“Writing a poem you can read to no one is like dancing in the dark.” EP IV.2 33-4.In 8 AD, Augustus sentenced the poet Ovid to exile. The cause was twofold. First, because Ovid’s earlier love poetry, particularly the Art of Love with its anything-goes approach to sex, conflicted with Augustus’ conservative social reforms. Second, a mysterious mistake or indiscretion, possibly political in nature, apparently rubbed the princeps the wrong way. It marked the end of a literary era. The last 50 years...

Every word you’ve read in this whole book was writtenduring the anxious daysof my journey: scribbling lines in mid-Adriaticwhile December froze the blood,or after we’d passed the twin gulfs of the Isthmusand transferred to another ship,still verse-making amid the Aegean’s savage clamour(a sight, I fancy, that shook the Cyclades).In fact, I’m surprised myself that in all that upheavalof spirit and sea inspiration never flagged.How to label such an obsession? Shocked stupor? Madness?No matter: by

"I never corrupteda single innocent girl or respectable brideor matron, but wrote only for those who already were foolingaround on the wrong side of the sheets . . ."[Besides, if you look at the classics, every poetwrites of love. The readers expect it, even demand it.Anacreon writes of venery and wine;Sappho, whom all the ladies read, teaches of love.Callimachus confesses to wanton delightsof illicit love. Will you exile them, or will you bantheir books?]". . . You know as well as I do, it wasn...

It's true that these poems are repetitive, locked in a theme of "get me out of here." At the same time, they capture the obsessive nature of exile, how it blinds one to present surroundings and makes vivid a nostalgia for a different time and a different place. Ovid writes of Rome and mentions Tomis only in passing, exaggerating its faults. Everything here is repellent, all would be well if I could only return. It is amazing that a poet writing 2000 years ago can so clearly capture these feeling...

Ovid as an exile poet. After a life of splendour and fame, being loved by his controversial wit, everything came tumbling down for Ovid in his last years. He was exiled by the Caesar to present day Romania, which back then was like sending you to the end of the world. For us readers, just that fact alone gives a further tinge of greatness to Ovid, like the cherry on top. Not only a great poet, but a poet so great he was exiled by the establishment for his poetry. I suspect most of us come to thi...

just finished yet ANOTHER book for class baby! call me an enlightened scholar

Ovid was the bad boy of Augustus' Rome. He lacked Virgil's patriotic mythmaking or Horace's skeptical breadth, but his Latin is said to be more fluid than that of either of them. Ovid's youthful books are about love, common enough among Roman poets, but with a callowness beyond youth; one of them instructs women on applying make-up. After a middle age trying his hand at retelling myths, including the "Metamporphoses", August exiled Ovid from Rome for reasons that have not come down to posterity

Well could I wish, since they were destined to work me harm, that I had never set hand to the holy service of the Pierian ones. But now, what am I to do? The very power of that holy service gripes me; mad man that I am, though song has injured me, tis still song that I love. So the strange lotus tasted by Dulichian palates gave pleasure through the very savor which wrought harm. The lover is oft aware of his own ruin yet clings to it, pursuing that which sustains his own fault. I also find plea

Ovid’s laments and pleas are a salutary reminder that might makes right.

Although kind of a “one-note” work — I’m in exile and I hate it — one can hardly blame Ovid for feeling as he does. The contemporary translation seems excellent (at least the translator footnotes many choices in which he displays the original Latin, and his choices seem to me good at those points; I have not looked at it in a parallel edition, still less attempted to dust off my “slightly more antiquated than Rome itself” Latin vocabulary and read the original) and the sense of the poems are sca...

Why was Ovid banished to Tomis? Many theories are out there, but no one knows for sure. Augustus’ daughter Julia was banished at about this same time for her over-the-top promiscuous lifestyle, and we know that Ovid’s writings definitely promoted that sort of thing. Of course, she took it to the extreme. He was even asked by the emperor to “clean it up.” Of course, he refused. So did Augustus blame him for his daughter’s behavior? Was he directly involved as one of her paramours? Who knows. Wha...

Sly sly Ovid, the master of playing with identity, portraying himself as a person that had as many 'misfortunes as the stars that lie between the hidden and visible pole'. Could I travel back in time, I would visit Rome and his exile Tomis, to find out what really happened and then return, keeping my mouth shut as to not destroy the myths surrounding this book.

“I’m not what I was. Why trample an empty shadow?Why stone my ashes, my tomb?Hector was Hector while fighting but Hector’s cadaver,dragged by Achilles’ horses, was not……I beg you, stop troubling my ghost!”The verses of exile are rough, conversational, contentious, confessional, and often saturated with language that has spoiled being left so long untouched in the damp nest of mourning. The nouns and verbs and adjectives are deployed here with far more caution and groaning. Ovid, at this time, wa...

It must be noted that if you aren't a fan of sychophants or have no pateince for what seems like whining you should stay clear.If these things don't deter you then you are in for a scarcely seen spectacle. A person whose achieved all the trapping of success lamenting on the loss of their Eden. The first few books were ladled heavy in the the two points I noted earlier. It is upon reaching the latter books that one truly begins to marvel at the depths of despair. I (in my un-scholarly opinion) be...

I came across this book in a used bookstore on Chincoteague and started it on the drive home, reading good bits out loud to my family.This book brought to life the early Roman Empire in a way that very few books I've ever read have. No historical fiction can compete with the surprises an original source can offer. It helps when your source is a phenomenal writer in his own right, as Ovid was. I liked this translation, too. Ovid was exiled from Rome by Caesar under mysterious circumstances. The o...

The Tristia is acknowledged by Ovid to get a bit samey; an extended whinge on the subject of his exile. As the Tristia and Ex Ponto continue the sight of Ovid, whose poetry had so much life and innovation, sinking into repetition and complaining that "writing poetry without an audience, is like dancing in the dark" is a bleak one. He rails against those who've dropped him as a friend, and flatters and cajoles those who have not, to speak up for him and he toadies to the Caesars as Gods he worshi...

I've no prior exposure to Ovid (or to A.D. Melville in fact) but, digesting this book in small bites, found it at times both poignant and elevating. Perhaps because of why and when it was written in the original, and my lack of classical training, I found however that most of the references to deities, history and myth used by Ovid missed their mark with me, making the volume merely 'ok' to me, rather than 'great'.Nonetheless a good read, and an interesting one, more than worth the time and litt...

Sad to note that the best of the Black Sea Letters come after the death (murder?) of Ovid's most promising advocate. It's when he's willing to lose hope that he writes his best, breaking from the unvarying "Get Me Out of Here" theme.If you've ever felt sentenced to a distant outpost, this is an unflattering look at what such exile does to one's relationships.

Ovid is insufferable most of the time in this work; however, Peter Green’s notes were terrific and saved the book. I found his notes more interesting than Ovid’s words. For the best Ovid, see his Metamorphoses and Heroides.

“i’m falling apart, ramshackle, dilapidating to ruin,”

Let the storm have its will of man – but letstorm and poemreach their end, I pray, each at the same time!

The famous Roman poet Ovid was exiled by Augustus in 8AD, following a scandal, to Tomis on the shore of the Black Sea (modern day Constanta in Romania). We don’t know what exactly the scandal involved. It seems his work the Art of Love - which instructed young Romans in seduction - offended the moral revolution led by Augustus, and earned Ovid the resentment of some high ranking officials. Furthermore, he may have been involved in an incident with Augustus’ own daughter Julia, who was accused of...

I normally like Loeb translations of classical texts since they are accurate and authentic even where they translate poetry into prose, but this is one of the few exceptions where another translation is better than the Loeb equivalent.Green translates both the four books of the Tristia as well as the Epistulae ex Ponto (Black sea letters), and does a good job of making these difficult texts readable. Where Loeb is very stilted in English, here the texts flow.There are also extensive notes of a f...

After reading "The art of love," reading the poems of exile is a gloomy prospect. The easy wit and sparkle that seems to shine so comfortably is almost entirely missing, but Ovid's brilliance is still very much in place. As long as you get past all the flattery of patrons and the emperor's family, many of the poems are quite good, and have at their core a sadness and longing to regain a sense of place in the world. Ovid is still a strong poet, and this translation does a good job of proving this...

The fall from the grace can be sometimes very painful and trigger the most interesting writings and poetry. Ovid was exiled to the small and compared to Rome, barbarian town called Tomis, modern Constantza, on the Romanian coast of the Black Sea. Lot of pain, lot of pleading all in vain. The poetry is like screams for something that never came. I like Ovid but his late poetry is not what floats my boat.

What I have to say here matters little because this is an immortal work by an immortal writer. However my only complaint was that Ovid's response to his exile. I bought this book expecting a more poetic treatment of the how's and why's of this but it is not that. But its perhaps my loss. What was the man to do but just write what he felt. Well worth reading.

It's a shock reading these after the Metamorphosis and the Erotic poems.whatever value they have in Latin, In English I think Ovid was right:Now I'm out of words, I've asked the same thing so oftennow I feel shame for my endless, hopeless prayers.You must all be bored stiff by these monotonous poems.

No matter whether Ovid was actually exiled or not (there is some controversy on the matter), the emotion that speaks from these poems can be recognised and felt by anyone.

Ovid is a bit pathetic as a writer at the end of his life. Don't read this unless you feel like being depressed.

Marvelous translation by the great classicist Peter Green. Apparently used by Bob Dylan when writing the lyrics for his 'Modern Times' album. Universal truths written in exile.