THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO

10
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF OVID.
banished him, in consequence, to a wild and distant part of the empire. Circum
stances render the conjecture probable, that Ovid, with profane eyes, may have
invaded the privacies of the empress while bathing, or may have witnessed and
disclosed some great moral turpitude, either of Augustus or one of the imperial
family, possibly Julia, the grand-daughter of the emperor.
Cur aliquid vidi, cur conscia lumina fed?
Cur imprudent! cognita culpa mihi !—EPIST. E PONTO.
Herein lies a great mystery of the court of Augustus. The fault of the poet,
whatever it was, though doubtless known to many at the time, has not been
stated by any writer, and still remains a great literary problem, like the impri
sonment of Tasso. Under the pretext of the licentiousness of his amatory works,
which, however, had been freely circulated and read for years, the emperor,
under a sentence of relegation, somewhat milder than banishment, as it did not
involve confiscation of his estate, removed him to Tomi, now Temiswar, a town
in Pontus, in a gloomy and inhospitable region lying on the Euxine sea. When
the poet received the order to depart, in a transport of grief he burned the copy
of the Metamorphoses which he was engaged in correcting, so that this inimi
table work would have been lost to the woild, had it not been preserved by
means of a copy which he had given to a friend some time before. While in
his exile, the poet learned its preservation; but as he never had a chance of
revising it, we must regard it with the allowance due to a work which has not
received the finishing touches of its author. As an apology for its imperfections.
Ovid proposed the following lines as a prefix to the Metamorphoses:
Orba parente suo quicumque volumina tangis;
His saltern vestra detur in urbe locus:
Quoque magis faveas, non heec sunt edita ab ipso,
Sed quasi de domini funere rapta sui.
Quicquid in his igiiur yitii rude carmen habebit,
Emendaturus, si licuisset, erat.
Recommending his wife to the protection of his friend Fabius Maximus, he
bade adieu to Rome, and the scenes and associates of his former pleasures, and
went into his lonely and melancholy exile. Some time before this calamity, he
had commenced his Fasti, Lib. xn., which may be regarded as a supplement to
the Metamorphoses. The Fasti give an accouu't of the origin and observance of
the different festivals, dedications, and other ceremonies of the Roman Calendar,
arranged in chronological order. A book is devoted to each month, and the holy-
days are associated with the sun's place in the zodiac, and with the rising and
setting of the stars. The work euds with June; the six latter books having
been lost. C. Hemina and Claudius Quadrigarius had attempted this work be
fore in prose, with indifferent success.
On his voyage to Pontus, Ovid commenced his Tristia, Lib. v., of which he
wrote the first book, containing ten elegies while at sea. The Triitia, and the
Efistulte e Ponto, Lib. iv., which he wrote in his lonely exile, are the melancholy
outpourings of a breaking heart. They are filled with complaints of the hardness
of his lot, the miseries of his old age, and the mortifications and sorrows to
which he was exposed. In these productions he sought, alike by flattery and
the most moving appeals, to mitigate the severity of the emperor, and induce
him to recal him from exile, or remove him to a milder residence. The transi
tion in the circumstances of the poet from his former condition, were distressing
to one of his sensitive feelings. Around him a bleak and barren region, snows
and fogs alternately deforming the sky, and the storms ever chafing the black
Kuxine into fury, with no companions but barbarians clad in skins, he sighed
for the vine-clad hills, the sun and sky of Italy for the fragrance of the Collis
Hortulorum, and the flowers of his own fair garden by the Flaminian Way for
the gay companions, the baths, the theatres, and the gushing fountains of impe
rial Koine. Like ihe unhappy .Byron in his selt-imnosed exile, he could exclaim
with him:
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF OVID. \\
"My days are in the yellow leaf,
The fruits and flowers of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone."
But nothing could move the obduracy of Augustus; and although Ovid re
garded his memory with idolatry, and consecrated a chapel to him after death,
neither this, nor like flatteries lavished upon his successor Tiberius, ever pro
cured the recall of the unfortunate poet. While in exile, the feelings of Ovid
were deeply wounded by the conduct of a former friend, supposed to be the poet
Cornificius by some, but with more reason, the mythograph Hyginus, who soli
cited his wife Perilla, whom Ovid tenderly loved, to forget her exiled husband
and accept of another. He endeavored also to induce the emperor to bestow
upon him the patrimony of Ovid. Full of indignation, the unhappy poet dipped
his pen in gall, and wrote a pcem called Ibis, inscribed to the fictitious name of
his ungrateful friend. It is in the style of the Dira; of Valerius Cato, and is full
of imprecations in comparison of which ordinary curses appear as benedictions.
After this, Ovid composed a poem in praise of the imperial family at Rome.
It was in the barbarous language of the people where he dwelt, and warmly
attached them to him ever after. This poem has not come down to ug. After
living more than nine years in exile, Ovid closed his life at Tomi, in the sixtieth
year of his age, and was mourned publicly by the inhabitants, who erected a
stately monument to his memory, before the gates of the city. His death occurred
A. U. C. 771, in the fourth year of the reign of Tiberius.
Ovid's person was of a middle stature, and slender, but graceful, and his body
strong and nervous, though not large-limbed. He was of a pale complexion,
with features regular and agreeable, and possessed of an open and engaging
countenance. He was thrice married. His first wife, whom he took in early
life, was not worthy of his affections, and was soon repudiated:
Peene mihi puero nee digna nee utilis uxor
Est data, quee tempus per breve nupta fuit. TRIST. Lib. ii.
He married a second wife, whom he also divorced shortly after, although she
was virtuous and prudent:
Illi successit, quamvis sine crimine, conjux;
Non tamen in nostro firma futura toro. TRIST. Lib. ii.
His last wife, Perilla, was celebrated for her beauty and virtue, and as she was
of congenial taste, having considerable genius for poetry, was most tenderly
loved by him. She remained faithful to him to the last, and lived like a sorrow
ful widow, during the relegation of her husband.
Ultima, qua? mccum seros permansit in annos,
Sustinuit conjux exulis esse viri. TRIST. Lib. ii.
In conclusion, it must be admitted that Ovid possessed a most extensive wit,
supported by just conceptions, a lively fancy, and great felicity of expression.
The natural indolence of his temper and his gayety of life prevented his essaying
those nobler efforts of which he was capable, while the misfortunes which clouded
his latter years prevented his polishing what he had written. If he had employed
the same laborious care in composition and patience in revision, for which Virgil
was distinguished, he would have surpassed in correctness, as he does in genius,
all the other Latin poets. As it is, his writings generally are of the most agree
able and instructive character, so that every reader, in admiration of his produc
tions, and in sympathy for his misfortunes, will readily join in the petition for
rest to his ashes, expressed in the epitaph of the poet, composed by himself:
Hie ego quijaceo, tenerorum lusor amorum,
Ingenio perii Naso poeta meo:
At tibi, qui transis, ne sit grave, quisquis amasti,
Dicere Nasonia molliier ossa cubent.