Metamorphoses (Miller)/Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Probably no Roman writer has revealed himself more frankly in his works than has Publius Ovidius Naso. Indeed, the greater part of our knowledge of him is gained from his own writings. References to his parentage, his early education, his friends, his work, his manner of life, his reverses—all lie scattered freely through his pages. Especially is this true of the Amores, and of the two groups of poems written from his exile. The Metamorphoses are naturally free from biographical material. Not content with occasional references, the poet has taken care to leave to posterity a somewhat extended and formal account of his life.
From this (Tristia, iv. 10) we learn that he was born at Sulmo in the Pelignian country, 43 B.C., of well-to-do parents of equestrian rank, and that he had one brother, exactly one year older than himself. His own bent, from early childhood, was towards poetry; but in this he was opposed by his practical father, who desired that both his sons should prepare for the profession of the law, a desire with which both the brothers complied, but the younger with only half-hearted and temporary devotion.
Having reached the age of manhood, young Ovid found public life utterly distasteful to him, and now that he was his own master, he gave loose rein to his poetic fancy and abandoned himself to the enjoyment of the gay social life of Rome. He soon gained admission to the choice circle of the poets of his day, paying unlimited devotion to the masters of his art, and quickly becoming himself the object of no small admiration on the part of younger poets. His youthful poems soon gained fame among the people also, and his love poems became the popular lyrics of the town.
Though extremely susceptible to the influences of love, he proudly boasts that his private life was above reproach. He contracted two unhappy marriages in his youth, but his third marriage was a lasting joy to him.
And now his father and his mother died. The poet, while deeply mourning their loss with true filial devotion, still cannot but rejoice that they died before that disgrace came upon him which was to darken his own life and the lives of all whom he loved. For now, as the early frosts of age were beginning to whiten his looks, in the year 8 of our era, a sudden calamity fell upon him, no less than an imperial decree against him of perpetual banishment to the far-off shores of the Euxine Sea. The cause of this decree he only hints at; but he gives us to understand that it was an error of his judgment and not of his heart.[1]
Exiled to savage Tomi, far from home and friends and the delights of his beloved Rome, he was forced to live in a rigorous climate, an unlovely land, midst a society of uncultured semi—savages. His chief solace was the cultivation of his art, and in this he spent the tiresome days. He ends his autobiography with a strain of thanksgiving to his muse, and a prophecy of his world-wide fame and literary immortality.
Though Ovid says that he strove to bear his misfortunes with a manly fortitude, the poems of his exile abound in plaintive lamentations at his hard lot, petitions to his friends in Rome, and unmanly subserviency to Augustus, and later to Tiberius, in the hope of gaining his recall. These, however, were all in vain, and he died at Tomi in A.D. 18, after a banishment of nearly ten years.
Ovid's greatest work, the fruit of the best years of the prime of his life, when his imagination had ripened and his poetic vigour was at its height, was the Metamorphoses, finished in A.D. 7, just before his banishment.
In the poet's own judgment, however, the poem was not finished, and, in his despair on learning of his impending exile, he burned his manuscript. He himself tells us of his motive for this rash act (Tristia, i. 7): "On departing from Rome, I burned this poem as well as many others of my works, either because I was disgusted with poetry which had proved my bane, or because this poem was still rough and unfinished." But fortunately copies of this great work still survived in the hands of friends; and in this letter he begs his friends now to publish it, and at the same time he begs his readers to remember that the poem has never received its author's finishing touches and so to be lenient in their judgment of it.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid attempts no less a task than the linking together into one artistically harmonious whole all the stories of classical mythology. And this he does, until the whole range of wonders (miraculous changes, hence the name, Metamorphoses) is passed in review, from the dawn of creation, when chaos was changed by divine fiat into the orderly universe, down to the very age of the poet himself, when the soul of Julius Caesar was changed to a star and set in the heavens among the immortals. Every important myth is at least touched upon, and though the stories differ widely in place and time,there is no break in the sequence of narration. The poet has seized upon every possible thread of connexion as he passes on from cycle to cycle of story; and where this connexion is lacking, by various ingenious and artistic devices a connecting-link is found.
The poem thus forms a manual of classical mythology, and is the most important source of mythical lore for all writers since Ovid's time. This is the real, tangible service which he has done the literary world. Many of these stories could now be obtained from the sources whence Ovid himself drew them—from Homer, Hesiod, the Greek tragedians, the Alexandrine poets, and many others. And yet many stories, but for him, would have been lost to us; and all of them he has so vivified by his strong poetioc imagination that they have come down to us with added freshness and life.
The classic myths have always had a strong fascination for later writers, and so numerous are both passing and extended references to these in English literature, and especially in the poets, that he who reads without a classical background reads with many lapses of his understanding and appreciation. While the English poets have, of course, drawn from all classic sources, they are indebted for their mythology largely to Ovid. The poet would have been accessible after 1567 even to writers not versed in Latin, for in that year Golding's translation of Ovid appeared.
An admirable study of the influence of classic myth on the writings of Shakespeare has been made,[2] in which the author finds that Shakespeare was thoroughly familiar with the myths, and makes very free use of them. We read: "Though the number of definite allusions in Shakespeare is smaller than that of the vague ones, they are yet sufficiently numerous to admit of satisfactory conclusions. Of these allusions, for which a definite source can be assigned, it will be found that an overwhelming majority are directly due to Ovid, while the remainder, with few exceptions, are from Vergil.… Throughout, the influence of Ovid is at least four times as great as that of Vergil; the whole character of Shakespeare's mythology is essentially Ovidian."
What is true of Shakespeare is still more true of numerous other English poets in respect to their use of classical mythology. They do not always, indeed, use the myths in Ovid's manner, which is that of one whose sole attention is on the story, which he tells with eager interest, simply for the sake of telling; and yet such earlier classicists as Spenser and Milton[3] have so thoroughly imbibed the spirit of the classics that they deal with the classic stories quite as subjectively as Ovid himself. But among later English poets we find a tendency to objectify the myths, to rationalize them, to philosophize upon them, draw lessons from them, and even to burlesque them. Perhaps the most interesting development of all is found in our own time, a decided tendency to revamp the classical stories, though not always in the classical spirit—a kind of Pre-Raphaelite movement in poetry. Prominently in this class of poets should be named Walter Savage Landor, Edmund Gosse, Lewis and William Morris, and Frederick Tennyson; while many others have caught the same spirit and written n the same form.
The Latin text of this edition is based on that of Ehwald, published by Messrs. Weidmann, of Berlin, who have generously given permission to use it. All deviations of any importance from Ehwald's text have been noted, and Ehwald's readings given with their sources.
Chicago, March 1915.
- ↑ Augustus, indeed, gave as his reason the immorality of Ovid's love poems, but this is generally supposed to be only a cloak for a more personal and private reason.
- ↑ Classical Mythology in Shakespeare. By Robert Kilburn Root. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1903.
- ↑ See The Classical Mythology of Milton's English Poems. By Charles Grosvenor Osgood. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1900.