"
As though Forest King heard the prayer and answered it with
all his hero's heart, the splendid form launched faster out, the
stretching stride stretched further yet with lightning spontaneity,
every fibre strained, every nerve struggled; with a magnificent
bound like an antelope the gray recovered the ground he had
lost, and passed Bay Regent by a quarter-length.
As though Forest King heard the prayer and answered it with
all his hero's heart, the splendid form launched faster out, the
stretching stride stretched further yet with lightning spontaneity,
every fibre strained, every nerve struggled; with a magnificent
bound like an antelope the gray recovered the ground he had
lost, and passed Bay Regent by a quarter-length.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v19 - Oli to Phi
"Whether from
Mary Magdalene or Madame la Marquise is unknown; probably
will never be known. Curses go home to roost, but chickens
don't. The Waif is irrational: she thinks a mouthful of black
bread better than easy extinction among the ferns. Claudine de
-
## p. 10902 (#110) ##########################################
OUIDA
10902
Tencin has left a feminine D'Alembert in a moss-cradle: are you
inclined to play the part of the foster-mother? "
Grand'mère Virelois listened to the harangue, comprehending
it no more than if he had spoken in Hebrew; but she was used
to him, and thought nothing of that.
"What is it I am to see? " she asked again, peering curi-
ously with lively interest among the leaves. Before he could
answer she had caught sight of the child, with vehement amaze
and ecstatic wonder; the speech had been as Hebrew to her, but
the fact was substantial and indisputable. Crossing herself in
her surprise, with a thousand expletives of pity and admiration, she
bent her little withered but still active form beneath the rail, and
stooped and raised the foundling-raised her, but only a little
from the ground.
Holy Virgin! Tricotrin! " she cried, "look here! the child is
fastened. Help me! "
He looked quickly as she called him, and saw that the withes
of osiers and the tendrils of wild vine had been netted so tightly
around the limbs, tied here and there with strong twine, that the
infant could never have escaped from its resting-place; it had
evidently been so fastened that the child might perish there un-
seen. His face darkened as he looked.
"Murder, then! not mere neglect. Ah! this is Madame la
Marquise at work, not Magdalene! " he murmured, as he slashed
the network right and left with his knife, and set the Waif at
liberty; while Grand'mère Virelois went into a woman's raptures
on the young beauty of the "petit Gésu," and a woman's vehe-
ment censures of a sister's sin.
Tricotrin smoked resignedly, while her raptures and her dia-
tribes expended themselves; it was long before either were ex-
hausted.
"Don't abuse the mother," he interposed at last.
"Every-
body gets rid of troublesome consequences when they can.
We've done no good in disturbing her arrangements. We have
only disinterred a living blunder that she wished to bury. "
"For shame, Tricotrin! " cried Grand'mère, quivering with
horror, while she folded the child in her withered arms. "You
can jest on such wickedness! You can excuse such a murder-
ess! "
"Paf! " said Tricotrin, lightly blowing away a smoke ring.
"The whole system of creation is a sliding scale of murders.
## p. 10903 (#111) ##########################################
OUIDA
10903
All the world over, life is only sustained by life being extin-
guished. "
Grand'mère Virelois, who was a pious little woman, shuddered
and clasped the child nearer.
"Ah-h-h! the vile woman! How will she see Our Lady's
face on the last day? "
"How she will meet the world she lives in is more the ques-
tion with her now, I imagine. An eminently sagacious woman!
and you and I are two sentimentalists to interfere with her ad-
mirably artistic play. So you would live, little one? I wonder
what you will make of what you have got! A Jeremiad if you
are a good silly woman; a Can-can measure if you are a bad
clever one. Which will it be, I wonder? "
"Mon Dieu, it is an angel! " murmured Grand'mère; "such
hair, like silk,—such eyes,—such a rose for a mouth! And left
to die of hunger and cold! Ah, may the Holy Mary find her
out and avenge her crime, the wicked one! "
"The vengeance will come quick if the sinner live in a garret;
it will limp very slowly if she shelter in a palace. Well, since
you take that child in your arms, do you mean to find her the
piece of bread the unphilosophic castaway will want? "
"Will I not! if I go without myself. Oh, the pretty little
child! who could have left you? Wherever the mother dwells,
may the good God hunt her down! "
"Deity as a detective? Not a grand idea that. Yet it is the
heavenly office that looks dearest to man when it is exercised
upon others! Grand'mère, answer me: Are you going to keep
that Waif? »
The bright, brown, wrinkled, homely face of the good old
woman grew perplexed.
"Ah, my friend, times are so bad, it is hard work to get a
bit in the pot for one's self; and I stitch, stitch, stitch, and spin,
spin, spin, till I am blind many a time. And yet the pretty
child- with no one to care for it! I do not know,- she must
be brought up hard if she come to me. Not a lentil even to put
in the water and make one fancy it is soup, in some days these
hard times! But do you know nothing more of her than this,
Tricotrin ? »
"Nothing. "
His luminous eyes met hers full and frankly; she knew-
all the nations where he wandered knew-that the affirmative of
Tricotrin was more sure than the truth of most men's oaths.
## p. 10904 (#112) ##########################################
10904
OUIDA
"Then she must be abandoned here by some wretch to starve
unseen ? »
"It looks like it. "
"Ah! the little angel! What does the barbarous brutal heart
of stone deserve? "
"What it will get if it lodge in the breast that rags and tat-
ters cover; what it will not get if it lodge in the breast that
heaves under silks and laces. "
"True enough! but the good God will smite in his own
time. Oh, little one, how could they ever forsake thee? " cried
Grand'mère, caressing afresh the child, who was laughing and
well content in her friendly and tender hold.
"Then you are going to adopt her? "
"Adopt her? Mother of Jesus! I dare not say that. You
know how I live, Tricotrin,- how hardly, though I try to let
it be cheerfully. If I had a little more she should share it,
and welcome; but as it is not a mouthful of chestnuts, even,
so often; not a drop of oil or a bit of garlic sometimes weeks
together! She would be better off at the Foundling Hospital
than with me. Besides, it is an affair for the mayor of the com-
mune. "
"Certainly it is. But if the most notable mayor can do noth-
ing except send this foundling among the others, would you like
better to keep her? "
Grand'mère Virelois was silent and thoughtful a minute; then
her little bright eyes glanced up at him from under their white
linen roofing, with a gleam in them that was between a smile
and a tear.
"You know how I lost them, Tricotrin. One in Africa, one
at the Barricades, one crushed under a great marble block, build-
ing the Préfet's palace. And then the grandchild too,- the only
little one, so pretty, so frail, so tender, killed that long bitter
winter, because the food was so scarce, like the young birds dead
on the snow! You know, Tricotrin? and what use is it to take
her to perish like him, though in her laughter and her caresses
I might think that he lived again? "
"I know! " said Tricotrin softly, with an infinite balm of
pity, and of the remembrance that was the sweetest sympathy,
in his voice. "Well, if M. le Maire can find none to claim her,
she shall stay with you, Grand'mère: and as for the food, that
shall not trouble you; I will have a care of that. "
"You? Holy Jesus! how good! "
-
## p. 10905 (#113) ##########################################
OUIDA
10905
"Not in the least. I abetted her in her ignorant and ridicu-
lous desire to exchange a pleasant death among the clematis for
all the toil and turmoil of prolonged existences; I am clearly
responsible for my share in the folly. I cut the meshes that her
sagacious mother had knotted so hardly. I must accept my part
in the onus of such unwarrantable interference. You keep the
Waif; and I will be at the cost of her. "
"But then, Tricotrin, you call yourself poor? »
"So I am.
But one need not be a millionaire to be able to
get a few crumbs for that robin. The creature persisted in liv-
ing, and I humored her caprice. It was mock humanity, paltry
sentiment; Mistigri was partly at fault, but I mostly. We must
accept the results. They will be disastrous probably,—the creat-
ure is feminine,- but such as they are we must make the best
of them. "
"Then you will adopt her? "
"Not in the least. But I will see she has something to eat;
and that you are able to give it her if her parents cannot be
found. Here is a gold bit for the present minute; and when we
know whether she is really and truly a Waif, you shall have
more to keep the pot over your fire full and boiling. Adieu,
Grand'mère. "
With that farewell, he, heedless of the voluble thanks and
praises that the old woman showered after him, and of the out-
cries of the child who called to Mistigri, put his pipe in his
mouth, his violin in his pocket, and throwing his knapsack over
his shoulder, brushed his way through the forest growth.
"Mock sentiment! " he said to himself. "You and I have
done a silly thing, Mistigri. What will come of it? "
THE STEEPLE-CHASE
From 'Under Two Flags
THE
HE bell was clanging and clashing passionately, as Cecil at
last went down to the weights, all his friends of the House-
hold about him, and all standing "crushers" on their cham-
pion; for their stringent esprit de corps was involved, and the
Guards are never backward in putting their gold down, as all
the world knows. In the inclosure, the cynosure of devouring
## p. 10906 (#114) ##########################################
10906
OUIDA
eyes, stood the King, with the sang froid of a superb gentleman,
amid the clamor raging round him, one delicate ear laid back
now and then, but otherwise indifferent to the din, with his coat
glistening like satin, the beautiful tracery of vein and muscle,
like the veins of vine-leaves, standing out on the glossy, clear-
carved neck that had the arch of Circassia, and his dark, antelope
eyes gazing with a gentle, pensive earnestness on the shouting
crowd.
His rivals too were beyond par in fitness and in condition,
and there were magnificent animals among them. Bay Regent
was a huge raking chestnut, upward of sixteen hands, and enor-
mously powerful, with very fine shoulders, and an all-over-like-
going head; he belonged to a colonel in the Rifles, but was to
be ridden by Jimmy Delmar of the 10th Lancers, whose colors
were violet with orange hoops. Montacute's horse, Pas de Charge,
which carried all the money of the Heavy Cavalry,- Montacute
himself being in the Dragoon Guards,- was of much the same
order: a black hunter with racing blood in him, loins and withers
that assured any amount of force, and no fault but that of a
rather coarse head, traceable to a slur on his 'scutcheon on the
distaff side from a plebeian great-grandmother, who had been
a cart mare,—the only stain in his otherwise faultless pedigree.
However, she had given him her massive shoulders, so that he
was in some sense a gainer by her, after all. Wild Geranium
was a beautiful creature enough,—a bright bay Irish mare, with
that rich red gloss that is like the glow of a horse-chestnut, very
perfect in shape, though a trifle light, perhaps, and with not
quite strength enough in neck or barrel; she would jump the
fences of her own paddock half a dozen times a day for sheer
amusement, and was game to anything. * She was entered by
Cartouche of the Enniskillens, to be ridden by "Baby Grafton,"
of the same corps, a feather-weight, and quite a boy, but with
plenty of science in him. These were the three favorites; Day
Star ran them close, -the property of Durham Vavassour, of
the Scots Grays, and to be ridden by his owner, -a handsome
flea-bitten gray sixteen-hander, with ragged hips, and action that
looked a trifle stringhalty, but noble shoulders, and great force
The portrait of this lady is that of a very esteemed young Irish beauty
of my acquaintance; she this season did seventy-six miles on a warm June
day, and eat her corn and tares afterward as if nothing happened. She is
six years old.
## p. 10907 (#115) ##########################################
OUIDA
10907
in the loins and withers: the rest of the field, though unusually
excellent, did not find so many "sweet voices" for them, and
were not so much to be feared; each starter was of course
much backed by his party, but the betting was tolerably even
on these four, all famous steeple-chasers,- the King at one time,
and Bay Regent at another, slightly leading in the ring.
Thirty-two starters were hoisted up on the telegraph board,
and as the field got at last under way, uncommonly handsome
they looked, while the silk jackets of all the colors of the rainbow
glittered in the bright noon sun. As Forest King closed in, per-
fectly tranquil still, but beginning to glow and quiver all over
with excitement, knowing as well as his rider the work that was
before him, and longing for it in every muscle and every limb,
while his eyes flashed fire as he pulled at the curb and tossed his
head aloft, there went up a general shout of "Favorite! " His
beauty told on the populace, and even somewhat on the profes-
sionals, though the Legs kept a strong business prejudice against
the working powers of "the Guards' crack. " The ladies began to
lay dozens in gloves on him; not altogether for his points, which
perhaps they hardly appreciated, but for his owner and rider,—
who, in the scarlet and gold with the white sash across his chest,
and a look of serene indifference on his face, they considered the
handsomest man of the field. The Household is usually safe to
win the suffrages of the sex.
In the throng on the course, Rake instantly bonneted an
audacious dealer who had ventured to consider that Forest King
was "light and curby in the 'ock. " "You're a wise 'un, you
are! " retorted the wrathful and ever eloquent Rake: "there's more
strength in his clean fat legs, bless him! than in all the round
thick mile-posts of your half-breeds, that have no more tendon
than a bit of wood, and are just as flabby as a sponge! " Which
hit the dealer home just as his hat was hit over his eyes,-
Rake's arguments being unquestionable in their force.
The thoroughbreds pulled and fretted and swerved in their
impatience; one or two over-contumacious bolted incontinently;
others put their heads between their knees in the endeavor to
draw their riders over their withers; Wild Geranium reared
straight upright, fidgeted all over with longing to be off, passaged
with the prettiest, wickedest grace in the world, and would have
given the world to neigh if she had dared, but she knew it would
be very bad style, so, like an aristocrat as she was, restrained
## p. 10908 (#116) ##########################################
10908
OUIDA
herself; Bay Regent almost sawed Jimmy Delmar's arms off,
looking like a Titan Bucephalus; while Forest King, with his
nostrils dilated till the scarlet tinge on them glowed in the sun,
his muscles quivering with excitement as intense as the little
Irish mare's, and all his Eastern and English blood on fire for
the fray, stood steady as a statue for all that, under the curb of
a hand light as a woman's, but firm as iron to control, and used
to guide him by the slightest touch.
All eyes were on that throng of the first mounts in the
Service; brilliant glances by the hundred gleamed down behind
hot-house bouquets of their chosen color, eager ones by the thou-
sand stared thirstily from the crowded course, the roar of the
Ring subsided for a second, a breathless attention and suspense
succeeded it; the Guardsmen sat on their drags, or lounged near
the ladies with their race-glasses ready, and their habitual
expression of gentle and resigned weariness in nowise altered
because the Household, all in all, had from sixty to seventy thou
sand on the event, and the Seraph mourned mournfully to his che-
root, "That chestnut's no end fit," strong as his faith was in the
champion of the Brigades.
A moment's good start was caught-the flag dropped-off
they went, sweeping out for the first second like a line of cavalry
about to charge.
Another moment, and they were scattered over the first field;
Forest King, Wild Geranium, and Bay Regent leading for two
lengths, when Montacute, with his habitual "fast burst," sent Pas
de Charge past them like lightning. The Irish mare gave a rush
and got alongside of him; the King would have done the same,
but Cecil checked him, and kept him in that cool swinging canter
which covered the grass-land so lightly; Bay Regent's vast thun-
dering stride was Olympian; but Jimmy Delmar saw his worst foe
in the "Guards' crack," and waited on him warily, riding superbly
himself.
The first fence disposed of half the field; they crossed the
second in the same order, Wild Geranium racing neck to neck
with Pas de Charge; the King was all athirst to join the duello,
but his owner kept him gently back, saving his pace and lifting
him over the jumps as easily as a lapwing. The second fence
proved a cropper to several; some awkward falls took place over
it, and tailing commenced; after the third field, which was heavy
plow, all knocked off but eight, and the real struggle began in
## p. 10909 (#117) ##########################################
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10909
sharp earnest, a good dozen who had shown a splendid stride
over the grass being done up by the terrible work
clods.
on the
-
The five favorites had it all to themselves: Day Star pounding
onward at tremendous speed, Pas de Charge giving slight symp-
toms of distress owing to the madness of his first burst, the Irish
mare literally flying ahead of him, Forest King and the chestnut
waiting on each other.
In the Grand Stand the Seraph's eyes strained after the
Scarlet and White, and he muttered in his mustaches, "Ye gods,
what's up? The world's coming to an end! Beauty's turned
cautious! "
Cautious indeed-with that giant of Pytchley fame running
neck to neck by him; cautious with two-thirds of the course
unrun, and all the yawners yet to come; cautious- with the
blood of Forest King lashing to boiling heat, and the wondrous
greyhound stride stretching out faster and faster beneath him,
ready at a touch to break away and take the lead: but he would
be reckless enough by-and-by; reckless, as his nature was, under
the indolent serenity of habit.
--
Two more fences came, laced high and stiff with the Shire
thorn, and with scarce twenty feet between them, the heavy
plowed land leading to them clotted and black and hard, with
the fresh earthy scent steaming up as the hoofs struck the clods
with a dull thunder. Pas de Charge rose to the first: distressed
too early, his hind feet caught in the thorn, and he came down,
rolling clear of his rider; Montacute picked him up with true
science, but the day was lost to the Heavy Cavalry men. Forest
King went in and out over both like a bird, and led for the first
time; the chestnut was not to be beat at fencing, and ran even
with him: Wild Geranium flew still as fleet as a deer-true to
her sex, she would not bear rivalry; but little Grafton, though
he rode like a professional, was but a young one, and went too
wildly her spirit wanted cooler curb.
And now only, Cecil loosened the King to his full will and
his full speed. Now only, the beautiful Arab head was stretched
like a racer's in the run in for the Derby, and the grand stride
swept out till the hoofs seemed never to touch the dark earth
they skimmed over; neither whip nor spur was needed. Bertie
had only to leave the gallant temper and the generous fire that
were roused in their might to go their way and hold their own.
## p. 10910 (#118) ##########################################
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10910
His hands were low; his head a little back; his face very calm,
-the eyes only had a daring, eager, resolute will lighting in
them: Brixworth lay before him. He knew well what Forest
King could do; but he did not know how great the chestnut
Regent's powers might be.
The water gleamed before them, brown and swollen, and
deepened with the meltings of winter snows a month before; the
brook that has brought so many to grief over its famous banks,
since cavaliers leaped it with their falcon on their wrist, or the
mellow note of the horn rang over the woods in the hunting-
days of Stuart reigns. They knew it well, that long dark line,
shimmering there in the sunlight, the test that all must pass
who go in for the Soldiers' Blue Ribbon. Forest King scented
the water, and went on with his ears pointed and his greyhound
stride lengthening, quickening, gathering up all its force and
its impetus for the leap that was before; then like the rise and
the swoop of a heron he spanned the water, and landing clear,
launched forward with the lunge of a spear darted through air.
Brixworth was passed; the Scarlet and White, a mere gleam of
bright color, a mere speck in the landscape, to the breathless
crowds in the stand, sped on over the brown and level grass-
land: two and a quarter miles done in four minutes and twenty
seconds. Bay Regent was scarcely behind him; the chestnut
abhorred the water, but a finer trained hunter was never sent
over the Shires, and Jimmy Delmar rode like Grimshaw himself.
The giant took the leap in magnificent style, and thundered on
neck and neck with the "Guards' crack. " The Irish mare fol-
lowed, and with miraculous gameness, landed safely; but her hind
legs slipped on the bank, a moment was lost, and "Baby" Graf-
ton scarce knew enough to recover it, though he scoured on,
nothing daunted.
――
Pas de Charge, much behind, refused the yawner: his strength
was not more than his courage, but both had been strained too
severely at first. Montacute struck the spurs into him with a
savage blow over the head: the madness was its own punish-
ment; the poor brute rose blindly to the jump, and missed the
bank with a reel and a crash. Sir Eyre was hurled out into the
brook, and the hope of the Heavies lay there with his breast and
forelegs resting on the ground, his hind quarters in the water,
and his back broken. Pas de Charge would never again see the
starting-flag waved, or hear the music of the hounds, or feel the
## p. 10911 (#119) ##########################################
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10911
gallant life throb and glow through him at the rallying-notes of
the horn. His race was run.
Not knowing or looking or heeding what happened behind,
the trio tore on over the meadow and the plowed land; the two
favorites neck by neck, the game little mare hopelessly behind
through that one fatal moment over Brixworth. The turning-
flags were passed; from the crowds on the course a great hoarse
roar came louder and louder, and the shouts rang, changing every
second, "Forest King wins," "Bay Regent wins," "Scarlet and
White's ahead," "Violet's up with him," "Violet's passed him,”
"Scarlet recovers," "Scarlet beats," "A cracker on the King,"
"Ten to one on the Regent," "Guards are over the fence first,"
"Guards are winning," "Guards are losing," "Guards are beat! "
Were they?
As the shout rose, Cecil's left stirrup-leather snapped and gave
way; at the pace they were going, most men, ay, and good riders
too, would have been hurled out of their saddle by the shock:
he scarcely swerved; a moment to ease the King and to recover
his equilibrium, then he took the pace up again as though noth-
ing had changed. And his comrades of the Household, when they
saw this through their race-glasses, broke through their serenity
and burst into a cheer that echoed over the grass-lands and the
coppices like a clarion, the grand rich voice of the Seraph lead-
ing foremost and loudest,—a cheer that rolled mellow and tri-
umphant down the cold bright air, like the blasts of trumpets,
and thrilled on Bertie's ear where he came down the course a
mile away.
It made his heart beat quicker with a victorious
headlong delight, as his knees pressed closer into Forest King's
flanks, and half stirrupless like the Arabs, he thundered forward
to the greatest riding-feat of his life. His face was very calm
still, but his blood was in tumult: the delirium of pace had got
on him; a minute of life like this was worth a year, and he knew
that he would win or die for it, as the land seemed to fly like a
black sheet under him; and in that killing speed, fence and hedge
and double and water all went by him like a dream, whirling
underneath him as the gray stretched, stomach to earth, over the
level, and rose to leap after leap.
For that instant's pause, when the stirrup broke, threatened to
lose him the race.
He was more than a length behind the Regent, whose hoofs,
as they dashed the ground up, sounded like thunder, and for
## p. 10912 (#120) ##########################################
10912
OUIDA
whose herculean strength the plow had no terrors; it was more
than the lead to keep now,-there was ground to cover, and the
King was losing like Wild Geranium. Cecil felt drunk with that
strong, keen west wind that blew so strongly in his teeth; a pas-
sionate excitation was in him; every breath of winter air that
rushed in its bracing currents round him seemed to lash him like
a stripe- the Household to look on and see him beaten!
Certain wild blood that lay latent in Cecil, under the tranquil
gentleness of temper and of custom, woke and had the mastery:
he set his teeth hard, and his hands clinched like steel on the
bridle. "O my beauty, my beauty! " he cried, all unconsciously
half aloud as they cleared the thirty-sixth fence, "kill me if you
like, but don't fail me!
"
As though Forest King heard the prayer and answered it with
all his hero's heart, the splendid form launched faster out, the
stretching stride stretched further yet with lightning spontaneity,
every fibre strained, every nerve struggled; with a magnificent
bound like an antelope the gray recovered the ground he had
lost, and passed Bay Regent by a quarter-length. It was a neck-
to-neck race once more across the three meadows, with the last
and lower fences that were between them and the final leap of
all: that ditch of artificial water, with the towering double hedge
of oak rails and of blackthorn that was reared black and grim
and well-nigh hopeless just in front of the Grand Stand.
A roar
like the roar of the sea broke up from the thronged course as
the crowd hung breathless on the even race; ten thousand shouts
rang as thrice ten thousand eyes watched the closing contest, as
superb a sight as the Shires ever saw while the two ran together,
-the gigantic chestnut, with every massive sinew swelled and
strained to tension, side by side with the marvelous grace, the
shining flanks, and the Arabian-like head of the Guards' horse.
«The
Louder and wilder the shrieked tumult rose: "The chestnut
beats! " "The gray beats! " "Scarlet's ahead! " "Bay Regent's
caught him! » "Violet's winning, Violet's winning! "
King's neck by neck! " "The King's beating! " "The Guards
will get it! " "The Guards' crack has it! " "Not yet, not yet! "
"Violet will thrash him at the jump! " "Now for it! "
"Scarlet will win! >>
Guards, the Guards, the Guards! "
King has the finish! " "No, no, no, no! »
"The
« The
Sent along at a pace that Epsom flat never eclipsed, sweeping
by the Grand Stand like the flash of electric flame, they ran side
## p. 10913 (#121) ##########################################
OUIDA
10913
to side one moment more, their foam flung on each other's with-
ers, their breath hot in each other's nostrils, while the dark earth
flew beneath their stride. The blackthorn was in front, behind
five bars of solid oak, the water yawning on its further side, black
and deep, and fenced, twelve feet wide if it was an inch, with
the same thorn wall beyond it; a leap no horse should have been
given, no Steward should have set. Cecil pressed his knees closer
and closer, and worked the gallant hero for the test; the surging
roar of the throng, though so close, was dull on his ear; he heard
nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing but that lean chestnut head
beside him, the dull thud on the turf of the flying gallop, and the
black wall that reared in his face. Forest King had done so
much, could he have stay and strength for this?
Cecil's hands clinched unconsciously on the bridle, and his
face was very pale-pale with excitation-as his foot, where the
stirrup was broken, crushed closer and harder against the gray's
flanks.
"O my darling, my beauty — now! »
One touch of the spur-the first-and Forest King rose at
the leap, all the life and power there were in him gathered for
one superhuman and crowning effort: a flash of time not half a
second in duration, and he was lifted in the air higher, and
higher, and higher, in the cold, fresh, wild winter wind; stakes
and rails, and thorn and water, lay beneath him black and gaunt
and shapeless, yawning like a grave; one bound even in mid-air,
one last convulsive impulse of the gathered limbs, and Forest
King was over!
And as he galloped up the straight run-in, he was alone.
Bay Regent had refused the leap.
As the gray swept to the judge's chair, the air was rent with
deafening cheers that seemed to reel like drunken shouts from
the multitude. "The Guards win, the Guards win! " and when
his rider pulled up at the distance, with the full sun shining on
the scarlet and white, with the gold glisten of the embroidered
"Cœur Vaillant se fait Royaume," Forest King stood in all his
glory, winner of the Soldiers' Blue Ribbon, by a feat without its
parallel in all the annals of the Gold Vase.
But as the crowd surged about him, and the mad cheering
crowned his victory, and the Household in the splendor of their
triumph and the fullness of their gratitude rushed from the drags.
and the stands to cluster to his saddle, Bertie looked as serenely
XIX-683
## p. 10914 (#122) ##########################################
10914
QUIDA
and listlessly nonchalant as of old, while he nodded to the Seraph
with a gentle smile.
"Rather a close finish, eh? Have you any Moselle Cup going
there? I'm a little thirsty. "
Outsiders would much sooner have thought him defeated than
triumphant; no one who had not known him could possibly have
imagined that he had been successful; an ordinary spectator
would have concluded that, judging by the resigned weariness of
his features, he had won the race greatly against his own will,
and to his own infinite ennui. No one could have dreamed that
he was thinking in his heart of hearts how passionately he loved
the gallant beast that had been victor with him, and that if he
had followed out the momentary impulse in him, he could have
put his arms round the noble-bowed neck and kissed the horse
like a woman!
## p. 10914 (#123) ##########################################
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## p. 10914 (#124) ##########################################
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## p. 10914 (#126) ##########################################
## p. 10915 (#127) ##########################################
10915
OVID
(PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO)
(43 B. C. -17 A. D. )
BY FRANCIS W. KELSEY
HE Augustan Roman came into a full and rich inheritance.
Conquest had brought the civilized world into subjection to
the city by the Tiber; contact with many peoples, and the
adjustment of local institutions to a wide range of conditions, had
enlarged the intellectual horizon of the conquerors, while the inpour-
ing of wealth from subject provinces had made possible the leisure
and the accumulation of resources essential to progress in matters of
culture. Greece, with art, literature, and philosophy developed to a
singular perfection, ministered to every longing of awakened taste,
offering at the same time inspiration and models of excellence.
This broader and more cultivated life ushered in with the reign
of Augustus found spontaneous expression in literature.
In poetry
two opposing tendencies contended for the mastery. With a few
poets the thought of Rome's greatness was uppermost.
The respon-
sibility resting upon those whose mission it was "to rule the nations
with their sway, to fix the terms of peace, to spare the conquered,
and by war subdue the haughty," strengthened allegiance to the
ideals of honor and virtue characteristic of the earlier period.
But there were many men who, recognizing the position of the
Eternal City as the mistress of nations, yet were less moved by the
contemplation of her greatness than attracted by the opportunities
which an age of leisure and luxury afforded for self-gratification. As
the centralization of governmental functions increased, less room was
found for the display of those ambitions which had spurred the youth
of the Republic to put forth their most earnest efforts. Contact with
the Orient had introduced new forms of vice. As the strain of con-
stant wars yielded to peace, there was a reaction from frugality to
extravagance, from the practice of the hardier virtues to the extreme
of self-indulgence. The energy that formerly had pressed the Roman
eagles to the borders of the known world, flung itself into dissipation.
Love, wine, and art were the watchwords of the day. The freshness
and glamour could not endure; but they lasted long enough to inspire
a group of poets who became the interpreters of this life of gayety
## p. 10916 (#128) ##########################################
10916
OVID
both for their own age and for future times. Four of these poets
have often been mentioned together, in the order of succession: Cor-
nelius Gallus, whose writings have perished, Tibullus, Propertius, and
Ovid.
For the details of the life of Ovid we are indebted to the numer-
ous personal references in his poems. He was born on the 20th of
March, B. C. 43. His birthplace was Sulmo (now Solmona), a small
town "abounding in cool waters," as he tells us; picturesquely situ-
ated in the midst of the Apennines, about ninety miles northeast of
Rome. The Ovid family was ancient, of the equestrian rank; but
possessed of only moderate means. The constant companion of the
poet's youth was his brother Lucius, who was a year older than him-
self. The father was a practical man, apparently close in matters
of business, but ambitious for his sons, to whom he gave the best
education that the times afforded. It was his desire that both boys
should devote themselves to the law; he placed them at Rome under
the most distinguished masters. Lucius manifested an aptitude for
legal studies, but the hapless Publius found his duty and his inclina-
tion in serious conflict. As he makes confession in the 'Tristia' (Book
iv. , x. ):-
"To me, a lad, the service meet
Of heaven-born maids did seem more sweet,
And secretly the Muse did draw me to her feet.
"Oft cried my father, Still content
To humor such an idle bent?
Even Mæonian Homer did not leave a cent! )
"Stirred by his words, I cast aside
The spell of Helicon, and tried
To clothe my thought in phrase with plainest prose allied.
"But of themselves my words would run
In flowing numbers, and when done,
Whate'er I tried to write, in web of verse was spun. ".
In one part of his training, however, Ovid was not unsuccessful. The
rhetorician Seneca heard him declaim; and says that "when he took
pains he was considered a good declaimer," but that "argumentation
of any kind was irksome to him," and that his discourse resembled
"loose poetry. " His rhetorical studies exerted much influence later
on his verse.
When Ovid was nineteen years of age, the bond of unusual affec-
tion existing between his brother and himself was severed by the
death of Lucius; at this time, he says, "I began to be deprived
of half of myself. " He made a feeble effort to enter civil life, and
## p. 10917 (#129) ##########################################
OVID
10917
held several petty offices; but routine was distasteful to him, and he
preferred to keep himself free from "care-bringing ambition," while.
his passion for poetry constantly grew stronger:—
"Me the Aonian sisters pressed
To court retirement safe, addressed
To that which inclination long had urged as best.
"The poets of the time I sought,
Esteemed them with affection fraught
With reverence; as gods they all were in my thought. »
At some time after his brother's death Ovid studied at Athens, and
made an extended tour in Asia Minor and Sicily in company with the
poet Macer. He became saturated with Greek culture; and many a
passage in his poems has a local coloring due to his inspection of the
spot described.
The earliest productions of our poet were recited in public when
his "beard had only once or twice been cut. " His songs were im-
mediately popular. He became a member of the literary circle of
Rome, and made the acquaintance of prominent men. Having suffi-
cient means to free him from the necessity of labor for his own
support, he mingled with the gay society of the metropolis, and wrote
when in the mood for writing. He secured a house near the temple
of the Capitoline Jupiter, where he lived happily with his third wife;
for the first wife, given to him "when little more than a boy," and
a second wife also, had been speedily divorced.
So the years passed, in pleasure and in the pursuit of his art;
and the poet fondly imagined that all would continue as it had been.
But suddenly, in the latter part of the year 8 A. D. , without a word
of warning, an order came from the Emperor Augustus, directing
him at once to take up his residence at Tomi, a dreary outpost on
the Black Sea, south of the mouths of the Danube. He received the
message when on the island of Elba. Returning to Rome, he made
preparations for his departure; his picture of the distress and con-
fusion of his last night at home (Tristia,' Book i. , iii. ) is among
the most pathetic in ancient literature. He crossed the stormy Adri-
atic in the month of December, and reached Tomi, after a long
and wearisome journey, probably in the spring of 9 A. D. His wife
remained in Rome to intercede for his pardon.
The pretext assigned for the decree of banishment was the publi-
cation of the poet's 'Art of Love'; which, however, had been before
the public for a decade, and was hardly worse in its tendencies than
many other writings of the time. The real reason is often darkly
hinted at by Ovid, but nowhere stated. To discuss the subject at
## p. 10918 (#130) ##########################################
10918
OVID
length would be idle: all things considered, it seems probable that
the poet had involuntarily been a witness to something which, if
known, would compromise some member of the imperial family; and
that it was deemed expedient, as a matter of policy, to remove him
as far from Rome as possible.
The decree was not a formal sentence of exile: Ovid was left in
possession of his property, and did not lose the rights of citizenship.
But his lot was nevertheless a hard one. The climate of Tomi
was so severe that wine froze in the winter. The natives were half-
civilized. The town was wholly without the comforts of life, and
even subject to hostile attacks; especially in winter, when tribes from
the north could cross the Danube on the ice. For a younger man,
full of life and vigor, enforced residence at Tomi would have been a
severe punishment: Ovid was past the age of fifty, beyond the period
when men adjust themselves readily to new surroundings. Absence
from the city for any reason was looked upon by the average Roman
as exile; for the pleasure-loving poet the air of joyous Rome had been
life itself. Who can wonder that his spirit was crushed by the weight
of his misfortune? He sent to Augustus poem after poem, rehearsing
his sorrows and begging for a remission of his sentence, or at least
for a less inhospitable place of banishment. Yet he was not unkindly
to those among whom his lot was cast. He learned the language of
the people of Tomi, and composed in it some verses which the natives
received with tumultuous applause; they honored him with exemption
from public burdens. So long as Augustus lived there was some hope
of pardon; but even this faded away when Tiberius came to the
throne. The poet's health finally succumbed to the climate and to
the strain; he died in 17 A. D. , and was buried at Tomi.
The poems of Ovid may be conveniently arranged in three groups:
Poems of Love, Mythological Poems (Metamorphoses,' 'Fasti'), and
Poems of Exile. The Metamorphoses' and a short fragment ('Hali-
eutica') are written in hexameter verse; all his other poems are in
the elegiac measure, which he brought to the highest perfection.
Noteworthy among the poems of the first group are the 'Love-
Letters' (Epistulæ Heroidum'), assumed to have been written by
the heroines of the olden times to their absent husbands or lovers.
Penelope writes to Ulysses how she lived in constant anxiety for
his safety all through the long and weary Trojan war, and begs
him to return and put an end to her unbearable loneliness. Briseis,
apologizing for her letter "writ in bad Greek by a barbarian hand,»
implores Achilles either to slay her or bid her come back to him.
The fair none, deserted for Helen, reproaches Paris with his fickle-
ness; Medea rages with uncontrollable fury as she recalls to Jason
the rites of his new marriage; and Dido with fond entreaty presses
## p. 10919 (#131) ##########################################
OVID
10919
Eneas to abide at Carthage. Every imaginable phase of passionate
longing and despair comes to expression in these cleverly conceived
epistles, which in the development of thought and in the arrangement
of words show abundant traces of the poet's rhetorical studies.
The 'Loves' ('Amores') consist of forty-nine short poems, written
at different times, and arranged in three books. While the variety
of topics touched upon is great, the 'Loves' as a whole celebrate
the charms of Corinna, whom the poet presents as his mistress. But
there is reason to suppose that Corinna was altogether a fiction,
created by the poet's fancy to furnish a concrete attachment for his
amatory effusions. The most pleasing of these poems is the elegy
on the death of a pet parrot, which has often been imitated; but the
poet hardly anywhere strikes a higher level than in the bold prophecy
of his immortality, at the end of the first book.
The 'Loves' were followed by 'Ars Amatoria' (Art of Love),
which was published about 2 B. C. This was a didactic poem in
three books, concerned with the methods of securing and retaining
the affections. The first two books are addressed to men, the third
to the fair sex. While characterized by psychological insight and a
style of unusual finish, this work reflects conditions so foreign to
those of our day that it does not appeal to modern taste, and it is
very little read.
A supplementary book on 'Love-Cures' ('Remedia
Amoris') published three or four years later, recommends various
expedients for delivering one's self from the thraldom of the tender
passion.
The 'Fasti' (Calendar) is arranged in six books, one for each
month from January to June. Ovid clearly intended to include also
the remaining months of the year, but was prevented by his banish-
ment; the part completed received its final revision at Tomi. Under
each month the days are treated in their order; the myths and
legends associated with each day are skillfully interwoven with the
appropriate details of worship, and a certain amount of astronom-
ical information. Thus, under March 15th, we find a mention of the
festival of Anna Perenna, with an entertaining account of the rites
and festivals in her honor; then come the various stories which
are told to explain how her worship at Rome originated; lastly there
is a reference to the assassination of Julius Cæsar, who fell on that
date. The following day, March 16th, is passed with the statement
that in the morning the fore part of the constellation Scorpio be-
comes visible. Apart from the charm of the 'Fasti' as literature,
the numerous references to Roman history and institutions, and to
details of topography, lend to the poem a peculiar value for the stu-
dent.
The most important work of Ovid is the Metamorphoses,' or
'Transformations,' which comprises about eleven thousand lines, and
## p. 10920 (#132) ##########################################
10920
OVID
is divided into fifteen books. From one of the elegies written at
Tomi (Tristia,' Book i. , vii. ), we learn that when the poet was
banished the work was still incomplete; in a fit of desperation he
burned the manuscript, but as some of his friends had copies, the
poem was preserved. In point of structure, thought, and form the
'Metamorphoses' has characteristics that ally it with both epic and
didactic poetry; but it is more nearly akin to the latter class than
to the former. The purpose is to set forth, in a single narrative,
the changes of form which, following current myths, had taken place
from the beginning of things down to the poet's own time.
The poem begins with the evolution of the world out of chaos; it
closes with the transformation of Julius Cæsar into a star. Between
these limits the poet has blended as it were into a single movement
two hundred and sixteen stories of marvelous change. For the last
two books he drew largely upon Roman sources; the rest of the
matter was taken from the Greek,-the stories following one another
in a kind of chronological order. Notwithstanding the diversity and
amount of the material utilized in the poem, the parts are so well
harmonized, and the transitions are so skillfully made, that the reader
is carried along with interest almost unabated to the end.
The 'Sorrows' (Tristia'), in five books, are made up of short
poems written during the first four years of Ovid's residence at Tomi;
they depict the wretchedness of his condition, and plead for mercy.
Of a similar purport are the 'Letters from the Black Sea' ('Epistulæ
ex Ponto'), in four books, which are addressed to various persons at
Rome, and belong to the period from 12 A. D. to near the end of the
poet's life. The 'Letters' particularly show a marked decline in
poetical power.
Besides these and a few other extant poems, Ovid left several
works that have perished. Chief among them was a tragedy called
'Medea,' to which Quintilian gave high praise.
Poetry with Ovid was the spontaneous expression of an ardent
and sensuous nature; his ideal of poetic art was the ministry of
pleasure. There is in his verse a lack of seriousness which stands
in marked contrast with the tone of Virgil, or even of Horace. His
point of view at all times is that of the drawing-room or the dinner-
table; the tone of his poetry is that of the cultivated social life of
his time. No matter what the theme, the same lightness of touch
is everywhere noticeable. Up to this time, poetic tradition had kept
the gods above the level of common life: Ovid treats them as gen-
tlemen and ladies accustomed to good society, whose jealousies, in-
trigues, and bickerings read very much like a modern novel. In this
as in his treatment of love he simply manifested a tendency of his
age. His easy relation with the reader gives him a peculiar charm
as a story-teller.
## p. 10921 (#133) ##########################################
OVID
10921
As a poet, Ovid possessed a luxuriant imagination, and great
facility in the use of language. His manner is usually simple and
flowing. His verse is often pathetic, never intense; sometimes ele-
vated, never sublime; abounding in humorous turns, frequently with
touches of delicate irony. It is marred sometimes by incongruous or
revolting details, or by an excess of particulars which should be left
to the imagination of the reader; and also by a repetition of ideas or
phrases intended to heighten the effect, but in reality weakening it.
In view of the amount of poetry which Ovid produced, it is surpris-
ing that the average of quality is so high. He left more than twice
as many lines as Virgil, four times as many as Horace, and more
than fifteen times as many as Catullus.
Ovid has always been a favorite poet, though read more often in
selections than as a whole. To his influence is due the wide ac-
quaintance of modern readers with certain classical myths, as those
of Phaethon and of Pyramus and Thisbe. In the earlier periods of
English literature he was more highly esteemed than now, when
critical and scientific tendencies are paramount, and the finished
poetry of Horace and Virgil is more popular than the more imagi-
native but less delicate verse of our poet. Milton knew much of
Ovid by heart; the authors in whom he took most delight were,
after Homer, Ovid and Euripides.
Mary Magdalene or Madame la Marquise is unknown; probably
will never be known. Curses go home to roost, but chickens
don't. The Waif is irrational: she thinks a mouthful of black
bread better than easy extinction among the ferns. Claudine de
-
## p. 10902 (#110) ##########################################
OUIDA
10902
Tencin has left a feminine D'Alembert in a moss-cradle: are you
inclined to play the part of the foster-mother? "
Grand'mère Virelois listened to the harangue, comprehending
it no more than if he had spoken in Hebrew; but she was used
to him, and thought nothing of that.
"What is it I am to see? " she asked again, peering curi-
ously with lively interest among the leaves. Before he could
answer she had caught sight of the child, with vehement amaze
and ecstatic wonder; the speech had been as Hebrew to her, but
the fact was substantial and indisputable. Crossing herself in
her surprise, with a thousand expletives of pity and admiration, she
bent her little withered but still active form beneath the rail, and
stooped and raised the foundling-raised her, but only a little
from the ground.
Holy Virgin! Tricotrin! " she cried, "look here! the child is
fastened. Help me! "
He looked quickly as she called him, and saw that the withes
of osiers and the tendrils of wild vine had been netted so tightly
around the limbs, tied here and there with strong twine, that the
infant could never have escaped from its resting-place; it had
evidently been so fastened that the child might perish there un-
seen. His face darkened as he looked.
"Murder, then! not mere neglect. Ah! this is Madame la
Marquise at work, not Magdalene! " he murmured, as he slashed
the network right and left with his knife, and set the Waif at
liberty; while Grand'mère Virelois went into a woman's raptures
on the young beauty of the "petit Gésu," and a woman's vehe-
ment censures of a sister's sin.
Tricotrin smoked resignedly, while her raptures and her dia-
tribes expended themselves; it was long before either were ex-
hausted.
"Don't abuse the mother," he interposed at last.
"Every-
body gets rid of troublesome consequences when they can.
We've done no good in disturbing her arrangements. We have
only disinterred a living blunder that she wished to bury. "
"For shame, Tricotrin! " cried Grand'mère, quivering with
horror, while she folded the child in her withered arms. "You
can jest on such wickedness! You can excuse such a murder-
ess! "
"Paf! " said Tricotrin, lightly blowing away a smoke ring.
"The whole system of creation is a sliding scale of murders.
## p. 10903 (#111) ##########################################
OUIDA
10903
All the world over, life is only sustained by life being extin-
guished. "
Grand'mère Virelois, who was a pious little woman, shuddered
and clasped the child nearer.
"Ah-h-h! the vile woman! How will she see Our Lady's
face on the last day? "
"How she will meet the world she lives in is more the ques-
tion with her now, I imagine. An eminently sagacious woman!
and you and I are two sentimentalists to interfere with her ad-
mirably artistic play. So you would live, little one? I wonder
what you will make of what you have got! A Jeremiad if you
are a good silly woman; a Can-can measure if you are a bad
clever one. Which will it be, I wonder? "
"Mon Dieu, it is an angel! " murmured Grand'mère; "such
hair, like silk,—such eyes,—such a rose for a mouth! And left
to die of hunger and cold! Ah, may the Holy Mary find her
out and avenge her crime, the wicked one! "
"The vengeance will come quick if the sinner live in a garret;
it will limp very slowly if she shelter in a palace. Well, since
you take that child in your arms, do you mean to find her the
piece of bread the unphilosophic castaway will want? "
"Will I not! if I go without myself. Oh, the pretty little
child! who could have left you? Wherever the mother dwells,
may the good God hunt her down! "
"Deity as a detective? Not a grand idea that. Yet it is the
heavenly office that looks dearest to man when it is exercised
upon others! Grand'mère, answer me: Are you going to keep
that Waif? »
The bright, brown, wrinkled, homely face of the good old
woman grew perplexed.
"Ah, my friend, times are so bad, it is hard work to get a
bit in the pot for one's self; and I stitch, stitch, stitch, and spin,
spin, spin, till I am blind many a time. And yet the pretty
child- with no one to care for it! I do not know,- she must
be brought up hard if she come to me. Not a lentil even to put
in the water and make one fancy it is soup, in some days these
hard times! But do you know nothing more of her than this,
Tricotrin ? »
"Nothing. "
His luminous eyes met hers full and frankly; she knew-
all the nations where he wandered knew-that the affirmative of
Tricotrin was more sure than the truth of most men's oaths.
## p. 10904 (#112) ##########################################
10904
OUIDA
"Then she must be abandoned here by some wretch to starve
unseen ? »
"It looks like it. "
"Ah! the little angel! What does the barbarous brutal heart
of stone deserve? "
"What it will get if it lodge in the breast that rags and tat-
ters cover; what it will not get if it lodge in the breast that
heaves under silks and laces. "
"True enough! but the good God will smite in his own
time. Oh, little one, how could they ever forsake thee? " cried
Grand'mère, caressing afresh the child, who was laughing and
well content in her friendly and tender hold.
"Then you are going to adopt her? "
"Adopt her? Mother of Jesus! I dare not say that. You
know how I live, Tricotrin,- how hardly, though I try to let
it be cheerfully. If I had a little more she should share it,
and welcome; but as it is not a mouthful of chestnuts, even,
so often; not a drop of oil or a bit of garlic sometimes weeks
together! She would be better off at the Foundling Hospital
than with me. Besides, it is an affair for the mayor of the com-
mune. "
"Certainly it is. But if the most notable mayor can do noth-
ing except send this foundling among the others, would you like
better to keep her? "
Grand'mère Virelois was silent and thoughtful a minute; then
her little bright eyes glanced up at him from under their white
linen roofing, with a gleam in them that was between a smile
and a tear.
"You know how I lost them, Tricotrin. One in Africa, one
at the Barricades, one crushed under a great marble block, build-
ing the Préfet's palace. And then the grandchild too,- the only
little one, so pretty, so frail, so tender, killed that long bitter
winter, because the food was so scarce, like the young birds dead
on the snow! You know, Tricotrin? and what use is it to take
her to perish like him, though in her laughter and her caresses
I might think that he lived again? "
"I know! " said Tricotrin softly, with an infinite balm of
pity, and of the remembrance that was the sweetest sympathy,
in his voice. "Well, if M. le Maire can find none to claim her,
she shall stay with you, Grand'mère: and as for the food, that
shall not trouble you; I will have a care of that. "
"You? Holy Jesus! how good! "
-
## p. 10905 (#113) ##########################################
OUIDA
10905
"Not in the least. I abetted her in her ignorant and ridicu-
lous desire to exchange a pleasant death among the clematis for
all the toil and turmoil of prolonged existences; I am clearly
responsible for my share in the folly. I cut the meshes that her
sagacious mother had knotted so hardly. I must accept my part
in the onus of such unwarrantable interference. You keep the
Waif; and I will be at the cost of her. "
"But then, Tricotrin, you call yourself poor? »
"So I am.
But one need not be a millionaire to be able to
get a few crumbs for that robin. The creature persisted in liv-
ing, and I humored her caprice. It was mock humanity, paltry
sentiment; Mistigri was partly at fault, but I mostly. We must
accept the results. They will be disastrous probably,—the creat-
ure is feminine,- but such as they are we must make the best
of them. "
"Then you will adopt her? "
"Not in the least. But I will see she has something to eat;
and that you are able to give it her if her parents cannot be
found. Here is a gold bit for the present minute; and when we
know whether she is really and truly a Waif, you shall have
more to keep the pot over your fire full and boiling. Adieu,
Grand'mère. "
With that farewell, he, heedless of the voluble thanks and
praises that the old woman showered after him, and of the out-
cries of the child who called to Mistigri, put his pipe in his
mouth, his violin in his pocket, and throwing his knapsack over
his shoulder, brushed his way through the forest growth.
"Mock sentiment! " he said to himself. "You and I have
done a silly thing, Mistigri. What will come of it? "
THE STEEPLE-CHASE
From 'Under Two Flags
THE
HE bell was clanging and clashing passionately, as Cecil at
last went down to the weights, all his friends of the House-
hold about him, and all standing "crushers" on their cham-
pion; for their stringent esprit de corps was involved, and the
Guards are never backward in putting their gold down, as all
the world knows. In the inclosure, the cynosure of devouring
## p. 10906 (#114) ##########################################
10906
OUIDA
eyes, stood the King, with the sang froid of a superb gentleman,
amid the clamor raging round him, one delicate ear laid back
now and then, but otherwise indifferent to the din, with his coat
glistening like satin, the beautiful tracery of vein and muscle,
like the veins of vine-leaves, standing out on the glossy, clear-
carved neck that had the arch of Circassia, and his dark, antelope
eyes gazing with a gentle, pensive earnestness on the shouting
crowd.
His rivals too were beyond par in fitness and in condition,
and there were magnificent animals among them. Bay Regent
was a huge raking chestnut, upward of sixteen hands, and enor-
mously powerful, with very fine shoulders, and an all-over-like-
going head; he belonged to a colonel in the Rifles, but was to
be ridden by Jimmy Delmar of the 10th Lancers, whose colors
were violet with orange hoops. Montacute's horse, Pas de Charge,
which carried all the money of the Heavy Cavalry,- Montacute
himself being in the Dragoon Guards,- was of much the same
order: a black hunter with racing blood in him, loins and withers
that assured any amount of force, and no fault but that of a
rather coarse head, traceable to a slur on his 'scutcheon on the
distaff side from a plebeian great-grandmother, who had been
a cart mare,—the only stain in his otherwise faultless pedigree.
However, she had given him her massive shoulders, so that he
was in some sense a gainer by her, after all. Wild Geranium
was a beautiful creature enough,—a bright bay Irish mare, with
that rich red gloss that is like the glow of a horse-chestnut, very
perfect in shape, though a trifle light, perhaps, and with not
quite strength enough in neck or barrel; she would jump the
fences of her own paddock half a dozen times a day for sheer
amusement, and was game to anything. * She was entered by
Cartouche of the Enniskillens, to be ridden by "Baby Grafton,"
of the same corps, a feather-weight, and quite a boy, but with
plenty of science in him. These were the three favorites; Day
Star ran them close, -the property of Durham Vavassour, of
the Scots Grays, and to be ridden by his owner, -a handsome
flea-bitten gray sixteen-hander, with ragged hips, and action that
looked a trifle stringhalty, but noble shoulders, and great force
The portrait of this lady is that of a very esteemed young Irish beauty
of my acquaintance; she this season did seventy-six miles on a warm June
day, and eat her corn and tares afterward as if nothing happened. She is
six years old.
## p. 10907 (#115) ##########################################
OUIDA
10907
in the loins and withers: the rest of the field, though unusually
excellent, did not find so many "sweet voices" for them, and
were not so much to be feared; each starter was of course
much backed by his party, but the betting was tolerably even
on these four, all famous steeple-chasers,- the King at one time,
and Bay Regent at another, slightly leading in the ring.
Thirty-two starters were hoisted up on the telegraph board,
and as the field got at last under way, uncommonly handsome
they looked, while the silk jackets of all the colors of the rainbow
glittered in the bright noon sun. As Forest King closed in, per-
fectly tranquil still, but beginning to glow and quiver all over
with excitement, knowing as well as his rider the work that was
before him, and longing for it in every muscle and every limb,
while his eyes flashed fire as he pulled at the curb and tossed his
head aloft, there went up a general shout of "Favorite! " His
beauty told on the populace, and even somewhat on the profes-
sionals, though the Legs kept a strong business prejudice against
the working powers of "the Guards' crack. " The ladies began to
lay dozens in gloves on him; not altogether for his points, which
perhaps they hardly appreciated, but for his owner and rider,—
who, in the scarlet and gold with the white sash across his chest,
and a look of serene indifference on his face, they considered the
handsomest man of the field. The Household is usually safe to
win the suffrages of the sex.
In the throng on the course, Rake instantly bonneted an
audacious dealer who had ventured to consider that Forest King
was "light and curby in the 'ock. " "You're a wise 'un, you
are! " retorted the wrathful and ever eloquent Rake: "there's more
strength in his clean fat legs, bless him! than in all the round
thick mile-posts of your half-breeds, that have no more tendon
than a bit of wood, and are just as flabby as a sponge! " Which
hit the dealer home just as his hat was hit over his eyes,-
Rake's arguments being unquestionable in their force.
The thoroughbreds pulled and fretted and swerved in their
impatience; one or two over-contumacious bolted incontinently;
others put their heads between their knees in the endeavor to
draw their riders over their withers; Wild Geranium reared
straight upright, fidgeted all over with longing to be off, passaged
with the prettiest, wickedest grace in the world, and would have
given the world to neigh if she had dared, but she knew it would
be very bad style, so, like an aristocrat as she was, restrained
## p. 10908 (#116) ##########################################
10908
OUIDA
herself; Bay Regent almost sawed Jimmy Delmar's arms off,
looking like a Titan Bucephalus; while Forest King, with his
nostrils dilated till the scarlet tinge on them glowed in the sun,
his muscles quivering with excitement as intense as the little
Irish mare's, and all his Eastern and English blood on fire for
the fray, stood steady as a statue for all that, under the curb of
a hand light as a woman's, but firm as iron to control, and used
to guide him by the slightest touch.
All eyes were on that throng of the first mounts in the
Service; brilliant glances by the hundred gleamed down behind
hot-house bouquets of their chosen color, eager ones by the thou-
sand stared thirstily from the crowded course, the roar of the
Ring subsided for a second, a breathless attention and suspense
succeeded it; the Guardsmen sat on their drags, or lounged near
the ladies with their race-glasses ready, and their habitual
expression of gentle and resigned weariness in nowise altered
because the Household, all in all, had from sixty to seventy thou
sand on the event, and the Seraph mourned mournfully to his che-
root, "That chestnut's no end fit," strong as his faith was in the
champion of the Brigades.
A moment's good start was caught-the flag dropped-off
they went, sweeping out for the first second like a line of cavalry
about to charge.
Another moment, and they were scattered over the first field;
Forest King, Wild Geranium, and Bay Regent leading for two
lengths, when Montacute, with his habitual "fast burst," sent Pas
de Charge past them like lightning. The Irish mare gave a rush
and got alongside of him; the King would have done the same,
but Cecil checked him, and kept him in that cool swinging canter
which covered the grass-land so lightly; Bay Regent's vast thun-
dering stride was Olympian; but Jimmy Delmar saw his worst foe
in the "Guards' crack," and waited on him warily, riding superbly
himself.
The first fence disposed of half the field; they crossed the
second in the same order, Wild Geranium racing neck to neck
with Pas de Charge; the King was all athirst to join the duello,
but his owner kept him gently back, saving his pace and lifting
him over the jumps as easily as a lapwing. The second fence
proved a cropper to several; some awkward falls took place over
it, and tailing commenced; after the third field, which was heavy
plow, all knocked off but eight, and the real struggle began in
## p. 10909 (#117) ##########################################
OUIDA
10909
sharp earnest, a good dozen who had shown a splendid stride
over the grass being done up by the terrible work
clods.
on the
-
The five favorites had it all to themselves: Day Star pounding
onward at tremendous speed, Pas de Charge giving slight symp-
toms of distress owing to the madness of his first burst, the Irish
mare literally flying ahead of him, Forest King and the chestnut
waiting on each other.
In the Grand Stand the Seraph's eyes strained after the
Scarlet and White, and he muttered in his mustaches, "Ye gods,
what's up? The world's coming to an end! Beauty's turned
cautious! "
Cautious indeed-with that giant of Pytchley fame running
neck to neck by him; cautious with two-thirds of the course
unrun, and all the yawners yet to come; cautious- with the
blood of Forest King lashing to boiling heat, and the wondrous
greyhound stride stretching out faster and faster beneath him,
ready at a touch to break away and take the lead: but he would
be reckless enough by-and-by; reckless, as his nature was, under
the indolent serenity of habit.
--
Two more fences came, laced high and stiff with the Shire
thorn, and with scarce twenty feet between them, the heavy
plowed land leading to them clotted and black and hard, with
the fresh earthy scent steaming up as the hoofs struck the clods
with a dull thunder. Pas de Charge rose to the first: distressed
too early, his hind feet caught in the thorn, and he came down,
rolling clear of his rider; Montacute picked him up with true
science, but the day was lost to the Heavy Cavalry men. Forest
King went in and out over both like a bird, and led for the first
time; the chestnut was not to be beat at fencing, and ran even
with him: Wild Geranium flew still as fleet as a deer-true to
her sex, she would not bear rivalry; but little Grafton, though
he rode like a professional, was but a young one, and went too
wildly her spirit wanted cooler curb.
And now only, Cecil loosened the King to his full will and
his full speed. Now only, the beautiful Arab head was stretched
like a racer's in the run in for the Derby, and the grand stride
swept out till the hoofs seemed never to touch the dark earth
they skimmed over; neither whip nor spur was needed. Bertie
had only to leave the gallant temper and the generous fire that
were roused in their might to go their way and hold their own.
## p. 10910 (#118) ##########################################
OUIDA
10910
His hands were low; his head a little back; his face very calm,
-the eyes only had a daring, eager, resolute will lighting in
them: Brixworth lay before him. He knew well what Forest
King could do; but he did not know how great the chestnut
Regent's powers might be.
The water gleamed before them, brown and swollen, and
deepened with the meltings of winter snows a month before; the
brook that has brought so many to grief over its famous banks,
since cavaliers leaped it with their falcon on their wrist, or the
mellow note of the horn rang over the woods in the hunting-
days of Stuart reigns. They knew it well, that long dark line,
shimmering there in the sunlight, the test that all must pass
who go in for the Soldiers' Blue Ribbon. Forest King scented
the water, and went on with his ears pointed and his greyhound
stride lengthening, quickening, gathering up all its force and
its impetus for the leap that was before; then like the rise and
the swoop of a heron he spanned the water, and landing clear,
launched forward with the lunge of a spear darted through air.
Brixworth was passed; the Scarlet and White, a mere gleam of
bright color, a mere speck in the landscape, to the breathless
crowds in the stand, sped on over the brown and level grass-
land: two and a quarter miles done in four minutes and twenty
seconds. Bay Regent was scarcely behind him; the chestnut
abhorred the water, but a finer trained hunter was never sent
over the Shires, and Jimmy Delmar rode like Grimshaw himself.
The giant took the leap in magnificent style, and thundered on
neck and neck with the "Guards' crack. " The Irish mare fol-
lowed, and with miraculous gameness, landed safely; but her hind
legs slipped on the bank, a moment was lost, and "Baby" Graf-
ton scarce knew enough to recover it, though he scoured on,
nothing daunted.
――
Pas de Charge, much behind, refused the yawner: his strength
was not more than his courage, but both had been strained too
severely at first. Montacute struck the spurs into him with a
savage blow over the head: the madness was its own punish-
ment; the poor brute rose blindly to the jump, and missed the
bank with a reel and a crash. Sir Eyre was hurled out into the
brook, and the hope of the Heavies lay there with his breast and
forelegs resting on the ground, his hind quarters in the water,
and his back broken. Pas de Charge would never again see the
starting-flag waved, or hear the music of the hounds, or feel the
## p. 10911 (#119) ##########################################
OUIDA
10911
gallant life throb and glow through him at the rallying-notes of
the horn. His race was run.
Not knowing or looking or heeding what happened behind,
the trio tore on over the meadow and the plowed land; the two
favorites neck by neck, the game little mare hopelessly behind
through that one fatal moment over Brixworth. The turning-
flags were passed; from the crowds on the course a great hoarse
roar came louder and louder, and the shouts rang, changing every
second, "Forest King wins," "Bay Regent wins," "Scarlet and
White's ahead," "Violet's up with him," "Violet's passed him,”
"Scarlet recovers," "Scarlet beats," "A cracker on the King,"
"Ten to one on the Regent," "Guards are over the fence first,"
"Guards are winning," "Guards are losing," "Guards are beat! "
Were they?
As the shout rose, Cecil's left stirrup-leather snapped and gave
way; at the pace they were going, most men, ay, and good riders
too, would have been hurled out of their saddle by the shock:
he scarcely swerved; a moment to ease the King and to recover
his equilibrium, then he took the pace up again as though noth-
ing had changed. And his comrades of the Household, when they
saw this through their race-glasses, broke through their serenity
and burst into a cheer that echoed over the grass-lands and the
coppices like a clarion, the grand rich voice of the Seraph lead-
ing foremost and loudest,—a cheer that rolled mellow and tri-
umphant down the cold bright air, like the blasts of trumpets,
and thrilled on Bertie's ear where he came down the course a
mile away.
It made his heart beat quicker with a victorious
headlong delight, as his knees pressed closer into Forest King's
flanks, and half stirrupless like the Arabs, he thundered forward
to the greatest riding-feat of his life. His face was very calm
still, but his blood was in tumult: the delirium of pace had got
on him; a minute of life like this was worth a year, and he knew
that he would win or die for it, as the land seemed to fly like a
black sheet under him; and in that killing speed, fence and hedge
and double and water all went by him like a dream, whirling
underneath him as the gray stretched, stomach to earth, over the
level, and rose to leap after leap.
For that instant's pause, when the stirrup broke, threatened to
lose him the race.
He was more than a length behind the Regent, whose hoofs,
as they dashed the ground up, sounded like thunder, and for
## p. 10912 (#120) ##########################################
10912
OUIDA
whose herculean strength the plow had no terrors; it was more
than the lead to keep now,-there was ground to cover, and the
King was losing like Wild Geranium. Cecil felt drunk with that
strong, keen west wind that blew so strongly in his teeth; a pas-
sionate excitation was in him; every breath of winter air that
rushed in its bracing currents round him seemed to lash him like
a stripe- the Household to look on and see him beaten!
Certain wild blood that lay latent in Cecil, under the tranquil
gentleness of temper and of custom, woke and had the mastery:
he set his teeth hard, and his hands clinched like steel on the
bridle. "O my beauty, my beauty! " he cried, all unconsciously
half aloud as they cleared the thirty-sixth fence, "kill me if you
like, but don't fail me!
"
As though Forest King heard the prayer and answered it with
all his hero's heart, the splendid form launched faster out, the
stretching stride stretched further yet with lightning spontaneity,
every fibre strained, every nerve struggled; with a magnificent
bound like an antelope the gray recovered the ground he had
lost, and passed Bay Regent by a quarter-length. It was a neck-
to-neck race once more across the three meadows, with the last
and lower fences that were between them and the final leap of
all: that ditch of artificial water, with the towering double hedge
of oak rails and of blackthorn that was reared black and grim
and well-nigh hopeless just in front of the Grand Stand.
A roar
like the roar of the sea broke up from the thronged course as
the crowd hung breathless on the even race; ten thousand shouts
rang as thrice ten thousand eyes watched the closing contest, as
superb a sight as the Shires ever saw while the two ran together,
-the gigantic chestnut, with every massive sinew swelled and
strained to tension, side by side with the marvelous grace, the
shining flanks, and the Arabian-like head of the Guards' horse.
«The
Louder and wilder the shrieked tumult rose: "The chestnut
beats! " "The gray beats! " "Scarlet's ahead! " "Bay Regent's
caught him! » "Violet's winning, Violet's winning! "
King's neck by neck! " "The King's beating! " "The Guards
will get it! " "The Guards' crack has it! " "Not yet, not yet! "
"Violet will thrash him at the jump! " "Now for it! "
"Scarlet will win! >>
Guards, the Guards, the Guards! "
King has the finish! " "No, no, no, no! »
"The
« The
Sent along at a pace that Epsom flat never eclipsed, sweeping
by the Grand Stand like the flash of electric flame, they ran side
## p. 10913 (#121) ##########################################
OUIDA
10913
to side one moment more, their foam flung on each other's with-
ers, their breath hot in each other's nostrils, while the dark earth
flew beneath their stride. The blackthorn was in front, behind
five bars of solid oak, the water yawning on its further side, black
and deep, and fenced, twelve feet wide if it was an inch, with
the same thorn wall beyond it; a leap no horse should have been
given, no Steward should have set. Cecil pressed his knees closer
and closer, and worked the gallant hero for the test; the surging
roar of the throng, though so close, was dull on his ear; he heard
nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing but that lean chestnut head
beside him, the dull thud on the turf of the flying gallop, and the
black wall that reared in his face. Forest King had done so
much, could he have stay and strength for this?
Cecil's hands clinched unconsciously on the bridle, and his
face was very pale-pale with excitation-as his foot, where the
stirrup was broken, crushed closer and harder against the gray's
flanks.
"O my darling, my beauty — now! »
One touch of the spur-the first-and Forest King rose at
the leap, all the life and power there were in him gathered for
one superhuman and crowning effort: a flash of time not half a
second in duration, and he was lifted in the air higher, and
higher, and higher, in the cold, fresh, wild winter wind; stakes
and rails, and thorn and water, lay beneath him black and gaunt
and shapeless, yawning like a grave; one bound even in mid-air,
one last convulsive impulse of the gathered limbs, and Forest
King was over!
And as he galloped up the straight run-in, he was alone.
Bay Regent had refused the leap.
As the gray swept to the judge's chair, the air was rent with
deafening cheers that seemed to reel like drunken shouts from
the multitude. "The Guards win, the Guards win! " and when
his rider pulled up at the distance, with the full sun shining on
the scarlet and white, with the gold glisten of the embroidered
"Cœur Vaillant se fait Royaume," Forest King stood in all his
glory, winner of the Soldiers' Blue Ribbon, by a feat without its
parallel in all the annals of the Gold Vase.
But as the crowd surged about him, and the mad cheering
crowned his victory, and the Household in the splendor of their
triumph and the fullness of their gratitude rushed from the drags.
and the stands to cluster to his saddle, Bertie looked as serenely
XIX-683
## p. 10914 (#122) ##########################################
10914
QUIDA
and listlessly nonchalant as of old, while he nodded to the Seraph
with a gentle smile.
"Rather a close finish, eh? Have you any Moselle Cup going
there? I'm a little thirsty. "
Outsiders would much sooner have thought him defeated than
triumphant; no one who had not known him could possibly have
imagined that he had been successful; an ordinary spectator
would have concluded that, judging by the resigned weariness of
his features, he had won the race greatly against his own will,
and to his own infinite ennui. No one could have dreamed that
he was thinking in his heart of hearts how passionately he loved
the gallant beast that had been victor with him, and that if he
had followed out the momentary impulse in him, he could have
put his arms round the noble-bowed neck and kissed the horse
like a woman!
## p. 10914 (#123) ##########################################
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## p. 10914 (#124) ##########################################
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## p. 10914 (#125) ##########################################
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## p. 10914 (#126) ##########################################
## p. 10915 (#127) ##########################################
10915
OVID
(PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO)
(43 B. C. -17 A. D. )
BY FRANCIS W. KELSEY
HE Augustan Roman came into a full and rich inheritance.
Conquest had brought the civilized world into subjection to
the city by the Tiber; contact with many peoples, and the
adjustment of local institutions to a wide range of conditions, had
enlarged the intellectual horizon of the conquerors, while the inpour-
ing of wealth from subject provinces had made possible the leisure
and the accumulation of resources essential to progress in matters of
culture. Greece, with art, literature, and philosophy developed to a
singular perfection, ministered to every longing of awakened taste,
offering at the same time inspiration and models of excellence.
This broader and more cultivated life ushered in with the reign
of Augustus found spontaneous expression in literature.
In poetry
two opposing tendencies contended for the mastery. With a few
poets the thought of Rome's greatness was uppermost.
The respon-
sibility resting upon those whose mission it was "to rule the nations
with their sway, to fix the terms of peace, to spare the conquered,
and by war subdue the haughty," strengthened allegiance to the
ideals of honor and virtue characteristic of the earlier period.
But there were many men who, recognizing the position of the
Eternal City as the mistress of nations, yet were less moved by the
contemplation of her greatness than attracted by the opportunities
which an age of leisure and luxury afforded for self-gratification. As
the centralization of governmental functions increased, less room was
found for the display of those ambitions which had spurred the youth
of the Republic to put forth their most earnest efforts. Contact with
the Orient had introduced new forms of vice. As the strain of con-
stant wars yielded to peace, there was a reaction from frugality to
extravagance, from the practice of the hardier virtues to the extreme
of self-indulgence. The energy that formerly had pressed the Roman
eagles to the borders of the known world, flung itself into dissipation.
Love, wine, and art were the watchwords of the day. The freshness
and glamour could not endure; but they lasted long enough to inspire
a group of poets who became the interpreters of this life of gayety
## p. 10916 (#128) ##########################################
10916
OVID
both for their own age and for future times. Four of these poets
have often been mentioned together, in the order of succession: Cor-
nelius Gallus, whose writings have perished, Tibullus, Propertius, and
Ovid.
For the details of the life of Ovid we are indebted to the numer-
ous personal references in his poems. He was born on the 20th of
March, B. C. 43. His birthplace was Sulmo (now Solmona), a small
town "abounding in cool waters," as he tells us; picturesquely situ-
ated in the midst of the Apennines, about ninety miles northeast of
Rome. The Ovid family was ancient, of the equestrian rank; but
possessed of only moderate means. The constant companion of the
poet's youth was his brother Lucius, who was a year older than him-
self. The father was a practical man, apparently close in matters
of business, but ambitious for his sons, to whom he gave the best
education that the times afforded. It was his desire that both boys
should devote themselves to the law; he placed them at Rome under
the most distinguished masters. Lucius manifested an aptitude for
legal studies, but the hapless Publius found his duty and his inclina-
tion in serious conflict. As he makes confession in the 'Tristia' (Book
iv. , x. ):-
"To me, a lad, the service meet
Of heaven-born maids did seem more sweet,
And secretly the Muse did draw me to her feet.
"Oft cried my father, Still content
To humor such an idle bent?
Even Mæonian Homer did not leave a cent! )
"Stirred by his words, I cast aside
The spell of Helicon, and tried
To clothe my thought in phrase with plainest prose allied.
"But of themselves my words would run
In flowing numbers, and when done,
Whate'er I tried to write, in web of verse was spun. ".
In one part of his training, however, Ovid was not unsuccessful. The
rhetorician Seneca heard him declaim; and says that "when he took
pains he was considered a good declaimer," but that "argumentation
of any kind was irksome to him," and that his discourse resembled
"loose poetry. " His rhetorical studies exerted much influence later
on his verse.
When Ovid was nineteen years of age, the bond of unusual affec-
tion existing between his brother and himself was severed by the
death of Lucius; at this time, he says, "I began to be deprived
of half of myself. " He made a feeble effort to enter civil life, and
## p. 10917 (#129) ##########################################
OVID
10917
held several petty offices; but routine was distasteful to him, and he
preferred to keep himself free from "care-bringing ambition," while.
his passion for poetry constantly grew stronger:—
"Me the Aonian sisters pressed
To court retirement safe, addressed
To that which inclination long had urged as best.
"The poets of the time I sought,
Esteemed them with affection fraught
With reverence; as gods they all were in my thought. »
At some time after his brother's death Ovid studied at Athens, and
made an extended tour in Asia Minor and Sicily in company with the
poet Macer. He became saturated with Greek culture; and many a
passage in his poems has a local coloring due to his inspection of the
spot described.
The earliest productions of our poet were recited in public when
his "beard had only once or twice been cut. " His songs were im-
mediately popular. He became a member of the literary circle of
Rome, and made the acquaintance of prominent men. Having suffi-
cient means to free him from the necessity of labor for his own
support, he mingled with the gay society of the metropolis, and wrote
when in the mood for writing. He secured a house near the temple
of the Capitoline Jupiter, where he lived happily with his third wife;
for the first wife, given to him "when little more than a boy," and
a second wife also, had been speedily divorced.
So the years passed, in pleasure and in the pursuit of his art;
and the poet fondly imagined that all would continue as it had been.
But suddenly, in the latter part of the year 8 A. D. , without a word
of warning, an order came from the Emperor Augustus, directing
him at once to take up his residence at Tomi, a dreary outpost on
the Black Sea, south of the mouths of the Danube. He received the
message when on the island of Elba. Returning to Rome, he made
preparations for his departure; his picture of the distress and con-
fusion of his last night at home (Tristia,' Book i. , iii. ) is among
the most pathetic in ancient literature. He crossed the stormy Adri-
atic in the month of December, and reached Tomi, after a long
and wearisome journey, probably in the spring of 9 A. D. His wife
remained in Rome to intercede for his pardon.
The pretext assigned for the decree of banishment was the publi-
cation of the poet's 'Art of Love'; which, however, had been before
the public for a decade, and was hardly worse in its tendencies than
many other writings of the time. The real reason is often darkly
hinted at by Ovid, but nowhere stated. To discuss the subject at
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length would be idle: all things considered, it seems probable that
the poet had involuntarily been a witness to something which, if
known, would compromise some member of the imperial family; and
that it was deemed expedient, as a matter of policy, to remove him
as far from Rome as possible.
The decree was not a formal sentence of exile: Ovid was left in
possession of his property, and did not lose the rights of citizenship.
But his lot was nevertheless a hard one. The climate of Tomi
was so severe that wine froze in the winter. The natives were half-
civilized. The town was wholly without the comforts of life, and
even subject to hostile attacks; especially in winter, when tribes from
the north could cross the Danube on the ice. For a younger man,
full of life and vigor, enforced residence at Tomi would have been a
severe punishment: Ovid was past the age of fifty, beyond the period
when men adjust themselves readily to new surroundings. Absence
from the city for any reason was looked upon by the average Roman
as exile; for the pleasure-loving poet the air of joyous Rome had been
life itself. Who can wonder that his spirit was crushed by the weight
of his misfortune? He sent to Augustus poem after poem, rehearsing
his sorrows and begging for a remission of his sentence, or at least
for a less inhospitable place of banishment. Yet he was not unkindly
to those among whom his lot was cast. He learned the language of
the people of Tomi, and composed in it some verses which the natives
received with tumultuous applause; they honored him with exemption
from public burdens. So long as Augustus lived there was some hope
of pardon; but even this faded away when Tiberius came to the
throne. The poet's health finally succumbed to the climate and to
the strain; he died in 17 A. D. , and was buried at Tomi.
The poems of Ovid may be conveniently arranged in three groups:
Poems of Love, Mythological Poems (Metamorphoses,' 'Fasti'), and
Poems of Exile. The Metamorphoses' and a short fragment ('Hali-
eutica') are written in hexameter verse; all his other poems are in
the elegiac measure, which he brought to the highest perfection.
Noteworthy among the poems of the first group are the 'Love-
Letters' (Epistulæ Heroidum'), assumed to have been written by
the heroines of the olden times to their absent husbands or lovers.
Penelope writes to Ulysses how she lived in constant anxiety for
his safety all through the long and weary Trojan war, and begs
him to return and put an end to her unbearable loneliness. Briseis,
apologizing for her letter "writ in bad Greek by a barbarian hand,»
implores Achilles either to slay her or bid her come back to him.
The fair none, deserted for Helen, reproaches Paris with his fickle-
ness; Medea rages with uncontrollable fury as she recalls to Jason
the rites of his new marriage; and Dido with fond entreaty presses
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10919
Eneas to abide at Carthage. Every imaginable phase of passionate
longing and despair comes to expression in these cleverly conceived
epistles, which in the development of thought and in the arrangement
of words show abundant traces of the poet's rhetorical studies.
The 'Loves' ('Amores') consist of forty-nine short poems, written
at different times, and arranged in three books. While the variety
of topics touched upon is great, the 'Loves' as a whole celebrate
the charms of Corinna, whom the poet presents as his mistress. But
there is reason to suppose that Corinna was altogether a fiction,
created by the poet's fancy to furnish a concrete attachment for his
amatory effusions. The most pleasing of these poems is the elegy
on the death of a pet parrot, which has often been imitated; but the
poet hardly anywhere strikes a higher level than in the bold prophecy
of his immortality, at the end of the first book.
The 'Loves' were followed by 'Ars Amatoria' (Art of Love),
which was published about 2 B. C. This was a didactic poem in
three books, concerned with the methods of securing and retaining
the affections. The first two books are addressed to men, the third
to the fair sex. While characterized by psychological insight and a
style of unusual finish, this work reflects conditions so foreign to
those of our day that it does not appeal to modern taste, and it is
very little read.
A supplementary book on 'Love-Cures' ('Remedia
Amoris') published three or four years later, recommends various
expedients for delivering one's self from the thraldom of the tender
passion.
The 'Fasti' (Calendar) is arranged in six books, one for each
month from January to June. Ovid clearly intended to include also
the remaining months of the year, but was prevented by his banish-
ment; the part completed received its final revision at Tomi. Under
each month the days are treated in their order; the myths and
legends associated with each day are skillfully interwoven with the
appropriate details of worship, and a certain amount of astronom-
ical information. Thus, under March 15th, we find a mention of the
festival of Anna Perenna, with an entertaining account of the rites
and festivals in her honor; then come the various stories which
are told to explain how her worship at Rome originated; lastly there
is a reference to the assassination of Julius Cæsar, who fell on that
date. The following day, March 16th, is passed with the statement
that in the morning the fore part of the constellation Scorpio be-
comes visible. Apart from the charm of the 'Fasti' as literature,
the numerous references to Roman history and institutions, and to
details of topography, lend to the poem a peculiar value for the stu-
dent.
The most important work of Ovid is the Metamorphoses,' or
'Transformations,' which comprises about eleven thousand lines, and
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is divided into fifteen books. From one of the elegies written at
Tomi (Tristia,' Book i. , vii. ), we learn that when the poet was
banished the work was still incomplete; in a fit of desperation he
burned the manuscript, but as some of his friends had copies, the
poem was preserved. In point of structure, thought, and form the
'Metamorphoses' has characteristics that ally it with both epic and
didactic poetry; but it is more nearly akin to the latter class than
to the former. The purpose is to set forth, in a single narrative,
the changes of form which, following current myths, had taken place
from the beginning of things down to the poet's own time.
The poem begins with the evolution of the world out of chaos; it
closes with the transformation of Julius Cæsar into a star. Between
these limits the poet has blended as it were into a single movement
two hundred and sixteen stories of marvelous change. For the last
two books he drew largely upon Roman sources; the rest of the
matter was taken from the Greek,-the stories following one another
in a kind of chronological order. Notwithstanding the diversity and
amount of the material utilized in the poem, the parts are so well
harmonized, and the transitions are so skillfully made, that the reader
is carried along with interest almost unabated to the end.
The 'Sorrows' (Tristia'), in five books, are made up of short
poems written during the first four years of Ovid's residence at Tomi;
they depict the wretchedness of his condition, and plead for mercy.
Of a similar purport are the 'Letters from the Black Sea' ('Epistulæ
ex Ponto'), in four books, which are addressed to various persons at
Rome, and belong to the period from 12 A. D. to near the end of the
poet's life. The 'Letters' particularly show a marked decline in
poetical power.
Besides these and a few other extant poems, Ovid left several
works that have perished. Chief among them was a tragedy called
'Medea,' to which Quintilian gave high praise.
Poetry with Ovid was the spontaneous expression of an ardent
and sensuous nature; his ideal of poetic art was the ministry of
pleasure. There is in his verse a lack of seriousness which stands
in marked contrast with the tone of Virgil, or even of Horace. His
point of view at all times is that of the drawing-room or the dinner-
table; the tone of his poetry is that of the cultivated social life of
his time. No matter what the theme, the same lightness of touch
is everywhere noticeable. Up to this time, poetic tradition had kept
the gods above the level of common life: Ovid treats them as gen-
tlemen and ladies accustomed to good society, whose jealousies, in-
trigues, and bickerings read very much like a modern novel. In this
as in his treatment of love he simply manifested a tendency of his
age. His easy relation with the reader gives him a peculiar charm
as a story-teller.
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10921
As a poet, Ovid possessed a luxuriant imagination, and great
facility in the use of language. His manner is usually simple and
flowing. His verse is often pathetic, never intense; sometimes ele-
vated, never sublime; abounding in humorous turns, frequently with
touches of delicate irony. It is marred sometimes by incongruous or
revolting details, or by an excess of particulars which should be left
to the imagination of the reader; and also by a repetition of ideas or
phrases intended to heighten the effect, but in reality weakening it.
In view of the amount of poetry which Ovid produced, it is surpris-
ing that the average of quality is so high. He left more than twice
as many lines as Virgil, four times as many as Horace, and more
than fifteen times as many as Catullus.
Ovid has always been a favorite poet, though read more often in
selections than as a whole. To his influence is due the wide ac-
quaintance of modern readers with certain classical myths, as those
of Phaethon and of Pyramus and Thisbe. In the earlier periods of
English literature he was more highly esteemed than now, when
critical and scientific tendencies are paramount, and the finished
poetry of Horace and Virgil is more popular than the more imagi-
native but less delicate verse of our poet. Milton knew much of
Ovid by heart; the authors in whom he took most delight were,
after Homer, Ovid and Euripides.
