BOOK II

 

Books, my unlucky obsession, why do I stay with you
when it was my own talent brought me down?
Why go back to those fresh-condemned Muses, my nemesis? Isn’t
one well-earned punishment enough?
Poetry made men and women eager to know me —	5
that was my bad luck;
poetry made Caesar condemn me and my life-style
because of my Art, put out
years before: take away my pursuit, you remove my offences —
I credit my guilt to my verses. Here’s the reward	10
I’ve had for my care and all my sleepless labour:
a penalty set on talent. If I’d had sense
I’d have hated the Learned Sisters, and with good reason,
divinities fatal to their own
adherents. But now, such madness attends my disorder,	15
I’m bringing my bruised foot back
to the rock I stubbed my toes on, exactly as a defeated
fighter returns to the lists, or a wrecked ship
sails out again into rough seas. Perhaps the same object
may (as with Telephus) cure the wound it caused,	20
and the Muse, having stirred that wrath, may now assuage it:
poetry often moves the gods on high.
Caesar himself bade Italy’s mothers and married daughters
to hymn Ops, goddess of plenty, with her turret crown,
just as he’d done for Apollo at the celebration	25
of those Games that are viewed but once
in any lifetime. On such precedents, merciful Caesar,
let my poetic skills now soften your wrath —
just wrath indeed, I’ll not deny I deserved it:
I haven’t become that shameless — yet unless	30
I’d sinned, what could you have forgiven? My plight afforded
you the chance to show mercy. If each time
a mortal erred, great Jupiter fired off his thunderous
batteries, he’d soon be out of bolts;
as it is, once he’s thundered out, scared the world with his salvoes,	35
then he disperses the rain-clouds, brings back clear air.
Truly, then, is he termed the gods’ sire and ruler, truly
the wide world holds none mightier than Jove.
You too, being styled your country’s guide and father,
should emulate, now, the god whose name you share —	40
as indeed you do: no man has handled the reins of power
with greater moderation; many times
you’ve granted a beaten foe the clemency he would never
have conceded to you had the victory been his.
Many I’ve seen, too, loaded with wealth and honours	45
who’d taken up arms against you; your cold rage
for warfare ceased with the day the war was over,
and both sides brought their gifts
to the temples together; your troops rejoiced at having beaten
the enemy, while the enemy had good cause	50
to celebrate his defeat. My cause is better: no one
can claim that I ever took up arms
against you. By sea, by earth, those preeminent powers,
by your present and manifest godhead, now I swear
that my heart, O most lordly of men, has ever favoured	55
you, that in spirit (all I could do) I’ve been yours.
I’ve prayed to delay your assumption to starry heaven, one more
voice among many all offering up the same
petition; I’ve burnt loyal incense, I’ve supported
all public prayers on your behalf. And need	60
I say that my books — even those that form the charge against me —
are crammed with countless allusions to your name?
Inspect that major work, which I’ve still left uncompleted,
on fabulous bodily changes, and you’ll find
much trumpeting of your name there, manifest pledges	65
of my loyal devotion. Not
that your glory’s enhanced by verses, or possesses scope for
even further inflation: Jove has renown
in abundance — yet still derives pleasure from the recital
of his deeds, from providing a theme	70
for poets, and when they recount his battles with the Giants
it may well be that he purrs at praise of himself.
Others may celebrate you in loftier, more appropriate
language, and sing your praises with more wealth
of talent; and yet a god’s not only won by the slaughter	75
of a hundred bulls: a pinch of incense will do.
A brute, and most cruel of all to me, was that unnamed person
who read you frivolous extracts from my work
when passages that offer you reverent homage
are there to elicit a kinder verdict! Yet	80
who could have been my friend, when you were angered? Why, I
almost began to detest myself. When a quakestruck house
begins to subside, the heaviest pressure falls where the framework’s
bulging, and eventually that first
random fissure spreads outwards, the whole gaping structure	85
collapses under its own weight.
So what my verse has brought me is general hatred: the public
borrowed its attitude (as was proper) from yours.
Yet, I recall, your scrutiny passed my life and morals —
witness the annual ride-past, me on the knight’s	90
horse, your own gift! But if that honour profits me nothing,
leaves me no glory, at least I’d incurred no blame.
As a prison commissioner I justified my appointment,
in the probate division too: not one complaint
about my judicial verdicts in private actions — even	95
the losers conceded my good faith.
Such bad luck — if it hadn’t been for my recent disaster, I’d have
had your official endorsement, and more than once.
These latest acts are my ruin, one hurricane plunges deep-seas-
under a craft that had ridden out the storm	100
so often before — no local tide either, the totality of ocean
broke in a great wave on my head.
Why did I see what I saw? Why render my eyes guilty?
Why unwittingly take cognizance of a crime?
Actaeon never intended to see Diana naked,	105
but still was torn to bits by his own hounds.
Among the high gods even accidents call for atonement:
when deity’s outraged, mischance is no excuse.
On the day that my fatal error misled me, disaster
no struck my modest yet blameless house:	110
modest perhaps, but (it’s said) of lofty ancestral
lineage, second to none
in distinction, notable neither for poverty nor for riches,
breeding knights of the middle road,
and however lowly a house (judged by means or derivation),	115
still raised to prominence through my renown.
They may say I misused my talent with youthful indiscretion —
but my name’s still known world-wide;
the world of culture’s well acquainted with Ovid, regards him
as a writer not to be despised.	120
So this house that was dear to the Muses now has fallen under
a single (though far from exiguous) charge;
yet its fall is such that it can recover, if only
time mellow affronted Caesar’s wrath,
whose leniency in the punishment that he assigned me	125
has undercut all my fears!
My life you gave me, your wrath stopped short of execution —
that, sire, was to use your power with true restraint!
In addition, as though mere life were too small a present,
I kept my inherited wealth: this you did not	130
confiscate, nor condemn my deeds by decree of the Senate,
nor order my exile through a special court.
No — as a sovereign should, yourself, with stern invective,
avenged your own wrongs. What’s more,
your edict, however severe and threatening, showed mercy	135
when, naming my punishment, it described
me not as ‘exiled’ but as ‘relegated’, with sparing
treatment of my fortune. Indeed,
there’s no punishment worse for anyone in his right senses
than the displeasure of so great a man:	140
yet godhead may, from time to time, be placated,
clouds scatter, the day grow bright I’ve seen
an elm that fierce Jupiter’s lightning-bolt had riven
thick-laden with sprouting vines.
Though you yourself forbid hope, yet I’ll hope for ever —	145
this one thing I can do against your will.
Great hope, most merciful sovereign, stirs in me when I look to
you: but at the consideration of my deeds
hope sinks. And just as the winds whipping up the ocean
don’t rage in a non-stop gale,	150
but subside at times, have lulls, dwindle to stillness,
so that you’d think they’d shed
their violence — so my fears fluctuate, now swell, now vanish,
now promise, now deny the hope of your
appeasement. So by those gods on high who may grant you,	155
and will grant you yet, long life — if so be they love
the Roman race —; by our country, under your parental
care so safe and secure (and of which I too
was so lately a part): I pray that the City’s grateful
love may ever embrace you as you deserve	160
for your noble achievements; that Livia your consort
may grow old with you (she deserved
no other husband; without her, a bachelor existence
should have been yours; whom else
could you have married?); that your son, like you, may flourish	165
and one day rule this empire, an old
with an elder statesman; may those stars of your brave youth, your grandsons,
still emulate your, and your father’s, deeds! —
that your camp may now once more behold its erstwhile attendant
Victory seeking the standards she knows so well,	170
poised on familiar wings above Rome’s commander
to set the laurel-wreath on his bright hair
who wages your wars, in whose person you do battle,
to whom you entrust the high
auspices, and the gods; yourself divided, half guarding the city’s	175
affairs, half far away, engaged in a fierce
campaign: so may he quell the foe, return victorious,
dazzle on high above his laurelled steeds!
Show mercy, I beg you, shelve your cruel weapons,
the bolts that — to my loss — I know too well:	180
Show mercy, our fatherland’s father, remember that title,
don’t kill my hopes of one day placating you.
I do not ask for return — though common observation
shows the high gods have often granted such
petitions, and more —: a milder, less distant exile	185
would remit the worst of my sentence. Here
is the ultimate torture for me, exposed amid foes — what banished
person lives more remote from home?
I alone have been dispatched to the Danube’s sevenfold outflow,
to shiver beneath the dead weight of northern skies:	190
only the river (scant barrier!) lies between me and countless
barbarian hordes. Although
other men have been exiled by you for graver offences
none was packed further off:
beyond here lies nothing but chillness, hostility, frozen	195
waves of an ice-hard sea.
Here, on the Black Sea’s bend sinister, stands Rome’s bridgehead,
facing out against Scyths and Celts,
her latest, shakiest bastion of law and order, only
marginally adhesive to the empire’s rim.	200
So I beg you, as a suppliant, withdraw me to safety, do not
rob me of peace of mind as well
as of my country — do not leave me to risk tribal incursions
across the Danube, don’t let me be exposed,
your citizen, to capture — no man of Latin blood should ever	205
wear barbarous shackles while Caesar’s line survives.
It was two offences undid me, a poem and an error:
on the second, my lips are sealed —
my case does not merit the reopening of your ancient
wounds, Caesar: bad enough to have hurt you once.	210
But the first charge stands: that through an improper poem
I falsely professed foul adultery. If so,
Divine minds, it’s clear, must be sometimes prone to error;
besides, there are many trifles lie beneath
your notice. Just as Jupiter, watching both gods and high heaven,	215
lacks leisure to care for lesser things,
so while you gaze around on your dependent empire
some minor matters will escape your eye.
Should you, the Imperial Princeps, desert your station
to peruse my limping verse?	220
The weight of Rome’s name is not so casual, your shoulders
do not sustain so light a load that you
can direct your godhead to my inept frivolities
and examine, in person, my leisure work:
now Pannonia needs a touch of the whip, now Illyria; now Thracian	225
or Alpine insurgents give you cause for alarm;
now Armenia’s seeking peace, now the nervous Parthian
horseman surrenders his bow
and those captured standards; now Germany in your offspring
senses your youthful power, now for great	230
Caesar a Caesar wars! In this vastest of all empires
no part of the body politic is at risk.
City matters exhaust you too — enforcing laws and morals
in the hope that they’ll emulate yours;
no share for you in the peace you bestow upon nations —	235
you’re too busy fighting all
those endless wars. No wonder if amid such weighty matters
you never found time to read my frivolous works!
Yet if (as I would wish) you’d chanced to find the leisure,
your perusal of my Art would have revealed	240
no indictable matter. It’s not (I admit) a serious poem,
nor worthy to be read by so great a prince;
yet not, on that account, in conflict with your statutes
or a handbook for Rome’s young wives!
What’s more — to allay your doubts about my intended audience —	245
one of the three books has these
four lines in it: ‘Respectable ladies, the kind who
wear hairbands and ankle-length skirts,
are hereby warned off. Lawful sex, legitimate liaisons
form my sole theme. This poem breaks no taboos.’	250
So did I not strictly debar from my Art all ladies who were
placed out of bounds by snood and robe?
‘Nevertheless,’ you may say, ‘a married woman can profit
from skills intended for others, audit the class
in allurement she can’t take for credit —’ Then let her read nothing:	255
all poems can increase her delinquent skills!
Whatever she touches, if wrongdoing’s her bent, will furnish
matter that turns her character towards vice.
If she picks up the Annals — no text more roughly bristling —
she’ll read how Ilia got in the family way;	260
let her try Lucretius, and straight off she’ll be asking
by whom kind Venus became
head of Aeneas’ line. See below for my demonstration
(if such argument is in order) that every type
of poem may harm one’s morals — which doesn’t damn each volume	265
by definition: what heals can also hurt.
There’s nothing more useful than fire: yet fire’s what your arsonist
uses to burn down a house. Medicine likewise
can kill and cure by turns, its pharmacopoeia
sorts healing from deadly drugs.	270
Footpad and wary traveller both carry weapons —
but the first for assault, the second for self-defence.
Eloquence is learnt to plead a just cause: yet we find it
protecting the guilty, oppressing the innocent.
So with my poem: approach it in the proper spirit	275
and you’ll find there’s none it could harm.
‘But some women it does corrupt —’ Who thinks thus is in error,
blames too much on my writings. Yet even suppose
I admitted this charge, public shows likewise contain the seeds of
corruption — pull every theatre down!	280
Think of the crowds that exploit the Enclosure for transgression
when the Mars Field arena’s sanded down!
Abolish the Circus! The Circus’s licence is not conducive
to safety — there a girl sits jammed against
any unknown male. In the hope of encountering lovers	285
some women cruise the arcades; then why
is any arcade left open? Nothing’s more august than a temple —
yet the girl with a gift for indulging her vice should be kept
away from there too: Jove’s shrine is sure to remind her
just how many girls Jove put in the family way.	290
While she’s next door, busy offering up prayers to Juno,
she’ll recall all those mistresses who made
the goddess so angry. She’ll wonder, while contemplating Pallas,
just why that virgin deity undertook
to bring up a bastard. Let her visit Mars’ great temple —	295
the temple you built — she’ll find Venus there, inside,
wrapped around Mars, while her husband’s kept out. In the shrine of Isis
she’ll ask herself why Juno drove that poor cow
overseas to the Bosporus. Venus suggests Anchises;
the Moon, Endymion; Ceres, Iasion.	300
Perverted minds can be corrupted by anything
that in its own proper context does no harm:
a woman who bursts in where the priest forbids her	305
assumes all responsibility and guilt;	306
and the first page of my Art, composed for courtesans only,	303
warns free-born ladies to drop it on the spot.	304
Yet it’s no crime in itself to turn out wanton verses:	307
the chaste can read much they mustn’t do.
Very often your eyebrow-arching matron sees street-girls,
undressed, game for every kind of sex —	310
the very Vestal’s eye observes prostitutes’ bodies,
yet incurs no penalty as a result.
But why, it’s asked, is my Muse so excessively wanton, why does
my book encourage everyone to make love?
Now that, I confess, was all wrong: error manifest, culpable:	315
the choice, the perverted skill — I regret them both.
Why didn’t I rather churn out yet another epic poem
on how Troy fell to the Greeks?
Why not write about Thebes, and her fratricidal brothers,
and the champions at each of her seven gates?	320
No lack of material, either, from warlike Rome — and a worthy
labour, to chronicle her patriots’ deeds!
Finally, since you’ve filled the world with your meritorious
achievements, Caesar, couldn’t I find one theme
out of such plenty? Your deeds should have attracted my talents	325
as the sun’s radiance attracts the eye —
An unfair reproof: the field I plough is scrannel,
whereas that task called for the richest soil.
Pleasure boats may be fine on small lakes — but that’s no reason
for their braving the open sea.	330
I might — should I doubt even this? — have a knack for lighter
measures, be up to minor verse; but if
you bid me tell of the Giants blasted by Jupiter’s firebolts,
my efforts are bound to wilt under such a load.
It would call for a rich talent to wrap up Caesar’s fearsome	335
acts, to prevent the subject eclipsing the work —
still, I made the attempt. No good. I seemed to belittle
and (oh, abominable!) actually to harm
your prowess. So I turned back to my lightweight youthful poems,
stirred my heart with a false love —	340
Would I had not! but my fate was drawing me onward, my very
brilliance worked to my own hurt.
Ah, why did I ever study? Why did my parents give me
an education? Why did I learn so much
as the ABC? It was my Art’s wantonness turned you	345
against me, because you were convinced
it encouraged illicit sex. But no brides have become intriguers
through me: no one can teach what he doesn’t know.
Yes, I’ve written frivolous verses, erotic poems — but never
has a breath of scandal touched my name. There’s no	350
husband, even among the lower classes, who questions
his paternity through any fault of mine!
My morals, believe me, are quite distinct from my verses —
a respectable life-style, a flirtatious Muse —
and the larger part of my writings is mendacious, fictive,	355
assumes the licence its author denies himself.
A book is no index of character, but, a harmless pleasure,
will offer much matter to delight the ear.
Else were Accius homicidal, Terence a reveller,
and all war-poets firebrands. Lastly, it’s not	360
as though I were the only composer of erotic verses —
yet I, and I alone, have paid the price
for producing such things. What was old Anacreon’s message
but ‘Make love and drink your fill’?
What did Lesbian Sappho teach her girls but passion?	365
Yet both the one and the other remained unscathed.
Confessing those frequent affairs, Callimachus, in poems
for all to read — that did you no harm at all.
No play by delightful Menander lacks a love-interest,
yet he’s read in school, by boys and girls alike.	370
What’s the Iliad but an adulteress, battled over
by husband and lover? How
does it open? That flaming quarrel about Briseïs’ seizure,
angry feuding between the chiefs!
What’s the Odyssey but the wooing of one woman,	375
in her husband’s absence, by a crowd of men
and all for love? Who but Homer relates how Venus
and Mars were snared and bound in their illicit bed?
How should we know, except for great Homer’s witness,
what heat one traveller aroused in two	380
goddesses? Tragedy, now, eclipses all other genres
in seriousness: yet it too always presents
erotic themes. Take Hippolytus: a stepmother blinded
by passion. Why’s Canace famous? Her love
for her brother. Was it not lust that pricked on ivory-shouldered	385
Pelops to drive those Phrygian mares away
with his Pisan bride? What roused Medea to kill her children?
The agony of rejection. It was desire
transformed into instant birds King Tereus and his mistress,
the mother who still mourns for Itys. If that bad
brother of hers had never loved Aërope, we shouldn’t	390
read, today, how the horses of the Sun
turned back in their course. If Scylla had never severed
her father’s lock of hair, she wouldn’t now
be a tragic theme. When you read of Electra and crazed Orestes
you’re reading Aegisthus’ and Clytemnestra’s crime.	395
What about Bellerophon, fierce conqueror of the Chimaera,
so nearly done to death at a lying word
from his queenly hostess? What about Hermione, Atalanta,
or Cassandra, King Agamemnon’s prophetic love?
The list is endless — Danaë, Andromeda, Semele,	400
Haemon, Alcmena (with her two nights in one),
Admetus, Theseus, Protesilaüs (first warrior
ashore from the Achaean fleet at Troy),
Iole, Deïdameia; Heracles’ wife Deïaneira,	405
Hylas and Ganymede — I’ll run out of time
if I chase every tragic passion, my booklet will scarcely
have room for their names alone.
Then there’s the kind of drama that’s laced with ribald laughter,
full of words that transgress all decent bounds —	410
yet the playwright who drew an effeminate Achilles
suffered no penalty for verse that undercut
his manly performance. Aristeides’ Milesian connection
didn’t get Aristeides run out of town:
no exile for Eubius, master of risqué matter, despite his	415
tales of abortion; nor for the author of
the latest gay-sybaritic novel, nor for the bed-hopping
kiss-and-tell-all brigade.
Such works are shelved beside great poets’ masterpieces
in the public libraries our leaders have endowed	420
for all to read. Let me not list foreign titles only
in my defence: Rome’s literature, too, is full
of frivolous matter. Though grave Ennius sang of warfare —
Ennius, all talent and no technique —
though Lucretius sets forth the causes of devouring	425
fire, and foretells the doom of sea, land, sky,
yet wanton Catullus wrote many poems for that mistress
he called by the false name ‘Lesbia’, and not
content with her, noised abroad his many other liaisons —
infidelity public and self-confessed.	430
Equal and similar licence was shown by diminutive Calvus
who revealed his furtive intrigues
in various measures; there’s Cinna, and — more daring than Cinna — Anser	435
in the same group, and frivolous jeux d’amour	436
by Cato and Cornificius. Why bring up Ticidas’ verses,	433
or Memmius’s, where things are openly named	434
and the names raise a blush, or the circle that wrote of ‘Perilla’
(known in books today as Metella, her real self)?
Take Varro of Atax, who epicked the Argonauts’ voyage —
he couldn’t keep quiet about his intrigues;	440
Hortensius, Servius — both wrote verse no whit less scabrous
than these: who’d hesitate to follow the trend
such great names set? Sisenna translated Aristeides —
after history, risqué jokes: he suffered no harm.
Celebrating Lycóris wasn’t what brought down Gallus,	445
but indiscreet talk when drunk.
Tibullus balks at believing his mistress’s sworn denials
since she repeats them, to her husband, about him:
he admits having taught her how to outwit hall-porters,
but now, poor wretch, asserts that his own tricks	450
are being turned against him. Often, on the pretext
of appraising her ring or its gem
he remembers touching her hand, tells how his fingers
traced messages on the table for her, how
he gave her the nod; instructs us which liniments draw out	455
the bruises produced by a lover’s bites;
finally begs her indifferent husband to watch him
closer, give her less chance to sin.
He knows who the dogs are barking at, that lonely figure
pacing outside the house, and why he coughs	460
so often at shut doors; he gives numerous precepts to further
such intrigues, reveals the tricks by which
wives can deceive their husbands. This caused him no trouble:
Tibullus is read and approved, was already well known
at your accession. You’ll find identical instructions	465
in seductive Propertius: yet no hint of disgrace
ever touched him. I appeared as their successor (kindness
forbids me to name the living great), and where
so many vessels had sailed, I confess, I had no fear that
with the rest surviving one only would come to wreck.	470
Others have written handbooks on the art of dicing
(to our ancestors no light offence):
how to score with the knucklebones, which combination will get you
most points, how steer clear of the disastrous ‘Dog’;
how dice are numbered, what the best throws and moves are	475
if you look like being huffed at draughts,
the straight-line ‘raiding’ gambit when a piece is cornered
by two of your opponent’s, just how
to counter-attack, to rescue the outflanked victim,
the perils of an unescorted retreat;	480
and that other game played on a small board, with three marbles
run off in a row to win,
and all the rest — I don’t propose to pursue them —
that waste that most precious commodity, our time.
X writes about types of balls, and the ways they’re handled,	485
Y teaches swimming, Z how to bowl a hoop.
Yet others have written works on the art of cosmetics,
or etiquette-manuals for dinners and parties; one
describes the type of clay from which cups should be moulded,
shows which jar is the best for storing wine.	490
Such trifles afford us amusement in smoky December; their composition
has caused no harm to anyone. So, misled
by the genre, I wrote non-serious poems; but serious
the penalty visited upon my jests!
And out of this crowd of scribblers — no hard feelings — the only	495
one destroyed by his Muse turns out to be me.
Suppose that I’d been the author of indecent farces, which always
(a stock charge) portray illicit love,
in which the lead constantly goes to some smart seducer,
and stupid husbands are conned by their artful wives?	500
Everyone watches these shows — wives, husbands, sons, just-nubile
daughters (and most of the Senate, come to that).
On top of outraging our ears with improper words, they accustom
the eye to put up with pudendal matter galore.
When the lover deceives the husband with some new trick, he’s applauded,	505
and the play carries off first prize: the less
improving his work is, the greater the poet’s profits —
such filth commands top rates
from official sponsors: run over your own Games’ expenses,
August One: you’ll find you spent massive sums	510
on many such items. You watched them yourself, and (as always
bounteous by nature) underwrote them time and again
for the public, and with your eyes followed, all cool attention,
what the whole world watches — their staged adulteries.
If it’s proper to scribble farces that act out such gross matter,
the penalty my stuff incurs should be far less.	515
Or is this kind of writing safeguarded by performance?
Do farces earn their licence via the stage?
Well, my poems too have often been danced in public,
have often, indeed, beguiled
your eyes. Why, your very palace, though refulgent with portraits	520
of antique heroes, also contains, somewhere,
a little picture depicting the various sexual positions
and modes: there too you will find
not only the seated Ajax, all fury in his expression,
and savage Medea, eyes meditating crime,	525
but Venus too, still damp, wringing out her sodden tresses,
scarce risen from the waves that gave her birth.
Others sound forth the clash of war and its bloody weapons,
some hymning your race’s exploits, some your own,
but grudging nature restricted me to a narrower	530
sphere, gave my talent scant strength.
Yet even the fortunate author of your own Aeneid brought his
Arms-and-the-Man into a Tyrian bed —
Indeed, no part of the whole work’s read more often
than this union of illicit love. When young,	535
Virgil also depicted the passions of Amaryllis
and Phyllis in pastoral eclogues. I too
gave offence, though long ago, with this kind of composition —
now my old fault incurs a new punishment.
Yet I’d already issued these poems when with my fellow	540
knights I passed in review before your stern
tribunal unfaulted. So the writings I thought harmless
in my wild youth harm me now
in my old age. Retribution comes late and heavy
for that early squib, the penalty’s remote	545
from the time of the sin. But don’t think all my work so lightweight —
I’ve often put out under full sail:
I wrote six books of the Fasti, had six more rough-drafted,
each covering one month of the year;	550
but this work, complete with its opening dedication,
Caesar, to you, was cut short
by my fate. I presented the tragic stage with a royal drama,
in language befitting the high tragic style;
I also described — though this work lacks final revision —	555
the transformation of bodies into novel shapes.
If only you would, briefly, revoke your anger
and read, at your leisure, those few lines —
really a few — in which, beginning with the Creation,
I bring the work down	560
to your own times, Caesar, you’ll learn what guidance, what inspiration
you’ve given me, with what warmth I treat you and yours.
I never flayed any victim with a mordant poem,
my verse levels charges at none.
Guileless, I’ve always avoided embittered wit: not a single	565
letter has been imbued with poisonous jests.
After writing so much, I’m the only one out of thousands
done down by my own Muse.
So no Roman, I’d guess, rejoices at my misfortunes:
many, indeed, have grieved. Nor, if there exists	570
any gratitude for my kindness, can I really believe that
someone would kick me when I’m down.
O father, O guardian and salvation of our country,
may your godhead be moved by these and other pleas!
I don’t ask for repatriation — or only perhaps when you’re softened	575
at last by the weary length
of my punishment — all I crave now is a safer, more tranquil
place of exile, one chosen to match my offence.