted to reduce every thing to a moral allegory;<br />
some, who have found history obscured under the veil of fiction, have referred<br />
all the fables to occurrences in ancient history; while others, finding occasional<br />
coincidences with the Scriptures, profess to see in every thing mutilated and<br />
corrupt traditions of events that are. contained in the Biblical record. Thus,<br />
whilo each interpreter has blindly followed his favorite theory, and sought to<br />
accommodate every thing to that theory, though correct in particular instances,<br />
he has erred in the generality of his interpretations. In the elucidation of the<br />
Metamorphoses, the principles of interpretation must ever vary according to the<br />
character of the fable. As the Greeks were distinguished by their fondness for<br />
allegory, moral and physical truths, and etymological resemblances, often sup<br />
plied subjects for ingenious allegorical narrative. Hieroglyphics, which by pic<br />
torial representations recorded occurrences and thoughts anterior to the invention<br />
of letters, were also fruitful sources of fabulous imagining, and as they were<br />
liable to diversified interpretations, have caused much confusion in mythology.<br />
Events of ancient history, too, have furnished ample materials for fictitious nar<br />
rative; \\hile many traditions of the events and personages, and imitations of<br />
ceremonies, mentioned in the Bible, obscured and confused by the lapse of time,<br />
and altered, abridged, or amplified by circumstances, are presented to us, clothed<br />
in the particolorrd, and oftentimes f.mtistic garb of mythic story.<br />
"VVhilr engaged in the revision of the Metamorphoses, and while still enjoying<br />
the confidence and fvivor of the emperor, Ovid committed some fault, or became<br />
wilness of some trjnsaction which deeply wounded the honor of Augustus, who<br />
2<br />
I<br />
!<br />
i