Metamorphoses - Closing

EPILOGUE

Now I have finished my work, which nothing can ever

destroy --

not Jupiter's wrath, nor fire nor sword, nor devouring

time.

That day which has power over nothing except this

body of mine

may come when it will and end the uncertain span of

my life.

But the finer part of myself shall sweep me in eternity,

higher than all the stars. My name shall be never

forgotten.

Wherever the might of Rome extends in the lands she

has conquered,

the people shall read and recite my words. Throughout

all ages,

if poets have vision to prophesy truth, I shall live in my

fame.

Metamorphoses - Book 15:835

Livia's son to adopt his name with the cares of his

office.

Only when he has come to Pylian Nestor's years

shall he rise to our home in the heavens and join the

star of his kinsman.

Meanwhile you must rescue his father's soul from his

cut-ridden body

and make him a comet, that deified Julius' image may always

gaze on my Capitol Hill from the height of his shrine in

the Forum.

Metamorphoses - Book 15:745

THE APOTHEOSIS OF JULIUS CAESAR

Aescalpius came from abroad to dwell in our shrines,

but Caesar is god in his native city. He showed his

genius

in war and in peace; but all his campaigns that ended

in triumphs,

all his achievements at home and his rapid promotion

to glory

did less to secure his change to a constellation or comet

than what was decreed by his son. Of the deeds of

Julius Caesar

none can be greater than standing father to Caesar

Augustus.

Metamorphoses - Book 15:445

Fire and sword shall give way before you. You'll go on

your mission,

bearing with you the gods that you've snatched from the

flames, until

you come to a strange new land which is kinder to you and

to Troy

than the country you left. I can see a city of Phyrgian

grandsons,

greater than any that is or has been or shall rise hereafter.

Other leaders, over the centuries, will render her powerful;

but one man born of Iulus' blood will make her the

mistress

of all the world. When the earth has enjoyed his presence,

the realms

of the sky will enjoy him too; he is finally destined for

heaven.'

So I remember that Helenus said to the pious Aeneas

bearing his household gods. I rejoice that the walls of my kinsmen

are rising so fast, that the Greeks won a war for the good of

the Trojans.

Metamorphoses - Book 15

The Apotheosis of Julius Caesar (745-870), whose murder occurred only a year before Ovid was born, is not easy to evaluate. The description of the sinister omens which preceded the assassination is deeply impressive. But how should we interpret the poet's extravagant praise of the emperor Augustus and the odd touch of irreverent humour which continues to mark his characterization of the gods?

Metamorphoses - Book 13:600

Supreme ruler of heave, I pray you to comfort his

spirit

by paying some tribute, and so to soothe the wounds

of his mother.'

Jupiter nodded assent. Young Memnon's high-built

pyre

collapsed, the flames leapt up, and rolling columns of

black smoke

darkened the light of day, as vapour rises like breath

from the rivers and forms a fog which the sun's bright

rays cannot penetrate.

Cinders of charcoal flew to the sky, then massed and

thickened

into a single body, assuming an outline and drawing

heat and life from fire.

Metamorphoses - Book 13:375

so I must rank above you. In the make-up of human

beings,

intelligence counts for more than our hands, and that is

our true strength.

'Princes of Greece, I call on you now to reward your

watchman.

Reward me for all those years of anxious and careful

devotion.

I ask you to give me the prize which I'm owed for my

dutiful service.

My work is complete: by removing the obstacle fate had

imposed,

by enabling the capture of Ilium's towers, I achieved their

capture.

By all the hopes that we share, by the toppling defences of

Troy,

in the name of the gods whose aid I recently stole from the

foe,

by anything yet to be done where intelligent action is

needed,

remember Ulysses! Or else, if it cannot be mine, let this

armour

be hers! -- and he pointed towards the fateful image of

Pallas.

Metamorphoses - Book 13:285

These, these, I say, were the shoulders on which the

corpse of Achilles

was borne from the field with the weapons I now am

striving to win.

I have the physical strength that is needed to bear such

a weight,

and I have the mind which will surely value this tribute

from you.

Metamorphoses - Book 13:135

You shouldn't let Ajax's dullness of intellect count in his

favour

or hold my quickness against myself; it has always been

used

in your service, my lords. Don't grudge me my eloquence,

such as it is;

it has often pleaded for you in the past, and now it is bound

to plead for its master. We cannot ignore the gifts that we

have.

'Ancestry, forebears, titles we haven't achieved for

ourselves,

are scarcely points we can urge.

Metamorphoses - Book 12:590

Do you rue the slaughter of so many thousands

defending the city?

Not to mention each one, are you haunted at least by

the ghost

of Hector, whose body was dragged all round the

stronghold he fought for?

Meanwhile that monster Achilles, a man more

blood-polluted

than war itself, lives on to ravage the work of our

hands.

Let him come my way: I'll ensure that he feels the

power of my trident.

But since I may not engage with my foe directly, I ask

you

to shoot an invisible arrow to catch the brute

unawares.'

Metamorphoses - Book 12:395

be called good-looking. But Cyallrus' looks couldn't save

him in battle.

His beard was just starting to grow, in a golden colour,

gold

as the golden mane which streamed from his shoulders

down to his withers.

His face was handsome and strong. His neck and his

shoulders, his hands

and his torso -- all indeed of his human features -- were like

the work of a famous sculptor. His horse's parts lower down

were no less perfect, unblemished. A mount for Castor, if

given

a head and a neck! Such a ridable back, such a muscular chest!

Metamorphoses - Book 12:17

the chicks she was losing. The crowd was

dumbfounded, but Calchas the prophet

unfolded his vision: 'Rejoice, you Greeks! We surely will

triumph.

Troy must fall, but our toil shall be long. These nine dead birds

presage nine years of war!' The snake, still coiled in the

tree's green

branches, turned into stone in the form of a serpentine

sculpture.

Metamorphoses - Book 9:500

But the gods have rules of their own. It is idle to

measure our human

codes and customs against the different conventions of

heaven.

No, I must either expel this forbidden desire from my

heart,

or else, I cannot, I pray for death before I give way,

and so to be laid on my funeral pyre, where my brother

can finally kiss my lips.

Metamorphoses - Book 9:240

The flames were rising, spreading all round and crackling

loudly,

licking away at the limbs of the hero, who calmly awaited

a foe he despised. The gods were afraid for the Earth's great champion;

but Jupiter, sensing their fear and beaming with pure

satisfaction,

grandly addressed them: 'You gods, this anxiety of yours is

a pleasure

to me. I offer myself wholehearted congratulations

that I should be called the father and king of a people that

cares,

that a son of mine should be also supported by your good

wishes.

This support is a tribute, I'm sure, to his own magnificent

exploits,

but I am myself in your debt. Now truly, my faithful subjects,

you mustn't be needlessly frightened. Ignore those flames on

Mount Oeta.

The hero who conquered all will conquer the fire you are

watching.

Vulcan's power will only affect the part he derives

from his mother's side. The part he derives

from his mother's side. The part he derives from me is

eternal,

it cannot be touched by death and is fully resistant to fire.

This part, when its time on earth is complete, will be

welcomed by me

to the realms of the sky, and I trust this action of mine will

give pleasure

Metamorphoses - Book 8:35

Beside herself with excitement, the daughter of Nisus was

almost

out of her mind. 'How happy the spear which he is

grasping!'

she said to herself. 'How happy the reins that his hands are

gripping!'

Metamorphoses - Book 6:61

Think how a tract of the sky, when the sun breaks suddenly through

at the end of a rain shower, is steeped in the long, great curve of a rainbow;

the bow is agleam with a range of a thousand various hues,

but the eye cannot tell where one fades into another;

adjacent

tones are so much the same, though the difference is clear at

the edges.

Such were the colours the two contestants used in the

fabric.

Their patterns were also shot with flexible threads of gold,

as they each spun out an old tale in the weft of their separate looms.

Minerva depicted the rock of Mars on the heights of

Cecrops

and wove the ancient dispute concerning the name of the land.

Metamorphoses - Book I:75

Yet a holier living creature, more able to think high thoughts,

which could hold dominion over the rest, was still to be found.

So Man came into the world. Maybe the great artificer

made him of seed divine in a plan for a better universe.

Maybe the earth that was freshly formed and newly divorced

from the heavenly ether retained some seeds of its

kindred element -

earth, which Prometheus, the son of Iapetus, sprinkled with

raindrops

and moulded into the likeness of gods who govern the universe.

Where other animals walk on all fours and look to the ground,

man was given a towering head and commanded to stand

erect, with his gave uplifted to gaze on the stars of heaven.

Thus clay, so lately no more than a crude and formless substance,

was metamorphosed to assume the strange new figure of Man.

Metamorphoses - Book I:20

He severed the earth from the sky and he parted the sea from the land;

he separated translucent space from the cloudier atmosphere.

He disentangled the elements, so as to set them free

from the heap of darkness, then gave them their

separate places and tied them

down in a peaceful concordat: fire flashed out as a weightless force in the

vaulted heaven and found its rightful place

at the height of the firmament; air came next in position

and lightness;

Metamorphoses - Opening

PROLOGUE

Changes of shape, new forms, are the theme which my spirit impels me

now to recite. Inspire me, O gods (it is you who have even transformed my art), and spin me a thread from the world's beginning

down to my own lifetime, in one continuous poem.

THE CREATION

Before the earth and the sea and the all-encomapssing heaven

came into being, the whole of nature displayed but a single

face, which men have called Chaos: a cruse, unstructured mass,

no matter composed of disparate, incompatible elements.

No Titan the sun god was present to cast his rays on the universe,

nor Phoebe the moon to replenish her horns and grow to her fullness;

no earth suspended in equilibrium, wrapped in its folding

mantle of air; no Amphitrite, the goddess of ocean,

to stretch her sinuous arms all round the earth's long coastline.

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published 2004

Text copyright David Raeburn, 2004

Introduction copyright Denis Feeney, 2004

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The moral right of the translator has been asserted

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OVID
Metapmorphoses

A New Verse Translation

Translated by DAVID RAEBURN

with an Introduction by DENIS FEENEY

PENGUIN BOOKS

An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals - pg. 111

When I was twenty, says a FRENCH poet, OVID was my favourite: Now I am forty, I declare for HORACE. We enter, to be sure, more readily into sentiments, which resemble those we feel every day: But no passion, when well represented, can be entirely indifferent to us; because there is, none of which every man has not, within him, at least the seeds and first principles. It is the business of poetry to bring every affection near to us by lively imagery and representation, and make it look like truth and reality: A certain proof, that, wherever that reality is found, our minds are disposed to be strongly affected by it.