Ovid in the
Renaissance
150
i.
i.
Ovid - 1901 - Ovid and His Influence
handle.
net/2027/mdp.
39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www.
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
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? jDttr totbt to (Bztttt and ftonu
EDITORS
George Depue Hadzsits, Ph. D.
University of Pennsylvania
David Moore Robinson, Ph. D. , LL. D.
The Johns Hopkins University
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CONTRIBUTORS TO THE "OUR DEBT TO
GREECE AND ROME FUND," WHOSE
GENEROSITY HAS MADE POSSIBLE
THE LIBRARY
flDur SDebt to CBmct ana Eome
Philadelphia
Dr. Astley P. C. Ashhurst
William L. Austin
John C. Bell
Henry H. Bonnell
Jasper Yeates Brinton
George Burnham, Jr.
John Cadwalader
Miss Clara Comegys
Miss Mary E. Converse
Arthur G. Dickson
William M. Elkins
H. H. Furness, Jr.
William P. Gest
John Gribbel
Samuel F. Houston
Charles Edward Ingersoll
John Story Jenks
Alba B. Johnson
Miss Nina Lea
Horatio G. Lloyd
George McFadden
Mrs. John Markoe
Jules E. Mastbaum
J. Vaughan Merrick
Effingham B. Morris
William R. Murphy
John S. Newbold
S. Davis Page (memorial)
Owen J. Roberts
Joseph G. Rosengarten
William C. Sproul
John B. Stetson, Jr.
Dr. J. William White
(memorial)
George D. Widener
Mrs. James D. Winsor
Owen Wister
The Philadelphia Society
for the Promotion of Liberal
Studies.
Boston
Oric Bates (. memorial)
Frederick P. Fish
William Amory Gardner
Joseph Clark Hoppin
Chicago
Herbert W. Wolff
Cincinnati
Charles Phelps Taft
Cleveland
Samuel Mather
Detroit
John W. Anderson
Dexter M. Ferry, Jr.
Doylestown, Pennsylvania
"A Lover of Greece and
Rome"
New York
John Jay Chapman
Willard V. King
Thomas W. Lamont
Dwight W. Morrow
Mrs. D. W. Morrow
? ? Senatori Societatis Philoso-
Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? OVID
AND HIS INFLUENCE
MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
BOSTON ? MASSACHUSETTS
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? COPYRIGHT - 1925 - BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
All rights reserved
Printed September, 1925
J)B
3
lW3
THE PLIMPTON P R E S S ? N O R W O OD ? M A S S A CHU SETT S
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? MY WIFE
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Contributors to the Fund . . . . ii
Preface xi
I. Ovid in the World of Poetry . . . 3
1. The Poet of Love 9
i. Corinna 9
ii. The Beginnings of a Greater
Plan 16
Medea 16
Heroides 18
The Double Epistles . . . . 27
iii. The Art of Love 33
iv. The Remedies of Love . . . . 48
2. The Poet of Transformations . . 54
3. The Poet of the Pagan Year . . . 76
4. The Poet in Exile 89
Tristia 92
Last Works 101
Epistulae ex Ponto 104
II. Ovid Through the Centuries . . . 108
1. Ovid in the Middle Ages . . . . 112
i. Elegiac Comedies 114
ii. The Tale 116
[vii]
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? CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
iii. Vagabond Poetry and Satire 117
iv. Romance and Epic 123
v. Arts of Love and the Knightly
Code 125
vi. Forgeries 128
vii. Ovid's Transformations . . . . 131
Ovidius Ethicus 131
Ovidius Theologus 134
Ovidius Medicus 137
Ovidius Magnus 138
Ovid's Alter Ego 141
viii. Dante and Chaucer 143
Dante 143
Chaucer 14S
2.
Ovid in the Renaissance 150
i. Petrarch and Boccaccio . . . . 150
ii. Neo-Latin Poetry 152
3. Ovid in Modern Poetry 156
III. Ovid the Modern 168
Notes 177
Bibliography 180
[viii]
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE FACING PAGE
I. Solmona. From the frontispiece to
Keppel Craven, Excursions in the
Abruzzi and Northern Provinces
of Naples, Vol. II, London,
1838 Frontispiece
II. The Poet in Exile. From the
frontispiece to J. C. Poncelin,
Oeuvres Complettes d'Ovide, Vol.
VII, Paris, An VII 90
M
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? PREFACE
OUR debt to Ovid! What, save the
warning of an awful example, does
our age owe to a professed roui, the
author of a monument so dangerously typical
of his degenerate society that the ruler of Rome
banished him to a frozen land and excluded
his book from the libraries? It would seem as
if Ovid's influence ended and ought to have
ended then and there. Somehow it has sur-
vived. In certain momentous periods of human
history, Ovid's name has shone brightly among
the immortals. Part of his fame, of course, is
due to other works besides the Art of Love.
It may be, further, that Augustus and the
Puritans of his time, and the Puritans of other
times, did not quite understand the qualities
of that poem or the character of its author.
Ovid is nothing if not subtle, nor had he any
desire to present his apologies to those who
could not see what he was about. Moralists
have put him on their black list again and
again. His art, too, has seemed to many steeped
[xi]
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? PREFACE
in rhetoric and thoroughly insincere. Accord-
ing to Mr. Palgrave, no mean judge of letters,
he is "amongst world-famous poets, perhaps
the least true to the soul of poetry. " Today,
in our own country certainly, he is hardly more
than a school-book. He has surmounted the
Alps of the centuries ut declamatio fiat. His
own imagination could have contrived no more
horrible metamorphosis than this. But why
should one try to revive him? What is our
debt to him?
[xii]
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? OVID AND HIS INFLUENCE
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? OVID AND HIS
INFLUENCE
I. OVID IN THE WORLD OF
POETRY
Nimium amator ingenii sui. quintilian
Ingenio perii Naso poeta mei. ovn>
OVID'S birth in the year 43 B. C. coin-
cides with the beginning of a new age
in Roman literature. Virgil, whatever
he may have written in his youth, was at work
on his Eclogues, which both marked an epoch
in pastoral poetry and presented a programme
of universal peace through Roman imperialism
that was destined to become the watch-word
of the age and the ideal of its ruler. Ovid was
still in his teens when the Georgics appeared,
in which the idealization of Italy and a
"mirror of the prince," -- not yet known as
Augustus -- were even more splendidly dis-
played. But when the greatest work of the
poet, the goal of his aspiration and the com-
plete symbol of the Augustan Age had, after
his death in 19 ? b^ been given to the world,
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? OVID AND HIS INFLUENCE
Ovid was already busied with poetry of a very
different sort. Horace had described the Roman
world, and the world of humanity, in a new and
genial satire. He had enticed Aeolian song into
Italian measures in a new and Roman lyric,
and succeeded Virgil as the laureate of Rome.
Ovid, a youth of the rising generation, did not
aspire to this part. He has been called, in an
admirable work in the present series,1 "the
least Roman of all the Latin poets. " Perhaps
we should allow Ovid to enlarge our ideas of
what "Roman" means; for the old Romans
were also Italians. It is true, at any rate, that
Ovid's poetry is primarily the expression of his
own temperament rather than of some national
desire into which his temperament has been
caught up. He writes rather as a citizen of the
cosmos than as a subject of imperial Rome.
Ovid's native place, Sulmo, lay in a region,
now called the Abruzzi, that even today stirs
longings for the romantic and the wild. The
poet did not forget his birthplace; he revisited
it and in his latest poetry cherishes its memory
with affection. But though the scenes of his
'boyhood may have aroused his imagination,
they failed to give it a romantic caste. Ovid
was fascinated with the novelty of adventure,
[4]
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? THE WORLD OF POETRY
but no adventure controlled him. He loved
nature and could paint her finest shadings, but
he never confused himself with meadow, stream
or grove. If he ever sought moral lessons, it
was not in an impulse from the vernal woods.
His soul possessed emotions, but he was the
captain of his soul. He was Horace's first pupil,
and his aptest, in the golden principle of nil
admirari. And the Stoic sage, master of the
perturbations of the mind, could have profit-
ably sat at Ovid's feet.
Ovid's father, like Petrarch's, destined his
son to a career of practical success. The young
man obediently started out on this career and
disobediently abandoned it. He held various
minor judicial posts, but he spent less time at
court than with the young poets about town.
Ovid, though in command of his moods, was
not a poet of solitude; he liked companionship
and doubtless made a good flaneur. One of his
friends, Bassus, was writing stinging iambics.
Macer and Ponticus were following the popu-
lar trend to epic, with an eye, if they were wise,
to the epic achievements of Augustus. The
fourth of his intimates was Propertius, already
noted for his love-elegies, which set forth, in
intensely serious verse, the bitter-sweet of his
[5]
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? OVID AND HIS INFLUENCE
passion for Cynthia. Love was a theme well
fitted to Ovid's tastes; he tried his hand at
that. He probably was still under twenty when
the streets of Rome were ringing with his songs
of Corinna, a person mysterious, as we shall
see. But Ovid, no less than Virgil or Milton,
had visions of some greater work ahead. His
earliest plan was for something epic, an heroic
treatment of the battle of the Gods and the
Giants. Horace had shown how this theme
could symbolize the victory of Augustus's
angels over the devils of Antony. It were
strange if this was the only poem for which
Ovid later repented, but as to what these youth-
ful efforts may have been, we have not the
slightest scrap of positive evidence. The epic
was not a success, and the poet returned to
Corinna.
Ovid's first experiments in poetry were pre-
ceded, or accompanied, by a thorough training
in the rhetoricians' schools. His masters were
the Spaniard Porcius Latro and Arellius Fus-
cus, an adept in Asiatic exuberance. From
them Ovid learned all the rules of the game.
He sometimes displays his craft too freely, to
the detriment of true feeling and good taste.
But he always has the upper hand. Ovid is
[6]
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? THE WORLD OF POETRY
mastered no more by rhetoric than by romantic
Sehnsucht. If he played with the devices un-
seasonably and pursued them to extravagance,
he knew, like Euripides, what he was about.
The elder Seneca 2 tells a delightful story about
three kindly critics who pointed out the poet's
short-comings and requested the privilege of
excising a certain three verses, in different
poems, really too bad to stand. Ovid instantly
complied, with the stipulation that he should
retain a certain three verses, of which he was
particularly fond. When both the selections
were compared, they were found to be the
same. Non ignoravit vitia sua, says Seneca,
sed amavit.
Ovid's best teacher was his own genius.
Poetry came to him with an almost fatal ease.
Given a theme in prose, he would find that the
thing turned out verse. The experience is rare,
though repeated by Pope and Lamartine. One
of the ancient lives of Ovid declares that once
when his father caught him writing a poem and
proceeded to apply the rod, the lad cried out
(in his native medium):
Parce mihi numquam versificabor pater!
Oh father dear, make it no worse;
I vow I'll nevermore write verset
[71
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? OVID AND HIS INFLUENCE
This promise was ill kept. Throughout his life,
Ovid's thought flowed into verse, in love-elegy,
in tragedy, in tragical monologues of deserted
heroines, in an art of cosmetics, in an art of
love, in a remedy for the disease, in an epic
on miraculous transformations, in a calendar
of the Pagan Year. Even after his exile in
8 a. d. to the frozen shore of the Euxine Pontus,
his vein of poetry did not freeze. He poured
forth laments and petitions for forgiveness, as
well as less gloomy strains.
Ovid was thrice married, finding at last a
true mate, to whom he writes from exile in
terms of deep affection. By one of his earlier
wives he had a daughter who imitated the
paternal example by marrying twice. One of
the letters from exile is addressed to Perilla,
probably his step-daughter, the daughter of
his third wife. The letter reveals a delightful
intimacy between Ovid and the girl; he had
encouraged her in the old days to write verse,
and had acted as her kindly critic.
The life of our poet, we see, is bisected, like
the life of Cassiodorus and of Boccaccio. It is
natural to divide Ovid's poetry and his temper-
ament into two halves, one gay and active, one
sombre and depressed. But though exile was a
[8]
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle.
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? o
0
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-g
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c
T3
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? jDttr totbt to (Bztttt and ftonu
EDITORS
George Depue Hadzsits, Ph. D.
University of Pennsylvania
David Moore Robinson, Ph. D. , LL. D.
The Johns Hopkins University
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CONTRIBUTORS TO THE "OUR DEBT TO
GREECE AND ROME FUND," WHOSE
GENEROSITY HAS MADE POSSIBLE
THE LIBRARY
flDur SDebt to CBmct ana Eome
Philadelphia
Dr. Astley P. C. Ashhurst
William L. Austin
John C. Bell
Henry H. Bonnell
Jasper Yeates Brinton
George Burnham, Jr.
John Cadwalader
Miss Clara Comegys
Miss Mary E. Converse
Arthur G. Dickson
William M. Elkins
H. H. Furness, Jr.
William P. Gest
John Gribbel
Samuel F. Houston
Charles Edward Ingersoll
John Story Jenks
Alba B. Johnson
Miss Nina Lea
Horatio G. Lloyd
George McFadden
Mrs. John Markoe
Jules E. Mastbaum
J. Vaughan Merrick
Effingham B. Morris
William R. Murphy
John S. Newbold
S. Davis Page (memorial)
Owen J. Roberts
Joseph G. Rosengarten
William C. Sproul
John B. Stetson, Jr.
Dr. J. William White
(memorial)
George D. Widener
Mrs. James D. Winsor
Owen Wister
The Philadelphia Society
for the Promotion of Liberal
Studies.
Boston
Oric Bates (. memorial)
Frederick P. Fish
William Amory Gardner
Joseph Clark Hoppin
Chicago
Herbert W. Wolff
Cincinnati
Charles Phelps Taft
Cleveland
Samuel Mather
Detroit
John W. Anderson
Dexter M. Ferry, Jr.
Doylestown, Pennsylvania
"A Lover of Greece and
Rome"
New York
John Jay Chapman
Willard V. King
Thomas W. Lamont
Dwight W. Morrow
Mrs. D. W. Morrow
? ? Senatori Societatis Philoso-
Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? OVID
AND HIS INFLUENCE
MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
BOSTON ? MASSACHUSETTS
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? COPYRIGHT - 1925 - BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
All rights reserved
Printed September, 1925
J)B
3
lW3
THE PLIMPTON P R E S S ? N O R W O OD ? M A S S A CHU SETT S
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? MY WIFE
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Contributors to the Fund . . . . ii
Preface xi
I. Ovid in the World of Poetry . . . 3
1. The Poet of Love 9
i. Corinna 9
ii. The Beginnings of a Greater
Plan 16
Medea 16
Heroides 18
The Double Epistles . . . . 27
iii. The Art of Love 33
iv. The Remedies of Love . . . . 48
2. The Poet of Transformations . . 54
3. The Poet of the Pagan Year . . . 76
4. The Poet in Exile 89
Tristia 92
Last Works 101
Epistulae ex Ponto 104
II. Ovid Through the Centuries . . . 108
1. Ovid in the Middle Ages . . . . 112
i. Elegiac Comedies 114
ii. The Tale 116
[vii]
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
iii. Vagabond Poetry and Satire 117
iv. Romance and Epic 123
v. Arts of Love and the Knightly
Code 125
vi. Forgeries 128
vii. Ovid's Transformations . . . . 131
Ovidius Ethicus 131
Ovidius Theologus 134
Ovidius Medicus 137
Ovidius Magnus 138
Ovid's Alter Ego 141
viii. Dante and Chaucer 143
Dante 143
Chaucer 14S
2.
Ovid in the Renaissance 150
i. Petrarch and Boccaccio . . . . 150
ii. Neo-Latin Poetry 152
3. Ovid in Modern Poetry 156
III. Ovid the Modern 168
Notes 177
Bibliography 180
[viii]
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE FACING PAGE
I. Solmona. From the frontispiece to
Keppel Craven, Excursions in the
Abruzzi and Northern Provinces
of Naples, Vol. II, London,
1838 Frontispiece
II. The Poet in Exile. From the
frontispiece to J. C. Poncelin,
Oeuvres Complettes d'Ovide, Vol.
VII, Paris, An VII 90
M
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? PREFACE
OUR debt to Ovid! What, save the
warning of an awful example, does
our age owe to a professed roui, the
author of a monument so dangerously typical
of his degenerate society that the ruler of Rome
banished him to a frozen land and excluded
his book from the libraries? It would seem as
if Ovid's influence ended and ought to have
ended then and there. Somehow it has sur-
vived. In certain momentous periods of human
history, Ovid's name has shone brightly among
the immortals. Part of his fame, of course, is
due to other works besides the Art of Love.
It may be, further, that Augustus and the
Puritans of his time, and the Puritans of other
times, did not quite understand the qualities
of that poem or the character of its author.
Ovid is nothing if not subtle, nor had he any
desire to present his apologies to those who
could not see what he was about. Moralists
have put him on their black list again and
again. His art, too, has seemed to many steeped
[xi]
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:20 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015039815975 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? PREFACE
in rhetoric and thoroughly insincere. Accord-
ing to Mr. Palgrave, no mean judge of letters,
he is "amongst world-famous poets, perhaps
the least true to the soul of poetry. " Today,
in our own country certainly, he is hardly more
than a school-book. He has surmounted the
Alps of the centuries ut declamatio fiat. His
own imagination could have contrived no more
horrible metamorphosis than this. But why
should one try to revive him? What is our
debt to him?
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? OVID AND HIS INFLUENCE
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? OVID AND HIS
INFLUENCE
I. OVID IN THE WORLD OF
POETRY
Nimium amator ingenii sui. quintilian
Ingenio perii Naso poeta mei. ovn>
OVID'S birth in the year 43 B. C. coin-
cides with the beginning of a new age
in Roman literature. Virgil, whatever
he may have written in his youth, was at work
on his Eclogues, which both marked an epoch
in pastoral poetry and presented a programme
of universal peace through Roman imperialism
that was destined to become the watch-word
of the age and the ideal of its ruler. Ovid was
still in his teens when the Georgics appeared,
in which the idealization of Italy and a
"mirror of the prince," -- not yet known as
Augustus -- were even more splendidly dis-
played. But when the greatest work of the
poet, the goal of his aspiration and the com-
plete symbol of the Augustan Age had, after
his death in 19 ? b^ been given to the world,
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? OVID AND HIS INFLUENCE
Ovid was already busied with poetry of a very
different sort. Horace had described the Roman
world, and the world of humanity, in a new and
genial satire. He had enticed Aeolian song into
Italian measures in a new and Roman lyric,
and succeeded Virgil as the laureate of Rome.
Ovid, a youth of the rising generation, did not
aspire to this part. He has been called, in an
admirable work in the present series,1 "the
least Roman of all the Latin poets. " Perhaps
we should allow Ovid to enlarge our ideas of
what "Roman" means; for the old Romans
were also Italians. It is true, at any rate, that
Ovid's poetry is primarily the expression of his
own temperament rather than of some national
desire into which his temperament has been
caught up. He writes rather as a citizen of the
cosmos than as a subject of imperial Rome.
Ovid's native place, Sulmo, lay in a region,
now called the Abruzzi, that even today stirs
longings for the romantic and the wild. The
poet did not forget his birthplace; he revisited
it and in his latest poetry cherishes its memory
with affection. But though the scenes of his
'boyhood may have aroused his imagination,
they failed to give it a romantic caste. Ovid
was fascinated with the novelty of adventure,
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? THE WORLD OF POETRY
but no adventure controlled him. He loved
nature and could paint her finest shadings, but
he never confused himself with meadow, stream
or grove. If he ever sought moral lessons, it
was not in an impulse from the vernal woods.
His soul possessed emotions, but he was the
captain of his soul. He was Horace's first pupil,
and his aptest, in the golden principle of nil
admirari. And the Stoic sage, master of the
perturbations of the mind, could have profit-
ably sat at Ovid's feet.
Ovid's father, like Petrarch's, destined his
son to a career of practical success. The young
man obediently started out on this career and
disobediently abandoned it. He held various
minor judicial posts, but he spent less time at
court than with the young poets about town.
Ovid, though in command of his moods, was
not a poet of solitude; he liked companionship
and doubtless made a good flaneur. One of his
friends, Bassus, was writing stinging iambics.
Macer and Ponticus were following the popu-
lar trend to epic, with an eye, if they were wise,
to the epic achievements of Augustus. The
fourth of his intimates was Propertius, already
noted for his love-elegies, which set forth, in
intensely serious verse, the bitter-sweet of his
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? OVID AND HIS INFLUENCE
passion for Cynthia. Love was a theme well
fitted to Ovid's tastes; he tried his hand at
that. He probably was still under twenty when
the streets of Rome were ringing with his songs
of Corinna, a person mysterious, as we shall
see. But Ovid, no less than Virgil or Milton,
had visions of some greater work ahead. His
earliest plan was for something epic, an heroic
treatment of the battle of the Gods and the
Giants. Horace had shown how this theme
could symbolize the victory of Augustus's
angels over the devils of Antony. It were
strange if this was the only poem for which
Ovid later repented, but as to what these youth-
ful efforts may have been, we have not the
slightest scrap of positive evidence. The epic
was not a success, and the poet returned to
Corinna.
Ovid's first experiments in poetry were pre-
ceded, or accompanied, by a thorough training
in the rhetoricians' schools. His masters were
the Spaniard Porcius Latro and Arellius Fus-
cus, an adept in Asiatic exuberance. From
them Ovid learned all the rules of the game.
He sometimes displays his craft too freely, to
the detriment of true feeling and good taste.
But he always has the upper hand. Ovid is
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? THE WORLD OF POETRY
mastered no more by rhetoric than by romantic
Sehnsucht. If he played with the devices un-
seasonably and pursued them to extravagance,
he knew, like Euripides, what he was about.
The elder Seneca 2 tells a delightful story about
three kindly critics who pointed out the poet's
short-comings and requested the privilege of
excising a certain three verses, in different
poems, really too bad to stand. Ovid instantly
complied, with the stipulation that he should
retain a certain three verses, of which he was
particularly fond. When both the selections
were compared, they were found to be the
same. Non ignoravit vitia sua, says Seneca,
sed amavit.
Ovid's best teacher was his own genius.
Poetry came to him with an almost fatal ease.
Given a theme in prose, he would find that the
thing turned out verse. The experience is rare,
though repeated by Pope and Lamartine. One
of the ancient lives of Ovid declares that once
when his father caught him writing a poem and
proceeded to apply the rod, the lad cried out
(in his native medium):
Parce mihi numquam versificabor pater!
Oh father dear, make it no worse;
I vow I'll nevermore write verset
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? OVID AND HIS INFLUENCE
This promise was ill kept. Throughout his life,
Ovid's thought flowed into verse, in love-elegy,
in tragedy, in tragical monologues of deserted
heroines, in an art of cosmetics, in an art of
love, in a remedy for the disease, in an epic
on miraculous transformations, in a calendar
of the Pagan Year. Even after his exile in
8 a. d. to the frozen shore of the Euxine Pontus,
his vein of poetry did not freeze. He poured
forth laments and petitions for forgiveness, as
well as less gloomy strains.
Ovid was thrice married, finding at last a
true mate, to whom he writes from exile in
terms of deep affection. By one of his earlier
wives he had a daughter who imitated the
paternal example by marrying twice. One of
the letters from exile is addressed to Perilla,
probably his step-daughter, the daughter of
his third wife. The letter reveals a delightful
intimacy between Ovid and the girl; he had
encouraged her in the old days to write verse,
and had acted as her kindly critic.
The life of our poet, we see, is bisected, like
the life of Cassiodorus and of Boccaccio. It is
natural to divide Ovid's poetry and his temper-
ament into two halves, one gay and active, one
sombre and depressed. But though exile was a
[8]
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