Tristia

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Ovid Banished from Rome (1838) by J. M. W. Turner Turner Ovid Banished from Rome.jpg
Ovid Banished from Rome (1838) by J. M. W. Turner

The Tristia ("Sad things" or "Sorrows") is a collection of poems written in elegiac couplets by the Augustan poet Ovid during the first three years following his banishment from Rome to Tomis on the Black Sea in AD 8. Despite five books in which he bewails his fate copiously, the immediate cause of Augustus' banishment of the most acclaimed living Latin poet to Pontus remains a mystery. In addition to the Tristia, Ovid wrote another collection of elegiac epistles on his exile, the Epistulae ex Ponto , as well as a 642-line curse poem called Ibis , directed against the unnamed enemy who had apparently caused his downfall. He spent several years in the outpost of Tomis and died in AD 17 or 18 without ever returning to Rome.

Contents

The Tristia was once viewed unfavorably in Ovid's oeuvre but has become the subject of scholarly interest in recent years. [1]

The poems

Opening of Book V of the Tristia, from a 1740 edition: Add this book also to the four I have already sent, my devoted friend, from the Getic shore. This too will be like the poet's fortunes: in the whole course of the song you will find no gladness. Mournful is my state, mournful therefore is my song, for the work is suited to its theme. Unhurt and happy with themes of happiness and youth I played (yet now I regret that I composed that verse); since I have fallen I act as herald of my sudden fall, and I myself provide the theme of which I write. As the bird of Cayster is said to lie upon the bank and bemoan its own death with weakening note... Ovid's Tristia, in five books- with the arguments and notes of John Minellius translated into English Fleuron T140153-17.png
Opening of Book V of the Tristia, from a 1740 edition: Add this book also to the four I have already sent, my devoted friend, from the Getic shore. This too will be like the poet's fortunes: in the whole course of the song you will find no gladness. Mournful is my state, mournful therefore is my song, for the work is suited to its theme. Unhurt and happy with themes of happiness and youth I played (yet now I regret that I composed that verse); since I have fallen I act as herald of my sudden fall, and I myself provide the theme of which I write. As the bird of Cayster is said to lie upon the bank and bemoan its own death with weakening note…

The first of the five books was written during Ovid's journey into exile. It addresses his grieving wife, his friends — both the faithful and the false — and his past works, especially the Metamorphoses . Ovid describes his arduous travel to the furthest edge of the empire, giving him a chance to draw parallels with the exiles of Aeneas and Odysseus (Ulysses) and excuse his work's failings. The introductory poem, which cautions the departing book against the dangers of its destination, was probably written last.

The second book consists of a single 578-line poem. It takes the form of a plea to Augustus to end the unhappy exile brought about by his carmen et error [3] (poem and error). The poem which had angered the Emperor was apparently Ovid's Ars Amatoria , a light-hearted instruction manual on how to pick up women; the nature of the "error" is never made clear, although some speculate it may have had something to do with Ovid's overhearing (or rather discovery) of the adulterous nature of Augustus' daughter, Julia. He defends his work and his life with equal vigor, appealing to the many poets who had written on the same themes as he—among them Anacreon, Sappho, Catullus and even Homer.

The plea was unsuccessful; Ovid would live out the remainder of his years in exile among the Thracian Getae. The last three books of the Tristia grow grimmer as their author ages, heavy with the knowledge that he will never return to his home. At one point he even composes his epitaph:

I who lie here, sweet Ovid, poet of tender passions,
  fell victim to my own sharp wit.
Passer-by, if you've ever been in love, don't grudge me
  the traditional prayer: 'May Ovid's bones lie soft!' [4]

The last poem of book 5 addresses Ovid's wife, praising her loyalty throughout his years of exile and wishing that she be remembered for as long as his books are read.

The number of poems in Tristia differs slightly in different editions. For example, in Hall's 1995 Teubner edition, poems 1.5, 1.9, 3.4, 4.4, 5.2 and 5.7 are each split into two separate poems, which in most manuscripts each appear to be a single poem. [5] Taking this division into account, book 1 has 13 poems, book 3 has 15, book 4 has 11, book 5 has 16. Book 2, as noted above, is one single poem.

Critical reception

Peter Green wrote in a translation of Ovid's exile poems that the Tristia "[has] not, on the whole, had a good press from posterity." [6] Gordon Williams referred to the work as "mostly a pale reflection of the genius that he had been." [7] However, Ralph J. Hexter wrote in 1995 that literary critics were then "beginning to give the exile elegies a fresh look." [8] A number of scholars have since viewed the collection favorably. It is listed among Ovid's major works by author David Malouf [9] and scholar Matthew Woodcock. [10] In Matthew Bunson's Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire , it is called "a powerful plea for justice." [11]

Related Research Articles

The elegiac couplet is a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than the epic. Roman poets, particularly Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, adopted the same form in Latin many years later. As with the English heroic couplet, each pair of lines usually makes sense on its own, while forming part of a larger work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ovid</span> Roman poet (43 BC – AD 17/18)

Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis, the capital of the newly-organised province of Moesia, on the Black Sea, where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a "poem and a mistake", but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars.

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Ibis is a curse poem by the Roman poet Ovid, written during his years in exile at the port of Tomis on the Black Sea. It is "a stream of violent but extremely learned abuse", modeled on a lost poem of the same title by the Greek Alexandrian poet Callimachus.

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References

  1. ↑ Claassen, Jo-Marie (2013). Ovid Revisited: The Poet in Exile. A&C Black. p. 2. ISBN   978-1472521439.
  2. ↑ Henderson, Jeffrey. "Book V: Poem I". Loeb Classical Library.
  3. ↑ Tristia 2.207.
  4. ↑ Tristia 3.3.73-76: hic ego qui iaceo tenerorum lusor amorum / ingenio perii Naso poeta meo; / at tibi qui transis ne sit graue quisquis amasti / dicere "Nasonis molliter ossa cubent"; translation by Peter Green, The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters (University of California Press, 2005), p. 46.
  5. ↑ See: Dettmer, H. (2021). Issues of unity in Ovid's Tristia. Peter Lang; pp. 3–4. Helena Dettmer agrees with Hall's division.
  6. ↑ Ovid (2005). The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters . Translated by Green, Peter. University of California Press. p. xxxvi. ISBN   0520931378.
  7. ↑ Williams, Gordon Willis (1978). Change and Decline: Roman Literature in the Early Empire . University of California Press. p.  56. ISBN   0520033337.
  8. ↑ Ovid (Routledge Revivals): The Classical Heritage. Routledge. 2014. p. 40. ISBN   978-1317687467.
  9. ↑ Malouf, David (2013). Introduction. The Art of Love. By Ovid. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN   978-0307801838.
  10. ↑ Woodcock, Matthew (2016). Thomas Churchyard: Pen, Sword, and Ego. Oxford University Press. p. 158. ISBN   978-0191507267.
  11. ↑ Bunson, Matthew (2014). Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. Infobase Publishing. p. 404. ISBN   978-1438110271.
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