Ovid Tristia Ex Ponto (Paperback)

OVID i WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION TRISTIA EX PONTO r MV ARTHUR LESLIE WHEELER AUJMNAE IHOFF. SSOR OF 1. AT1N HHVN MAW It COM. KUK CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETPS HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD MCM XXXIX J First printed 1924 Reprinted 1939 Printed in Great Britain CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ., ... VJ1 TlllSTIA BOOK I, ., 2 158 BOOK II BOOK III ....-BOOK IV ... BOOK V .., ..-Ex PONTO HOOK I ... BOOK II ... BOOK III BOOK IV INDEX, ... 4 91 INTRODUCTION THE works of Ovid himself, and especially the auto biography T. iv. 10, supply most of the material for a sketch of his life. His fame, however, caused him to be mentioned often by later writers, and these, taken together, add not a little to the in formation derived from his own poems. His full name was Publius Ovidius Naso, and he was born on March twentieth, 43 B. C., at Sulmo, the chief town of the Paeligni, about ninety miles by road east of Rome. The family was of old equestrian rank, and inscriptions prove that the name Ovidius was common only in the region of Ovids birthplace. In Sulmo, now Sulmona, the tradition of the poet still flourishes. The townspeople point out to the infrequent tourist his statue in the court of the Collegio Ovidio, the chief school of the town, and the remains of his villa, the Villa Ovidio, on the slopes of a neighbouring mountain. The main street of the town, the Corso Ovidio, preserves his name, and the letters S. M. P. E. Sulmo mihi patria est, T. iv. 10. 3 are inscribed on the fasades of monu ments and at the head of public documents. In folk-lore also and popular song his name survives. But though the statue is mediaeval, though the ruins are probably not connected with him, and thetraditions are fancy, the beautiful country on which vii INTRODUCTION Ovid must have looked is true to his description. Sulmona lies in one of the loveliest vales of Italy, sur rounded by towering mountains and watered, as Ovid himself says, by cold streams. As one views it from the mountain slopes the valley, carefully tilled and dotted with vineyards and fruit trees, is like a vast garden. Here lay those paternal fields of which the poet speaks, and here he passed the years of his boyhood. Ovids father, like the father of Horace, was ambitious for his sons and destined them for an oratorical career. While they were still very young Ovid and his brother, who was exactly one year older than the poet, were taken to Rome to receive a proper training. The brother displayed a decided gift for pleading, but Ovid found the legal grind distasteful. He tried to conform to his fathers practical advice but the inborn impulse was too strong. Whatever I tried to write, he says, 44 was verse, and the quaint anecdote told in one of the late Lives probably hits off the situation very well. Once when Ovid was being chastised by his angry father, says the Life, the squirming boy cried out in verse, Parce mihi numquam versi ficabo, pater But though he lisped in numbers, he neverthe less persisted half-heartedly in his preparation for a practical career until he held certain minor offices which were preliminary to the quaestorship. He became a triumvir capitalis, i. e. one of the board of three officials who had charge of prisons and execu tions and possessed judicial powers in petty cases. Ovid was probably not over twenty-one at this time. He also speaks of having been a member of viii INTRODUCTION thecentumviral court which dealt with questions of inheritance and of having served as a single judge, i. e. as a sort of referee in private lawsuits. As a triumvir he was directly in line for the quaestorship and seems to have had a right to quaestorial privileges, but his tastes and frail con stitution led him to renounce a public career. Ovids thorough education under such distinguished teachers as the rhetoricians Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro was not wasted, although it was not applied to the end which his hard-headed father had urged...