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