OVID

Amores	Book 1	Book 2	Book 3
	1
Heroides
Medicamina
Ars Amatoria	Book 1	Book 2	Book 3
Remedia Amoris
Metamorphoses	Book 1	Book 2	Book 3	Book 4	Book 5	Book 6	Book 7	Book 8
				55-70
	Book 9	Book 10	Book 11	Book 12	Book 13	Book 14	Book 15
			1-19 85-105
Fasti	Book 1	Book 2	Book 3	Book 4	Book 5	Book 6
Tristia	Book 1	Book 2	Book 3	Book 4	Book 5
Epistulae ex Ponto	Book 1	Book 2	Book 3	Book 4

AMORES

BOOK 1

[1] I was preparing to tell in solemn verse of arms and violent wars, with subject-matter matching metre. The second line was equal to the first, but Cupid is said to have laughed and stolen away one foot. "Who gave you, cruel boy, this right over poetry? We bards are the throng of the Muses, not yours. What if Venus appropriated the weapons of golden-haired Minerva, while golden-haired Minerva fanned the lighted torches? Who would approve of the reign of Ceres in the mountain forests, and of the cultivation of the fields under the rule of the quivered maiden? Who would equip Phoebus of the splendid locks with a sharp spear, while Mars strummed the Aonian Lyre? Yours is a great kingdom, my boy, and a too powerful one: why in your ambition do you aspire to a fresh undertaking? Or is everything everywhere yours? Are yours the vales of Helicon? Is scarcely even Phoebus' own lyre safe any longer? Whenever a new page starts well with the first line, that second one diminishes my vigour. And I do not have a subject suitable for lighter rhythms - a boy or a girl with her long locks well combed." I had made this complaint, when he forthwith, opening his quiver, selected arrows made for my destruction. He strongly bent his sinuous bow on his knee and said, "As something for you to sing of, bard, take this." Alas for me! that boy had unerring arrows: I am on fire, and in my once empty heart reigns Love. Let my work rise in six measures, and fall again in five; iron wars with your metre, farewell! Garland your golden temples with myrtle from the sea-shore, my Muse, for you are to be celebrated in measures of eleven feet.

METAMORPHOSES

BOOK 4

(55) Pyramus and Thisbe, he the most beautiful of youths, she preferred before [all] the damsels which the East supported, lived in adjoining houses, where Semiramis is said to have girdled her lofty city with wall of burned brick. The nearness caused the first steps in their acquaintance: their love increased with time. They would have united, too, by the bond of marriage, but their fathers forbade it. But, and this they could not forbid, they were both inflamed, with minds equally captivated: by nods and signs they hold converse, and the more the fire is smothered, the more when so smothered does it burn.

(65) The wall common to each house had been split by a slender chink, which it had got formerly when it was being built. This defect, noticed by no one through the long ages (what does love not perceive?) you lovers first glimpsed, and you made it a passage for your voices; and blandishments used to pass through it in safety, with the softest whisper.

BOOK 11

(1) While with songs such as these the Thracian poet was drawing the woods and savage animals and [even] the rocks to follow him, lo! the matrons of the Ciconians [= Thracians], their maddened breasts covered with the skins of wild beasts, from the crest of a hill observed Orpheus accompanying his songs to the plucked strings [of his lyre]. One of these, tossing her hair in the light breeze, cried out, ‘See, see! here is the man who scorns us!’ and hurled her spear at the melodious mouth of Apollo’s bard; but [the spear] being tipped with leaves, made a mark without any wound. The weapon of another was a stone, which, being thrown, was overpowered in the very air by the harmony of his voice and lyre, and lay before his feet, as if a suppliant [asking pardon] for such an insane attempt. None the less this rash warfare increases and moderation departs, and maniac fury reigns. And all their weapons would have been appeased by his song, but the mighty clamour and the Berecynthian pipe with curving horns, and the tambourines and the clappings, and the Bacchanalian shriekings drowned the sound of the lute. Then at last the stones grew red with the blood of the bard, no longer heard.

~ BREAK ~

(85) Nor is this enough for Bacchus: he also abandons the very fields [of Thrace], and with a better train makes for the vineyards of his beloved Tmolus, and [the river] Pactolus, although it was not golden at that time, or envied for its precious sands. The usual throng of Satyrs and Bacchants attend him, but Silenus is not there: Phrygian peasants had seized him as he was staggering along under the influence of his years and wine, and bound with garlands they led him to their king Midas, to whom together with the Cecropian Eumolpus, the Thracian Orpheus had entrusted the mysteries [of Bacchus]. As soon as Midas recognised him as [Bacchus’] companion and partner in his mysteries, he celebrated a festival on the arrival of this guest with good cheer for twice five days and nights joined in succession [= on end]. And now on the eleventh day Lucifer had brought up the rear of the stars on high, when the king came rejoicing to the lands of Lydia, and restored Silenus to his young ward.

(100) To him the god, being glad at the recovery at his foster-father, gave the right of choosing a reward, pleasing [indeed], but of little good [as it turned out]. For he, fated to make poor use of the gift, says: “Cause that whatever I touch with my body be turned to yellow gold!” Liber assents to his request and grants the baneful reward, though sorry that he had not asked for something better.