Ovid
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:''For other uses, see Ovid (disambiguation)''
's 1632 London edition of ''Ovids Metamorphosis Englished.'']]
'''Publius Ovidius Naso''' (Sulmona, March 20, 43 BC – Tomis, now Constanta AD 17) Roman Empire|Roman poet known to the English language|English-speaking world as '''Ovid''', wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. Ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature, Ovid was generally considered the greatest master of the elegiac couplet. His poetry, largely imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, had a decisive influence on European art and literature for centuries.
R. J. Tarrant offers the following assessment for the importance of Ovid:
:From his own time until the end of Antiquity Ovid was among the most widely read and imitated of Latin poets; his greatest work, the ''Metamorphoses (poem)|Metamorphoses'', also seems to have enjoyed the largest popularity. What place Ovid may have had in the curriculum of ancient schools is hard to determine: no body of antique scholia survives for any of his works, but it seems likely that the elegance of his style and his command of rhetorical technique would have commended him as a school author, perhaps at the elementary level.#References #|1
Ovid wrote in elegiac couplets, with two exceptions: his lost ''Medea'', whose two fragments are in iambic trimeter and anapests, respectively, and his great ''Metamorphoses'', which he wrote in dactylic hexameter, the meter of Virgil's ''Aeneid'' and Homer's epics. Ovid offers an epic unlike those of his predecessors, a chronological account of the cosmos from creation to his own day, incorporating many myths and legends about supernatural transformations from the Greek and Roman traditions.
Augustus banished Ovid in AD 8 to Tomis on the Black Sea for reasons that remain mysterious. Ovid himself wrote that it was because of an ''error'' and a ''carmen'' – a mistake and a poem (''Tr.'' 2.207). The ''error'' itself is uncertain. Ovid may have had an affair with a female relative of Augustus, or withheld knowledge of such an affair. The ''carmen'', however, is probably his ''Ars Amatoria'', a didactic poem offering amatory advice to Roman men and women, which had been in circulation for several years.
It was during this period of exile -- more properly known as a relegation -- that Ovid wrote two more collections of poems, called ''Tristia'' and ''Epistulae ex Ponto,'' which illustrate his sadness and desolation away from Rome. Even though he was friendly with the natives of Tomis, he still pined for Rome and his beloved third wife. Many of the poems are addressed to her, but also to Augustus, whom he calls Caesar (title)|Caesar and sometimes God, to himself, and even sometimes to the poems themselves, which expresses his heart-felt solitude. The famous first two lines of the ''Tristia'' demonstrate the poet's misery from the start:
:''Parve -- nec invideo -- sine me, liber, ibis in urbem:''
::''ei mihi, quod domino non licet ire tuo!''
:''Little book -- and I won't hinder you -- you will go to the city without me:''
::''Alas for me, because your master is not allowed to go!''
Ovid died at Tomis after nearly ten years of banishment.
Works
Existing and generally considered authentic, with approximate dates of publication
(10 BC) ''Amores'' ('The Loves'), 5 books, about "Corinna", anti-marriage (revised into 3 books ca. AD 1)
(5 BC) ''Heroides'' ('The Heroines') or '' Epistulae Heroidum'' ('Letters of Heroines'), 21 letters (letters 16–21 were composed around AD 4 - 8)
(5 BC) ''Remedium Amoris'' ('The Cure for Love'), 1 book
(5 BC) ''Medicamina Faciei Femineae'' ('Women's Facial Cosmetics' or 'The Art of Beauty'), 100 lines surviving
(2 BC) ''Ars Amatoria'' ('The Art of Love'), 3 books (the third written somewhat later)
(AD 8) ''Metamorphoses (poem)|Metamorphoses'' ('Transformations'), 15 books
(9) ''Ibis (Ovid)|Ibis'', a single poem
(10) ''Tristia'' ('Sorrows'), 5 books
(10) ''Epistulae ex Ponto'' ('Letters from the Black Sea'), 4 books
(12) ''Fasti'' ('Festivals'), 6 books surviving which cover the first 6 months of the year and provide unique information on the Roman calendar
Lost or generally considered spurious
''Medea'', a lost tragedy about Medea
a poem in Getic, the language of Dacia where Ovid was exiled, not extant (and possibly fictional)
''Nux'' ('The Walnut Tree')
''Consolatio ad Liviam'' ('Consolation to Livia')
''Haleutica'' ('On Fishing') - generally considered spurious, a poem that some have identified with the otherwise lost poem of the same name written by Ovid.
(1100s) The troubadours and the medieval courtoise literature
(1200s) The Roman de la Rose
(1300s) Petrarch
(1400s) Sandro Botticelli
(1600s) Gian Lorenzo Bernini
(1949) ''Orph%C3%A9e'' A film by Jean Cocteau, a retelling of the Orpheus myth from the metamorphoses (poem)|''Metamorphoses''
(1997) ''An Imaginary Life'' by David Malouf, the story of Ovid's exile, and his relationship with a wild children|wild boy he encounters.
(1994) '''' edited by Michael Hofmann and James Lasdun is an anthology of contemporary poetry reenvisioning Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''
(1997) ''Tales from Ovid'' by Ted Hughes is a modern poetic translation of twenty four passages from ''Metamorphoses''
(2002) An adaptation of ''Metamorphoses'' by Mary Zimmerman appeared on Broadway's Circle on the Square Theater, which featured an onstage pool http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/Metamorphoses.html
Miscellaneous Metamorphoses (poem) for external links specific to that work.
Latin literature
References
# R. J. Tarrant, "Ovid" in ''Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics'' (Oxford, 1983), p. 257.
External links
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/latin/ovid/notes.html
'''Latin and English translation'''
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/perscoll?.submit=Change&collection=Perseus%3Acollection%3AGreco-Roman&type=text&lang=Any&lookup=Ovidius''Amores'', ''Ars Amatoria'', ''Heroides'' (on this site called ''Epistulae''), ''Metamorphoses'', ''Remedia Amoris''. Enhanced brower. Not downloadable.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/ovid''Amores'', ''Ars Amatoria'', ''Medicamina Faciei Femineae'', ''Metamorphoses'', ''Remedia Amoris''.
http://fax.libs.uga.edu/PA6519xM3xB8/ elucidated by an analysis and explanation of the fables, together with English notes, historical, mythological and critical, and illustrated by pictorial embellishments: with a dictionary, giving the meaning of all the words with critical exactness. By Nathan Covington Brooks. Publisher: New York, A. S. Barnes & co.; Cincinnati, H. W. Derby & co., 1857 ''(a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & http://fax.libs.uga.edu/PA6519xM3xB8/1f/metamorphoses_of_ovid.pdfformat)''
'''Original Latin only'''
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/ovid.html''Amores'', ''Ars Amatoria'', ''Epistulae ex Ponto'', ''Fasti'', ''Heroides'', ''Ibis'', ''Metamorphoses'', ''Remedia Amoris'', ''Tristia''.
http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/8738With introduction and extensive notes in English by Thomas Keightley. Plain text version.
'''English translation only'''
http://www.tonykline.co.uk''Amores'', ''Ars Amatoria'', ''Epistulae ex Ponto'', ''Fasti'', ''Heroides'', ''Ibis'', ''Medicamina Faciei Femineae'', ''Metamorphoses'', ''Remedia Amoris'', ''Tristia'' with enhanced browsing facility, downloadable in HTML, PDF, or MS Word DOC formats.
'''Commentary'''
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0061;layout=;loc=1.1;query=toc
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