[PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO, the youngest of the great Augustan poets, was born B.C. 43, the year after Cæsar's murder, and died A.D. 17, three years after Augustus. He was of Sulmo in the Apennines, a landholder like Tibullus and Propertius, and, unlike them, kept his estate. He settled at Rome and filled some minor offices, but led an easy, pleasure-seeking life. But he became involved, seemingly, in the dreadful family scandal which clouded Augustus' later years and ruined his political family plans; his "Art of Love" was regarded as one of the influences which had made Roman society so rotten; and he was banished to Tomi on the Danube, a barbarous village of Grecized Goths, where he lived the ten remaining years of his life. His "Metamorphoses" have been translated, adapted, and used as subjects, in every European language; his "Fasti" poetized the Roman religious rites; his Elegies ranked him as one of the great quartet (see Tibullus); his Epistles have been brilliantly and repeatedly translated. He wrote also "Remedia Amoris," a sort of apology for the "Ars Amatoria"; a tragedy, "Medea"; the "Heroides," on the old myths; and others.]
(From the "Epistles": Pope's translation).
SAY, lovely youth, that doth my heart command,
Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's hand?
Must then her name the wretched writer prove,
To thy remembrance lost, as to thy love?
Ask not the cause that I new members choose,
The lute neglected, and the Lyric Muse.
Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow,
And tuned my heart to elegies of woe.
I burn, I burn, as when through ripened corn
By driving winds the spreading flames are borne.
Phaon to Etna's scorching fields retires,
While I consume with more than Etna's fires!
No more my soul a charm in music finds,
Music has charms alone for peaceful minds:
Soft scenes of solitude no more can please,
Love enters there, and I'm my own disease.
No more the Lesbian dames my passion move,
Once the dear objects of my guilty love;
All other loves are lost in only thine,
Ah, youth ungrateful to a flame like mine!
Whom would not all those blooming charms surprise,
Those heavenly looks, and dear deluding eyes?
The harp and bow would you like Phoebus bear,
A brighter Phoebus Phaon might appear;
Would you with ivy wreathe your flowing hair,
Not Bacchus' self with Phaon could compare:
Yet Phoebus loved, and Bacchus felt the flame,
One Daphne warmed, and one the Cretan dame;
Nymphs that in verse no more could rival me,
Than e'en those gods contend in charms with thee.
Brown as I am, an Ethiopian dame
Inspired young Perseus with a generous flame;
Turtles and doves of different hues unite,
And glossy jet is paired with shining white.
If to no charms thou wilt thy heart resign,
But such as merit, such as equal thine,
By none, alas! by none thou canst be moved:
Phaon alone by Phaon must be loved!
Yet once thy Sappho could thy cares employ;
Once in her arms you centered all your joy:
No time the dear remembrance can remove,
For, oh! how vast a memory has love!
My music, then you could not ever hear,
And all my words were music to your ear.
You stopped with kisses my enchanting tongue,
And found my kisses sweeter than my song.
In all I pleased, but most in what was best;
And the last joy was dearer than the rest.
Then with each word, each glance, each motion fired,
You still enjoyed, and yet you still desired,
Till all dissolving in the trance we lay,
And in tumultuous raptures died away.
O scarce a youth, yet scarce a tender boy!
O useful time for lovers to employ !
Pride of thy age and glory of thy race,
Come to these arms, and melt in this embrace!
The vows you never will return, receive;
And take at least the love you will not give.
See, while I write, my words are lost in tears!
The less my sense, the more my love appears.
Sure 'twas not much to bid one kind adieu;
(At least to feign was never hard to you!)
"Farewell, my Lesbian love," you might have said;
Or coldly thus, "Farewell, oh Lesbian maid!"
No tear did you, no parting kiss receive,
Nor knew I then how much I was to grieve.
No lover's gift your Sappho could confer,
And wrongs and woes were all you
No charge I gave you, and no charge could give,
But this, "Be mindful of your loves, and live."
Now by the Nine, those powers adored by me,
And Love, the god that ever waits on thee,
When first I heard (from whom I hardly knew)
That you were fled, and all my joys with you,
Like some sad statue, speechless, pale I stood,
Grief chilled my breast, and stopped my freezing blood;
No sigh to rise, no tear had power to flow,
Fixed in a stupid lethargy of woe:
But when its way the impetuous passion found,
I rend my tresses, and my breast I wound;
I rave, then weep; I curse, and then complain;
Now swell to rage, now melt in tears again;
Not fiercer pangs distract the mournful dame
Whose firstborn infant feeds the funeral flame.
Stung with my love, and furious with despair,
All torn my garments, and my bosom bare,
My woes, thy crimes, I to the world proclaim:
Such inconsistent things are love and shame!
'Tis thou art all my care and my delight,
My daily longing, and my dream by night.
O night, more pleasing than the brightest day,
When fancy gives what absence takes away,
And dressed in all its visionary charms,
Restores my fair deserter to my arms!
But when with day, the sweet delusions fly,
And all things wake to life and joy, but I;
As if once more forsaken, I complain,
And close my eyes to dream of you again.
(Translated by Miss E. Garland.)
Ah! Trojan women (happier far than we),
Fain in your lot would I partaker be!
If ye must mourn o'er some dead hero's bier,
And all the dangers of the war are near,
With you at least the fair and youthful bride
May arm her husband, in becoming pride;
Lift the fierce helmet to his gallant brow,
And, with a trembling hand, his sword bestow:
With fingers all unused the weapon brace,
And gaze with fondest love upon his face!
How sweet to both this office she will make
How many a kiss receive-how many take!
When all equipped she leads him from the door,
Her fond commands how oft repeating o'er: -
"Return victorious, and thine arms enshrine
Return, beloved, to these arms of mine!"
Nor shall these fond commands be all in vain,
Her hero-husband will return again.
Amid the battle's din and clashing swords
He still will listen to her parting words;
And, if more prudent, still, ah! not less brave,
One thought for her and for his home will save.
(Translated by A. A. Brodribb.)
Sign of my too presumptuous flame,
To fairest Celia haste, nor linger,
And may she gladly breathe my name,
And gayly put thee on her finger!
Suit her as I myself, that she
May fondle thee with murmured blessing; Caressed by Celia! Who could be Unenvious of such sweet caressing?
Had I Medea's magic art,
Or Proteus' power of transformation, Then would I blithely play thy part, The happiest trinket in creation!
Oh! on her bosom I would fall,
Her finger guiding all too lightly;
Or else be magically small,
Fearing to be discarded nightly.
And I her ruby lips would kiss
(What mortal's fortune could be better?)
As oft allowed to seal my bliss
As she desires to seal a letter.
Now go, these are delusions bright
Of idle Fancy's idlest scheming; Tell her to read the token right
Tell her how sweet is true love's dreaming.
(Translated by Professor J. P. Nichol.)
If bright Aurora mourned for Memnon's fate,
Or the fair Thetis wept Achilles slain,
And the sad sorrows that on mortals wait
Can ever move celestial hearts with pain-
Come, doleful Elegy! too just a name!
Unbind thy tresses fair, in loose attire, For he, thy bard, the herald of thy fame, TIBULLUS, burns upon the funeral pyre.
Ah, lifeless corse! Lo! Venus' boy draws near
With upturned quiver and with shattered bow;
His torch extinguished, see him toward the bier
With drooping wings disconsolately go.
He smites his heaving breast with cruel blow,
Those straggling locks, his neck all streaming round, Receive the tears that fastly trickling flow, While sobs convulsive from his lips resound.
In guise like this, Iulus, when of yore
His dear Æneas died, he sorrowing went;
Now Venus wails as when the raging boar
The tender thigh of her Adonis rent.
We bards are named the gods' peculiar care;
Nay, some declare that poets are divine;
Yet forward death no holy thing can spare,
'Round all his dismal arms he dares entwine.
Did Orpheus' mother aid, or Linus' sire?
That one subdued fierce lions by his song Availed not; and, they say, with plaintive lyre The god mourned Linus, woods and glades among.
Mæonides, from whose perennial lay
Flow the rich fonts of the Pierian wave
To wet the lips of bards, one dismal day
Sent down to Orcus and the gloomy grave
Him, too, Avernus holds in drear employ;
Only his songs escape the greedy pile;
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