BOOK V

1

Here, my devoted reader — yet another Black Sea booklet
to add to the four I’ve already sent!
This one, too, is in tune with its maker’s misfortunes:
not a touch of pleasure throughout.
Doleful my condition, so doleful my poems,	5
text matched to its theme. When I was free
and happy I played with happy youthful topics
(I’m sorry I wrote them now);
since I fell, I’ve acted as publicist for my sudden
eclipse, embody my own theme.	10
As the dying swan (they say) stretched out by Caÿster’s waters,
with failing voice laments its own demise,
so I, cast forth on this far Sarmatian coastline,
work to ensure that my death does not pass unmarked.
If it’s amusement you’re after, frivolous sexy poems,	15
this reading-matter will not (I warn you) meet your tastes.
No, Gallus will suit you better, or seductive Propertius,
or Tibullus — so sophisticated, so smooth!
And I wish I were not of their number — ah me, why ever
did my Muse play the wanton? Yet I’ve paid,	20
I’ve paid; the poet who sported with Love and his quiver
is gone now, away by the Danube, on Scythian soil.
(For the rest, I’ve turned my verse-skills to more public poems,
admonished them to remember the name they bear.)
Yet if anyone should demand why suffering’s so often	25
my theme, the answer is that I’ve suffered much.
Neither art nor inspiration created this sequence:
the topic was self-inspired through its own ills.
Yet what fraction of my misfortune shows out in my verses?
Lucky the man who can count the woes he bears!	30
How number the twigs in a forest, Tiber’s yellow sand-grains,
each tender grass-blade in the Field of Mars?
No fewer the troubles I’ve borne, sans relief or physic, save in
my obsession with the scribbling of verse.
‘Will there never,’ you ask, ‘be an end of these snivelling poems?’	35
Only when there’s an end to my exile. That
keeps complaints welling up non-stop, brimming over;
the words I pen aren’t mine, they belong to my fate.
But reunite me with my dear wife and homeland —
then I’d look happy again, be as I was.	40
Should invincible Caesar’s ire against me grow milder,
I’ll write you a song of rejoicing on the spot.
Yet my writing shall never again make the kind of sport it used to:
enough that it once ran riot in my stead!
I’ll compose what he will approve if but part of my sentence	45
be lifted, if I can get shot of these cold hard Goths
and their barbarous world! Till then, what else but sorrow
should my poems express? A dirge best fits a living death.
‘Surely better’, you tell me, ‘to bear your sorrows in silence,
in silence to dissimulate your woes.’	50
No screaming under torture? Is that your recommendation?
When I’m severely wounded I mustn’t cry?
Even Phalaris let Perillus bellow his agony through the
mouth of that brazen bull,
and if Priam’s weeping gave no offence to Achilles,	55
how can you — more harsh than an enemy! — ban my tears?
Though Apollo and Artemis slew Niobe’s children, they never
told her she had to stay dry-eyed.
To alleviate Fate’s grim hand-outs with words — that’s something,
that’s what made Procne, Halcyone give voice	60
to their grief; that’s why Philoctetes, in his chilly cavern,
wearied the rocks of Lemnos with his cries.
A choked-back grief can strangulate, its scathing inward
force, under pressure, swells. So rather grant
me your indulgence — or else confiscate all my writings,	65
if what helps me, dear reader, does you harm —
yet harm you it cannot, my works have proved pernicious
to none save their author. ‘Yet they’re trash.’
I admit it. But who insists on having you read such drivel,
or forbids you to drop it when it cloys?	70
I don’t correct these poems, let them be read as written:
they’re no more barbarous than their place of birth.
Rome should not measure me against her native poets,
it’s only among Sarmatians that I stand out.
Last point: I’m not scrambling after fame and glory,	75
those common spurs of genius: who wants
their spirit wasted by the burden of endless troubles
that break in where they’re forbidden? Why I write
I’ve told you. Why send (you ask) my writings to you?
I want to be with you any way I can.	80

2

When a new letter reaches you from the Black Sea, does the colour
drain from your face, does your hand
shake as you break the seal? Don’t worry, I’m well: my body,
once so intolerant of labour, so infirm,
is bearing up now, has indeed grown hard from long harassment —	5
or is it that I’ve no leisure to be weak?
But my mind lies sick, and time has not replenished
its strength: the old depression still persists,
the wounds I thought would cicatrize with time still pain me
as though inflicted yesterday. Oh, it’s true	10
that the passage of time can ease our lesser troubles,
but a major problem’s compounded over the years.
For wellnigh a decade Philoctetes nursed the noxious
wound that a puff-adder gave him: had the hand
that struck down Telephus not brought Telephus succour,	15
he’d have wasted away. So likewise may he who
inflicted my wounds, I pray (if it’s true I have committed
no crime) choose to ease them now,
and content, at last, with what I’ve suffered already
draw off some little water from my full sea.	20
Yet though he drain much, much of that bitter flood-tide
will remain: any part of my penalty rivals the whole.
Number the seashore’s shells, a rose-garden’s petals, number
the seeds of the drowsy poppy, tot up the beasts
that a forest nurtures, the sea’s quota of fishes,	25
the feathers a bird deploys against thin air,
and you’ll know my count of adversities. Trying to include them
all would be like attempting to number the drops
that make up the ocean. Quite apart from travellers’ hazards
by land and sea, hands raised against my life,	30
it’s a barbarous land that now holds me, earth’s final outpost,
a place ringed by savage foes. I might
be transferred away from here — for my fault involved no bloodshed —
if you put yourself out as you should on my behalf.
That God, the happy foundation of Rome’s power, has often	35
in victory proved lenient to his foe.
Why hesitate? Why fear what’s harmless? Approach him, ask him!
There’s none kinder than Caesar in the whole wide world.
Ah me, if even my nearest and dearest desert me,
what shall I do? Are you too shrugging the yoke,	40
pulling out? Where can I turn? Where now should I seek comfort?
There’s not one anchor left to hold my craft.
Let him look to it, then — though hated, I’ll take refuge
at that sacred altar: an altar rejects no hands.
Hail! Suppliant’s petition, in absentia, to an absent	45
godhead (always supposing humans can chat with Jove):
arbiter of empire, whose survival assures the protection
of every deity for the Roman race,
O glory, O image of the country that flourishes through you,
O hero to match the very sphere you rule —	50
so may you dwell on earth, yearned for by heaven,
so may you pass late to your promised stars!—
spare me, I beg you: just cancel a minor portion
of your fulmination against me: what remains
will be punishment enough. Your anger is moderate,	55
you spared my life, I’ve kept my civic rights
and status: my fortune has not been assigned to others,
nor, by the terms of your edict, am I pronounced
an ‘exile’ — all things I’d feared, since I deserved them;
but your wrath proved of less weight	60
than my offence. You ordered me ‘relegated’ via Scythian
waters to a long view of the Pontic steppe:
so at your command I’ve come here, to the Euxine’s unlovely
littoral, a land lying under the icy pole,
and it’s not so much the eternal cold that crucifies me,	65
the earth for ever calcined with white frost,
or because the barbarians’ language is alien to Latin
and Greek’s overlaid by Getic, as that here
I’m in a hard-pressed enclave, see fighting at close quarters,
with only one low wall that barely holds	70
the enemy at bay. There’s peace at times; but reliance
on peace, as such, never. If we’re not under attack
we fear it. If only I could change my venue, Charybdis
could gulp me down, float me away to Styx;
or I’d be resigned to roast in quick Etna’s furnace,	75
or be tossed, Leucadian style, from a cliff into the sea —
what I want is punishment: look, I’m not against suffering,
I’d just like to suffer more safely — would you mind?

3

This is the day, Bacchus, unless I’m much mistaken,
that poets traditionally consecrate to you,
binding their festive brows with sweet-scented garlands,
singing your praises over your own wine:
amongst whom, I remember, while my fate permitted,	5
I too played a part that was not
displeasing to you. But now under northern constellations
Sarmatia claims me, and the barbarous Goths.
I who of old led a life of cultured ease and leisure
devoted to poetry, now far removed from home	10
am dinned about by the clash of tribal weapons
after much suffering by sea and land.
Whether chance or divine anger brought this on me,
or a clouded Fate at my birth,
you at least should have backed up with your godhead	15
a ritual ivy-celebrant, one of your own!
Or is whatever those sisters, destiny’s bosses, utter
no longer amenable to divine control?
You yourself reached heaven’s airy citadel on merit,
and sweated to make it: you did not sit still	20
in your homeland, but travelled all the way to snowclad
Strymon, venturing among the war-mad Goths,
then to Persia, to wide-flowing Ganges, to all the rivers
that dusky Indians drink. And this, no doubt,
was decreed by your Fate — the threads twice spun, twice magicked	25
for you at your double birth.
Now I too am crushed (always supposing it’s proper
to utilize gods’ examples) by an iron-harsh fate.
I fell as hard as Capaneus, hurled by Jove’s lightnings
back from Thebes on account of his big mouth.	30
Yet you might have sympathized when you heard that a poet
had been fulminated (just think of your mother’s fate!),
and, casting an eye upon the bards around your altar,
have exclaimed: ‘One of my worshippers is gone!’
Help me, kind Bacchus: so may the tall elm be burdened	35
with vines, and the must swell to bursting in the grapes,
while your Bacchants and a rout of hot young satyrs, frenzied
lips framing your name, attend you; so may the bones
of axe-wielding Lycurgus rest ill, the spirit of impious
Pentheus be tormented for all time!	40
So, clear in the sky for ever may your wife’s crown glitter,
eclipse the circumambient stars!
Come to me now, sweet deity, relieve my misfortunes —
remember I’m one of your own.
There’s commerce between gods — try to bend Caesar’s	45
divine will, Bacchus, with your will divine!
And all you who share my pursuit, loyal fellow poets,
now fill the cup, uttering the selfsame plea!
And let one of you, when Ovid’s name is mentioned,
pledge him in wine and tears,	50
and remembering me, look round the company assembled,
and say, ‘Where is he now, who lately was
one of our group?’ — but only if I’ve earned your approval
by my honesty; if no book was ever harmed
by verdict of mine; if while I reverence the classics,	55
I place some modern works in the same rank.
So may you make all your poems with Apollo’s blessing,
and sometimes — no law forbids that — recall my name.

4

From the Black Sea’s shore I have come, a letter of Ovid’s,
wearied by sea-travel, wearied by the road.
Weeping he told me: ‘See Rome, for you it’s not forbidden —
alas, how better far your lot than mine!’
He wept, too, as he wrote me: the signet I was sealed with	5
he touched, first, not to his lips but to
his tear-wet cheeks. (To inquire the reason for such sorrow
is like asking for someone to point out
the sun: do that, and you’d miss grass in a meadow,
leaves in a wood, or water in a stream,	10
wonder why Priam grieved for the loss of Hector,
why Philoctetes groaned
after his snakebite.) Would that the gods might grant him
a worry-free life, no sorrows to lament!
Yet he shoulders his bitter misfortunes with proper patience,	15
doesn’t strain at the bit like some unbroken horse,
hopes that the deity’s wrath will not last for ever, conscious
that his offence involves no crime. He recalls,
often, just how great is the God’s mercy, considers
himself an instance of it: that he retains	20
his father’s inheritance, a citizen’s status, lastly
his very life, he counts as the God’s gift.
But you, who are dearer to him (ah, please believe me)
than the whole world, he holds
constantly in his heart: describes you as his Patroclus,	25
his Pylades, Theseus, Euryalus; does not miss
his country, and all the many things he’s conscious of having
lost with his country, more than he misses your
face and expression, dear man, you who are sweeter
than honey stored in their combs by Attic bees!	30
Often, too, in his grief he remembers that occasion
— he’s sorry he didn’t die first —
when though others shunned the contagion of his sudden downfall,
wouldn’t cross the threshold of that stricken house,
you (he recalls), and a few other friends remained faithful —	35
if two or three can qualify as ‘a few’.
Though stunned, he was conscious of everything, saw you grieving
over his misfortunes as though they’d been your own;
He still at times recalls your words, your expression,
your sobs, the tears you shed	40
on his bosom, the way you supported and consoled him
though in need of comfort yourself.
For this he declared his eternal constancy and remembrance,
whether looking on daylight or when laid
under the earth: he swears by his life and yours, as ever	45
(and yours, I know, he reckons no less dear
than his own), full recompense for your many acts of kindness
shall be paid; he’ll never let your oxen plough
a barren shore. But afford him your constant protection
in his exile: I’m asking what he, the old friend, would not.	50

5

Another year gone: today the birthday of my lady
demands its accustomed rites. To work, my hands:
duty is all. So once, like me, heroic Ulysses
— at the world’s end, perhaps — observed his wife’s feast.
Propitious speech only, tongue: forget my woes! (By now, though,	5
you may have unlearnt your stock of propitious words.)
Now let me put on that once-in-the-year white garment
so ill-matched in colour to my fate;
set up a green turf altar, cover the still-warm
hearth with a woven wreath. Bring incense, boy,	10
to enrich the flames, bring me the wine that hisses
as it’s poured on the holy fire.
Bright birthday spirit, I pray, though so far distant,
for your presence here (so different from my own!) —
If my lady was threatened by any painful affliction	15
may she be quit, now, for ever of my ills;
may the vessel lately worse than shaken by violent
storms, in future traverse untroubled seas;
may she enjoy home, daughter, and her native country —
enough that I alone am bereft of all three —	20
and though she’s robbed of her much-loved husband’s presence,
may the rest of her life be cloudless; may she live,
may she love her husband, though forcibly parted from him,
may her time on earth be long —
I’d add my own, but I fear lest my fate’s contagion	25
infect the years that she is living out.
Nothing’s certain for men. Who’d have thought that I would ever
be performing these rites among the Goths?
Yet look how a breeze bears the smoke from my burning incense
(good omen!) towards Italy! So there’s significance	30
in the fumes that a fire gives off — it’s consciously they’re fleeing
this alien sky; and consciously, when the rite
of a common sacrifice is carried out on the altar
to those brothers who perished by each other’s hand,
the very ashes, as though at their willed commandment,	35
fall blackly apart, in separate heaps.
I declared once (I recall) that this couldn’t happen,
that in my opinion Callimachus was wrong:
but now, since you, O vapour, have sensibly abandoned
the North for the West, now I believe it all!	40
This, then, is the morn which, had it not dawned, would have left me
in my misery with no birthday to observe:
a day that brought forth a character to match such
heroines as Penelope or Andromache, a day
on which uprightness, chastity, faithfulness were engendered,	45
but no joys — not on that day:
labour rather and cares, a lot ill-matched to your nature,
and just complaints of your all-but-widowed state.
Uprightness, it’s true, well-schooled in times of sorrow
by adversity, offers a theme for praise:	50
had hardy Ulysses experienced no misfortunes
Penelope would have been happy, but unsung;
Evadne, had her husband broken through Thebes’ ramparts, might have
remained for ever unknown in her own land.
Though Pelias sired a bounteous quiverful of daughters,	55
why was only one famous? Doubtless because
she married luckless Admetus. If someone else’s husband
had been first ashore at Troy, there’d be no cause
to remember Laodameia. And if the winds of fortune
had blown my way, your loyalty would remain	60
(as you’d wish it) unknown. Yet, you gods, and Caesar, God-in-prospect
— though only when you’ve outlived old Nestor himself —
spare, not me (I admit I deserved my sentence),
but her, who though undeserving of grief, must grieve.

6

Do you too, once the security for my fortune,
my refuge, my harbour, do you too
dismiss now your care of the friend you took up, so quickly
shrug off the load that loyal duty prescribes?
I’m a burden, I know it — but one you should never have undertaken	5
if you meant to drop it when times turned sour for me.
Palinurus, how could you abandon ship in mid-ocean?
Don’t run, don’t let your faith short-change your skill!
Did Automedon during battle desert Achilles’ horses
on some slight whim? When once	10
Podalirius took on a patient, he never failed to deliver
the promised benefits of his healing art.
To throw out a guest is worse than never to admit him:
the altar, once granted, should sit firm to my hand.
At first you saved me alone; but now uphold your judgment	15
as well as my person — if only some new fault
is not found in me, if only my wrongdoings
have not suddenly killed your trust!
Ah, may the air I breathe so ill in this foul climate
leave my body — I mean it — before your heart	20
is ever wrung by transgression of mine, or my actions
deservedly seem cheaper in your eyes!
I am not so far overwhelmed by iniquitous fortune
that this string of troubles has unhinged my mind:
yet suppose it unhinged — how often did Orestes	25
curse his friend Pylades, do you suppose?
It wouldn’t be far from the truth, indeed, to say he struck him —
but the friend never wavered in his faith.
Here is the one common bond between success and failure:
both exact our solicitude. We make way	30
for the blind, but also for those whom the broad stripe and the fasces
render objects of reverence, whom heralds announce.
If you cannot show pity for me, at least pity my misfortune:
there’s no room left in me for any man’s ire.
Pick out the least, the very least of my woes, you’ll find it	35
greater by far than what you may suppose.
As numerous as the reeds that choke up sodden ditches,
or the bees of flowery Hybla, or the ants
that follow their tiny paths to underground godowns
lugging the grains of wheat they’ve found —	40
such is the crowd of troubles that presses round me:
my complaint, believe me, understates the truth.
Who’s not content with these must pour sand on the seashore,
add wheat-ears to grainfields, water to the sea.
So abate your swollen unseasonable passion —	45
do not desert my vessel in mid-deep!

7

The letter you’re reading comes to you from that region
where the Danube estuary joins the sea.
If you have life and sweet health still, there’s one spot of brightness
left amid my misfortunes. Of course you want —
as always — my dearest friend, to know how I’m doing,	5
though this you can guess for yourself, without a word
on my part. I’m wretched. That’s the brief sum of my troubles:
all who offend Caesar, and live, will be the same.
Would you care to learn the nature of the local inhabitants,
find out amid what customs I survive?	10
They’re a mixed stock, Greek and native, but the natives —
still barely civilized — prevail.
Great hordes of tribal nomads — Sarmatians, Getae —
come riding in and out here, hog the crown
of the road, every one of them carrying bow and quiver	15
and poisoned arrows, yellow with viper’s gall:
harsh voices, fierce faces, warriors incarnate,
hair and beards shaggy, untrimmed,
hands not slow to draw — and drive home — the sheath-knife
that each barbarian wears strapped at his side.	20
Among such men, alas, his light love-verse forgotten,
your poet, friend, now lives: these he hears and sees.
Would he were not alive, might he die among them, could but
his spirit struggle free of this hated place!

(7B)

My poems, you write, are danced now, and to full houses,	25
with the recitative getting wild applause.
I’ve never, as you well know, written theatre libretti,
my talent’s not hungry for clapping hands.
Still, I’m not ungrateful for anything that hinders
oblivion of me, revives the exile’s name.	30
Though sometimes I curse my inspiration, and the poems
engendered by it that then did me such hurt,
when I’m through cursing, I still can’t do without them,
still seek those bloody weapons for my wounds.
(So the Greek fleet, rock-racked in the Euboean surf-line,	35
still dared to run those headlands.) Yet I don’t
work nights in pursuit of praise, don’t tend for the future
a name that were better left unsung:
my work occupies my mind, beguiles my sorrows,
helps me try to cheat my cares —	40
What else should I do, all alone in this howling desert,
what other salve for my troubles should I seek?
Look at the landscape? It’s hideous — nothing more depressing
could exist in the whole wide world.
The men, then? They scarcely are men in the word’s meaning,	45
show greater savagery than wolves, don’t fear
legal constraints: here might is right, and justice
yields to the battling sword.
With skins and baggy breeches they fight the grim cold; their unshaven
faces are framed in hair.	50
Only a few retain some trace of the Greek language,
but debased, by now, with that local twang,
and there’s not a single person in the population
who speaks Latin — even one or two common words.
I, that great Roman poet — forgive me, Muses! — am driven	55
to talk, now, for the most part, Sarmatian-style:
what’s more (I’m ashamed to admit it) long lack of practice
makes Latin, even for me, hard to recall.
This book, I’ve no doubt, contains a sizeable number
of barbarous solecisms: for that you must blame	60
the place, not the author. Yet, to prevent my voice being muted
in my native speech, lest I lose the common use
of the Latin tongue, I converse with myself, I practise
terms long abandoned, retrace my sullen art’s
ill-fated signs. Thus I drag out my life and time, thus	65
tear my mind from the contemplation of my woes.
Through writing I seek an anodyne to misery: if my studies
win me such a reward, that is enough.

8

I’ve not fallen quite so low — though abject — that I’m lower
than you, beyond whom nothing lower exists.
What stirs your malice against me, vile wretch? Why jump on
misfortunes that you may well suffer yourself?
I’m down. Why don’t my troubles melt your hard heart? They’re sufficient	5
to draw tears from wild beasts. Are you not scared
by the powers of Fortune, high on her unpredictable
wheel, or by the goddess who hates proud words,
Nemesis, hot for revenge? The punishments she imposes
go to the guilty: why set your foot on my fate	10
and kick it? I’ve seen someone drowned who laughed at shipwrecks —
‘Never,’ said I, ‘were the waves more justified.’
The fellow who once denied cheap scraps to the needy
now chews the bread of beggary himself.
Fortune, that spinning-top, wanders with unpredictable	15
footsteps, never abides in one place,
now beaming with pleasure, now sour-faced, constant only
in her fickleness. I too once
flourished in season, but with a too-brief flowering:
my fire was of straw, and short-lived.	20
But don’t be too absorbed in your cruel pleasures —
I’m not without all hope of appeasing the God:
my error fell short of crime, and though it’s not free from
shame, there’s no odium to it — and the whole
wide world from sunrise to sunset can offer nothing	25
more merciful than him it obeys. Indeed,
though he remains immune to all forceful pressure,
he keeps a soft heart for timid prayers,
and like the gods, to whose company his future accession
is assured, when he pardons me he’ll grant	30
my further petitions. Tot up the days in a twelvemonth,
cloudy and bright, it’s bright as often as not.
So don’t rejoice excessively over my downfall — ponder
the fact that one day I might just be recalled;
that if the prince is appeased, you might, to your horror,	35
see my face, one day, in Rome,
and I see you then exiled, on a weightier indictment —
after my first prayer let this one be the next!

9

Ah, if you’d let me set down your name in my poems,
how often would you feature there! I’d devote
my entire output to you, commemorating your service:
not a page in my books would be complete
without you; my debt to you would be known throughout the City —	5
if I, the exile, am read in the City I’ve lost.
I’d make your kindness familiar to this and future ages
(if my work but survives the test of time),
while intelligent readers would shower you with endless blessings
for having succoured a poet. Caesar’s gift	10
— that I draw breath, am living — may rank first, but after
the mighty deities it’s you I have to thank.
He gave me life; but the life he gave, you foster,
let me get pleasure from the boon I’ve had.
While most shrank back in horror at my downfall —	15
some even claimed to have feared it in advance —
and from high ground watched my poor vessel founder,
offered no help as I battled savage waves,
you alone brought me back, half dead, from those Stygian waters:
that I can even recall it I owe to you.	20
May the gods, with Caesar, grant you their friendship always —
no ampler prayer could I make. If you’d permit,
such things my work would set forth, in dazzling poems,
drenched with bright light, for all the world to read.
Even now my Muse, though bound to silence, scarcely	25
can refrain from uttering your name,
will you or no. Just like the hound that’s scented
the trail of a timid doe, and is held on a hard leash,
baying in frustration, or the racehorse, kicking and butting
at the still-shut starting-gate,	30
so my poetic instinct, though confined and fettered
by the rule you’ve imposed, still longs to blaze a trail
with your forbidden name. Yet to make sure the homage
of a mindful friend doesn’t harm you I shall — fear not —
respect your commands; though I’d not, if you thought I’d forgotten!	35
So, I’ll show gratitude (that you don’t forbid),
and as long (may the time be brief!) as I still live, my spirit
will perform this office for you.

10

Since I’ve been here in Pontus, three times the Danube
has frozen; three times the offshore sea’s iced up.
Yet I feel I’ve been absent as many years from my country
as Troy was besieged by its Greek foes.
You’d think time stood still, so slowly does it travel,	5
with such dragging steps does the year complete its course.
For me the summer solstice never shortens
the nights, midwinter never shrinks my days:
for me, I’ll swear, nature has been made over
and draws out everything commensurate	10
with my wearisome troubles. Or is it that time in general
goes on as before, and it’s just my time that drags
now I’m stuck by the ill-named ‘Euxine’ (kind to strangers
it’s not) and the Scythian coastal bend
sinister (yes indeed). Countless threatening tribes surround us,	15
who think living except by pillage a disgrace.
Nothing’s safe outside: our hill-settlement’s protected
only by low walls and a good defensive site.
The horde descends, like birds, when you least expect it,
and, barely glimpsed, is away again with its spoils.	20
Often inside the walls, gates shut, their poisoned arrows
still reach us: we collect them off the streets.
Few dare to farm: the wretches that plough their holdings
must do it one-handed (the other grasps a sword);
the piping shepherd is helmeted, while his timorous	25
ewes dread not wolves but war.
Our fortress barely defends us: even inside it
that native mob mixed with the Greeks
is scary — barbarians form over half the population
and live here without distinction. Even if you don’t	30
fear them, the sight of their chest-long hair, their sheepskins,
is enough to fill you with loathing — even those
who are held to be descended from the first Greek settlers
have exchanged their ancestral dress for Persian trews.
They have commerce with one another through their common language,	35
while I must use signs to indicate my needs.
Here I’m the barbarian, understood by no one,
and these stupid peasants mock my Latin speech,
slander me to my face with impunity, on occasion
(I suspect) laugh at my exile. When I reply	40
to their talk with a nod or a shake of the head, they find me
silly, absurd. On top of this, unjust
justice is meted out here with the sword-blade, very often
wounds are inflicted in open court. Harsh Fate,
to give me, when my star is so unlucky, no shorter	45
a thread of life! That I’m deprived of the sight
of my country, of you, my friends, that I’m consigned to this Scythian
outback — such things, yes, I resent: each one
is a heavy penalty. It was right I should be severed
from Rome — but not to rot in such a place.	50
What am I saying? I’m mad — for offending Caesar’s godhead
I deserved to lose my very life as well!

11

Some person, by way of insult, has called you (so your letter
complains) ‘the wife of an exile’. I was grieved,
not so much that my fate should be spoken of in malice
— by now I’m used to showing a stiff upper lip —
as because I’ve brought shame to the last person I’d have wanted	5
to suffer, because I think of you blushing for my woes.
Be steadfast, endure: much worse did you bear when the Emperor’s
wrath tore me from you. Yet he who gave me the name
of ‘exile’ is mistaken: the penalty laid upon me
was matched to a lesser fault. The worst	10
was offending Him — I’d sooner by far my deathday
had taken me first. Yet my ship,
though battered, was not broken up — though it lacks a harbour
it’s still afloat. Neither life
nor estates, nor my civil rights did He take from me,	15
though by my offence I deserved to lose them all;
no: since the fault involved no criminal action,
he simply deprived me of my native hearth.
Just as to others — so many one cannot count them —
so to me, Caesar’s power proved mild.	20
He himself describes me as ‘relegated’, not ‘exiled’:
his judgment has left my case secure.
Rightly then, Caesar, and to the very best of their powers
my poems (such as they are) proclaim your praise;
rightly I pray the gods to keep the gates of heaven	25
closed to you still, to let you be a god
apart from them; such, too, is the people’s prayer; yet streamlets,
like rivers, all flow out to the boundless sea.
But you whose lips pronounce me exile, cease to burden
my misfortunes further with that lying name!

12

You write that I should divert these mournful days with writing,
stop my wits rotting from neglect.
That’s hard advice, my friend: poems emerge as the product
of happiness, need peace of mind — but my
fate’s shaken by adverse gales, there could be nothing	5
more wretched than what I endure.
Priam, you’re saying, should have fun fresh from his sons’ funeral,
or Niobe, bereaved, lead off some cheerful dance.
When I’m sent, alone, to this native outback, I ask you,
which of the two should occupy my mind,	10
sorrow or composition? You can quote me the valiant
spirit displayed by Socrates at his trial,
yet wisdom will crumble under so massive a downfall,
and a god’s ire eclipse mere human strength —
put in my place (though proclaimed a sage by Apollo!)	15
the old fellow could never have written a single work!
And even suppose I forget you, forget my country,
if my feelings for what I’ve lost become a blank,
yet fear still inhibits my function, I’m barred from relaxation
in a place ringed by countless foes.	20
Besides, long rusting has eaten away my talent:
it’s torpid, far less than once it was —
a fertile field, if not freshened with regular ploughing,
yields nothing but grass and thorns.
A horse that’s been waiting too long runs badly, will always	25
be last out of the starting-gate.
Keep a rowboat too long from the water, its natural context,
it’ll start rotting, develop cracks.
No hope for me either: I wasn’t that much to start with,
but I can never return	30
even to what I was. This long endurance of troubles
has beaten down my talent, not one shred
of my old vigour survives. If, as now, I take my tablets
and try to force words to scan,
no real poems emerge — or only such as now reach you,	35
fit products of their master’s state, and place.
Lastly, the urge for renown gives the mind no small inducement,
love of praise makes fecund the heart:
time was I was magnetized by the dazzle of name and fortune,
while my vessel ran before a following breeze;	40
but my circumstances have changed now, I’m sour on glory;
if I can, I’d prefer not to be known.
Or is it because my verse went well at first, that now you
advise me to write, follow up my early success?
Let me say, with all due respect, to the nine Muses:	45
Sisters, you are the main cause why I’m here,
in exile. Just as the bronze bull’s fabricator
paid a just penalty, so I too now pay
for my skills. From now on I should have no truck with verses —
once shipwrecked, who’d go near the sea?	50
And if I’m mad enough to resume my fatal pastime,
what sort of matter for song does this dump provide?
There’s not a book in the place, no one to listen to me,
to know what my words mean —
nothing but savage jabber and animal outcry, nothing	55
but the terror of alien tongues.
Already, I feel, I’ve forgotten how to speak my own language
through learning the local lingo instead,
and yet, to confess you the truth, my inspiration
can’t be shackled, insists on writing verse,	60
though these scribblings, once completed, end in the furnace —
a heap of ashes is all my devotion creates.
I can’t compose, yet still long to be writing:
that’s why the fire claims my work,
and only scraps of my efforts, preserved by subterfuge,	65
or by luck, ever reach you. How I wish
that my Art, which destroyed its unsuspecting maker,
had been turned to ashes first!

13

Good health and greetings from Ovid in his outback —
if anyone can send what he lacks himself!
I was sick already, but now my mind’s contagion
has infected my body too, that no part of me
may be free from torment: I’ve been agonized for days now	5
by this pain in my side, grim winter’s searing cold
has pierced me. If you’re in health, though, then part of me’s healthy —
your shoulders have been the prop that sustained my fall.
But why, when you’ve given me such weighty assurances,
when, in every respect, you protect my life,	10
do you fail by so seldom consoling me with a letter,
loyal in fact, yet depriving me of words?
Amend this fault, I beseech you — just one correction
and your splendid person won’t have a single flaw.
I’d charge you with further derelictions, but it may be	15
that though no letter’s reached me, one was sent.
May the gods grant that my complaint’s unfounded,
that I’m wrong in thinking you’ve forgotten me!
What I pray for is so, that’s clear — I’d be wrong to suppose your
oak-tough loyalty changeable. Sooner may pale	20
wormwood desert the Black Sea’s frozen tundra,
or Sicilian Hybla lose its fragrant thyme,
than you stand convicted of forgetting a friendship —
the threads of my fate are not that black! But still,
to make sure you can refute these trumped-up charges,	25
beware of seeming to be something you’re not:
just as we used to spend long hours in conversation
till the sun went down on our talk,
so now correspondence should relay our silent voices
back and forth, the paper and our hands	30
should perform the tongue’s office. Lest I seem over-distrustful
of this ever happening (and may my few lines suffice
as a reminder!) accept the word that ends every letter —
and may your fate be different from mine! — ‘Fare well.’

14

How great a monument I’ve built you in my writings,
wife dearer to me than myself, you yourself can see.
Though Fortune strip much from their author, yet my talent
shall make you illustrious; as long
as I’m read, your legend and mine will be read together —	5
not all of you will burn up in that sad pyre,
and though through your husband’s misfortunes you may provoke pity,
you’ll find some women who want to be what you are,
who, because you share my sorrows, will call you lucky,
envy you. I couldn’t have given you more	10
by giving you riches: the rich man’s shade brings nothing
of his own to the shades below.
I endowed you with a name that’s immortal, you enjoy the advantage
of the greatest boon I could bestow.
Besides, as the sole guardian of my possessions,	15
no small honour is yours,
for my voice is never silent concerning you, you should be
proud of your husband’s testimony. That none
may be able to call it excessive, show your persistence,
preserve me and your loyalty at once —	20
since while I stood secure, no charges were levelled
against your probity, true; but (at best) it was free
from reproach, no more. Now my fortune’s demolition
has cleared you a space in which to build
a structure that all may see. To be good — that’s easy	25
with all snags removed, when there’s nothing to stop a wife
fulfilling her duty. But not to avoid the storm-cloud
when a god thunders — that is true married love,
that’s loyalty indeed. Too rare, the virtue ungoverned
by Fortune, that never wavers when Fortune flees!	30
Yet when Virtue’s her own reward, and holds herself upright
in far from cheerful condition, then even if
you encompass all space and time, there’s no era will pass her over
in silence, she’ll be admired to the world’s end.
Do you see how Penelope’s faith wins praise down the ages,	35
how her name never dies? Do you perceive
how the wives of Admetus and Hector still figure in poems —
Evadne too, who burnt herself on her husband’s pyre;
how Laodameia, whose husband Protesilaüs
was first man ashore at Troy, still lives	40
on men’s lips? I don’t need your death, only your devotion,
your love; you aren’t required to seek renown
the hard way. And don’t feel I’m making this admonition
because of non-action by you: I’m just providing sails
for a boat that’s being rowed. A reminder of what you’re already doing	45
is praise, and exhortation approves your deeds.