PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO

AMORES 1.1

tr. Robert Ulery

Arms and violent wars in heavy measure I was preparing

to issue, with subject-matter suited to the metre.

The lower verse was of equal length; Cupid is said

to have smiled and to have stolen one foot.

'Who gave you, fierce boy, this right against poetry?

we bards are the Pierides' mob, not yours.

Say, if Venus should snatch away fair Minerva's weapons,

would fair-haired Minerva wave lighted torches?

who would approve of Ceres reigning in mountain forests,

and fields being cultivated by the law of the quiver-equipped maid?

who would outfit Phoebus, known for his locks, with a sharp

spearpoint, while Mars set in motion the Aonian lyre?

Your realms are great, boy, and too powerful:

why are you so ambitious to tackle a new work?

Or is it yours, like everything else? is the vale of Helicon yours?

is even Phoebus not secure in his own lyre?

When a new page has begun well with its first verse,

that next one weakens my strength.

Nor do I have a subject suited to lighter metres,

either a boy or a girl with long and elaborate hair.'

I had made my complaint, when suddenly that one, quiver opened,

chose an arrow made for my destruction

and bent his sinuous bow strongly against his knee

and said, 'here's a work, o poet, for you to sing.'

Poor me! That boy has sure arrows:

I burn, and Love reigns in my empty heart.

Let my work rise in sixfold metre, sink back in five;

farewell, iron wars, with your metre!

Wreathe my fair forehead with myrtle from the shore,

o Muse to be set to an eleven-footed rhythm.

AMORES 2.7

tr. Gilbert Highet

So, must I always be accused of new offences?

Although I win, I hate these endless fights!

If, in the marble theatre, I should glance around,

at once you see a woman to complain of;

or if some handsome girl looks silently towards me,

you notice secret messages in her eyes.

If I admire one, you tear out my hair by the roots;

if not, you think I am concealing guilt.

If I don't look love-sick, you call me cold to you;

if I do, I'm dying for another woman.

In fact, I wish I had committed some real sin,

for guilty men accept their punishment;

but with your random charges and your vain suspicions,

you make your anger seem pointless and cheap.

Just look--even the wretched little long-eared donkey,

used to the whip, will never change his pace.

Now here is a new indictment! Your deft maid Cypassis

is charged with violating her lady's bed.

God forbid that I--if I should think of sinning--

should ever choose to love a wretched slave!

What gentleman would care to mingle with a servant,

and fondle a back seamed and scarred by the whip?

And then, consider: she makes your hair elegant,

she is your favourite maid, light-fingered, neat:

would I approach a girl who was so loyal to you--

to be repelled, and then denounced as well?

I swear by Venus, by the air-borne archer's bow,

that I am innocent of any guilt.

ART OF LOVE 1.1-34

tr. Robert Ulery

If anyone in this nation knows not the art of loving,

let him read this poem and, taught by the reading, love.

By art and sail and oar do swift boats move,

by art the light chariots: by art should Love be ruled.

Automedon was suited to chariots and the pliant reins,

Tiphys was captain on the Haemonian prow:

Venus has set me up as specialist for tender Love;

let me be called the Tiphys and Automedon of Love.

That one is wild indeed, and one who often resists me;

but he's a boy, an age that is soft and controllable.

Phillyrides made the boy Achilles accomplished on the lyre,

and subdued his fierce spirits with placid art.

He who so often terrified his comrades, so often his enemy,

is believed to have feared an elder full of years;

Hands Hector was destined to feel, at his teacher's behest

that one offered on command to be beaten.

As Chiron for Aeacides, so I am the teacher for Love;

both boys are fierce, both goddess-born.

Nevertheless, the bull's neck is burdened with the plow,

and the reins are chewed by the tooth of the high-spirited horse:

and Love will yield to me, though he wound my heart

with his bow and shake his brandished torches.

The more Love has nailed me, the more violently burned me,

the better I shall be as avenger of the wound he made.

I shall not, o Phoebus, lie that these arts are your gift to me,

nor are we warned by the voice of a bird of the air.

Nor did I see the sisters Clio and Clius

while keeping my sheep in your vale, o Ascra;

experience sets in motion this work: obey an expert bard;

I shall sing the truth. Mother of Love, come in aid of these undertakings.

Keep afar off, ye slender headbands, signs of propriety,

and you, the band that covers most of the foot:

we shall sing of safe Venus and allowable thefts,

and in my song will be no guilty charge.

TRISTIA 4.10

tr. Peter Green

METAMORPHOSES 1.1-4; 10.243-297

tr. Allen Mandelbaum

MY SOUL WOULD SING of metamorphoses.

But since, o gods, you were the source of these

bodies becoming other bodies, breathe

your breath into my book of changes: may

the song I sing be seamless as its way

weaves from the world's beginning to our day.

(Orpheus is narrator)

"Pygmalion had seen the shameless lives

of Cyprus' women; and disgusted by

the many sins to which the female mind

had been inclined by nature, he resigned

himself: for years he lived alone, without

a spouse: he chose no wife to share his couch.

"Meanwhile, Pygmalion began to carve

in snow-white ivory, with wondrous art,

a female figure more exquisite than

a woman who was born could ever match.

That done, he falls in love with his own work.

The image seems, in truth, to be a girl;

one could have thought she was alive and keen

to stir, to move her limbs, had she not been

too timid: with his art, he's hidden art.

He is enchanted and, within his heart,

the likeness of a body now ignites

a flame. He often lifts his hand to try

his work, to see if it indeed is flesh

or ivory; he still will not admit

it is but ivory. He kisses it:

it seems to him that, in return, he's kissed.

He speaks to it, embraces it; at each

caress, the image seems to yield beneath

his fingers: and he is afraid he'll leave

some sign, some bruise. And now he murmurs

words

of love, and now he offers gifts that girls

find pleasing: shells, smooth pebbles, little birds,

and many-colored flowers, painted balls,

and amber tears that the Heliades

let drop from trees. He--after draping it

with robes-adorns its fingers with fine gems,

its neck with a long necklace; light beads hang

down from its ears, and ribbons grace its breast.

All this is fair enough, but it's not less

appealing in its nakedness. He rests

the statue on the covers of his bed,

on fabric dyed with hues of Sidon's shells;

he calls that form the maid that shares his couch

and sets its head on cushions--downy, soft--

delicately, as if it could respond.

"The day of Venus' festival had come--

the day when, from all Cyprus, people thronged;

and now--their curving horns are sheathed with

gold--

the heifers fall beneath the fatal blows

that strike their snow-white necks; the incense

smokes.

Pygmalion, having paid the honors owed

to Venus, stopped before the altar: there

the sculptor offered--timidly--this prayer:

'O gods, if you indeed can grant all things,

then let me have the wife I want'--and here

he did not dare to say 'my ivory girl'

but said instead, 'one like my ivory girl.'

And golden Venus (she indeed was there

at her own feast-day) understood his prayer;

three times the flame upon her altar flared

more brightly, darting high into the air--

an omen of the goddess' kindly care.

At once, Pygmalion, at home again,

seeks out the image of the girl; he bends

over his couch; he kisses her. And when

it seems her lips are warm, he leans again

to kiss her; and he reaches with his hands

to touch her breasts. The ivory had lost

its hardness; now his fingers probe; grown soft,

the statue yields beneath the sculptor's touch,

just as Hymettian wax beneath the sun

grows soft and, molded by the thumb, takes on

so many varied shapes--in fact, becomes

more pliant as one plies it. Stupefied,

delighted yet in doubt, afraid that he

may be deceived, the lover tests his dream:

it is a body! Now the veins--beneath

his anxious fingers--pulse. Pygmalion

pours out rich thanks to Venus; finally,

his lips press lips that are not forgeries.

The young girl feels these kisses; blushing, she

lifts up her timid eyes; she seeks the light;

and even as she sees the sky, she sees

her lover. Venus graces with her presence

the wedding she has brought about. And when

the moon shows not as crescent but as orb

for the ninth time, Pygmalion's wife gives birth

to Paphos--and in honor of that child,

Cyprus has since been called the Paphian isle."