The History of Roman Literature Part 60

[18] _Albi, nostrorum sermonum_ candide _index_, Hor. Ep. I. iv.

[19] Ov. Am. III. ix. 32, implies that Delia and Nemesis were the two successive mistresses of the poet.

[20] El. IV. ii. 11, 12, _urit ... urit_. Cf. G. i. 77, 78. Again, _dulcissima furta_ (v. 7), _cape tura libens_ (id. 9); _Pone metum Cerinthe_ (iv. 15), will at once recall familiar Virgilian cadences.

[21] Ib. IV. vi. 2; vii. 8.

[22] Ib. IV. viii. 5; x. 4.

[23] S. I. ix. 45.

[24] Ib. iv. 23, 24; v. 8, 1.

[25] Whatever may be thought of his ident.i.ty with Horace's _bore_, and it does not seem very probable, the pa.s.sage, Ep. II. ii. 101, almost certainly refers to him, and ill.u.s.trates his love of vain praise.

[26] Merivale has noticed this in his eighth volume of the History of the Romans.

[27] As instances of his powerful rhythm, we may select _c.u.m moribunda niger clauderet ora liquor; Et graviora rependit iniquis pensa quasillis: Non exorato stant adamante vias_; and many such pentameters as _Mundus demissis inst.i.tor in tunicis; Candida purpureis mixta papaveribus_.

[28] See El. I. ii. 15, _sqq._; I. iii. 1-8, &c.

[29] Ib. ii. 34, 61.

[30] El. iii. (iv.) 6 (7).

[31] Ib. v. (iv.) 7.

[32] Ib. iv. (iii.) 8 (9). Two or three other elegies are addressed to him.

[33] iv. (iii.) 1, 3.

[34] On these see next chapter, p. 320.

[35] See Contr. ii. 11.

[36] Trist. I. ii. 77.

[37] So says the introduction; but it is of very doubtful authenticity.

[38] Am. II. i. 11.

[39] A. A. III. 346, _ignotum hoc aliis ille novavit opus_

[40] G. iii, 4, _sqq._

[41] These remarks apply equally to the Metamorphoses, and indeed to all Ovid's works.

[42] Lex Papia-Poppaea.

[43] It is probable that the _Art of Love_ was published 3 B.C., the year of Julia's exile.

[44] Some have, quite without due grounds, questioned the authenticity of this fragment.

[45] Tac. De Or. xiii; Quint. X. i. 98.

[46] i. vii. 27.

[47] See the witty invocation to Venus, Bk. IV. init.

[48] F. ii. 8.

[49] The most beautiful portions are perhaps the following:--The Story of Phaethon (ii. 1), the Golden Age (i. 89), Pyramus and Thisbe (iv. 55), Baucis and Philemon, a rustic idyl (viii. 628), Narcissus at the Fountain (iii. 407), The Cave of Sleep (xi. 592), Daedalus and Icarus (viii. 152), Cephalus and Procris (vii. 661), The pa.s.sion of Medea (vii. 11), from which we may glean some idea of his tragedy.

[50] The chief pa.s.sages bearing on it are, Tr. II. 103; III. v. 49; VI.

27; IV. x. 90. Pont, I. vi. 25; II. ix. 75; III. iii. 75.

[51] Such names as _Messala, Graecinus, Pompeius, Cotta, Fabius Maximus_, occur in his Epistles.

[52] This continual dwelling on mythological allusions is sometimes quite ludicrous, _e.g._, when he sees the h.e.l.lespont frozen over, his first thought is, "Winter was the time for Leander to have gone to Hero; there would have been no fear of drowning!"

[53] His abject flattery of Augustus hardly needs remark. It was becoming the regular court language to address him as _Jupiter_ or _Tonans_; when Virgil, at the very time that Octavius's hands were red with the proscriptions, could call him a G.o.d (_semper erit Deus_), we cannot wonder at Ovid fifty years later doing the same.

[54] _E.g._ 69-90.

[55] We may notice with regard to the _Ciris_ that it is very much in Ovid's manner, though far inferior. I think it may be fixed with certainty to a period succeeding the publication of the Metamorphoses. The address to Messala, v. 54, is a mere blind. The G.o.ddess Sophia indicates a later view than Ovid, but not necessarily post-Augustan. The G.o.ddess Crataeis (from the eleventh Odyssey), v. 67, is a novelty. The frivolous and pedantic object of the poem (to set right a confusion in the myths), makes it possible that it was produced under the blighting government of Tiberius. Its continual imitations make it almost a Virgilian _Cento_.

[56] Tac. Ann. vi. 18.

[57] Pont. IV. xvi.

[58] Am. II. xviii. 27.

[59] IV. xvi. 27.

[60] Quint. X. i. 89.

[61] _I.e._ that waged with s.e.xtus Pompey.

[62] Suas. vi. 26.

[63] Pont. VI. xvi. 5.

[64] Pont. VI. xvi. 34.

[65] The name Faliscus is generally attached to him, but apparently without any certain authority.

[66] I. 898.