Tristia

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Tristia

Tristia ('Sadness') is a work of poetry, in five books, written by the Roman poet Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman Empire poet known as Ovid to the English language-speaking world, who wrote about love, seduction, and Roman mythology transformation....
at some time after he was banished from Rome

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
in AD 8

Year 8 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar....
. It uses the elegiac couplet

Elegiac couplet

Elegiac couplets are a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than those of epic poetry. The ancient Romans frequently used elegiac couplets in love poetry, as in Ovid's Amores....
, a meter

Meter (poetry)

In poetry, the meter is the basic rhythm of a verse . Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse meter, or a certain set of meters alternating in a particular order....
suitable for lamenting the misery of exile on the bleak edge of the Euxine

Black Sea

The Black Sea is an inland sea sea bounded by southeastern Europe, the Caucasus and the Anatolia and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Seas and various straits....
, and holds out the poet's hopes for alleviation of his punishment.

It begins:

Parue -- nec inuideo -- sine me, liber, ibis in urbem:

ei mihi, quod domino non licet ire tuo!

Translation:

You will go, my little book, without me to the city, but I don't envy you.

Go on - go to the city forbidden to me - forbidden to your master.

(from )

first volume was written, by its own account, during Ovid's journey into exile.

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Encyclopedia

Tristia ('Sadness') is a work of poetry, in five books, written by the Roman poet Ovid

Ovid

Roman Empire

Year 8 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar....
. It uses the elegiac couplet

Elegiac couplet

Meter (poetry)

Black Sea

Parue -- nec inuideo -- sine me, liber, ibis in urbem:

ei mihi, quod domino non licet ire tuo!

Translation:

You will go, my little book, without me to the city, but I don't envy you.

Go on - go to the city forbidden to me - forbidden to your master.

(from )

The poems

The first volume was written, by its own account, during Ovid's journey into exile. It addresses his grieving wife, his friends—both the faithful and the false—,and his past works, especially the Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)

The Metamorphoses by the Ancient Rome poet Ovid is a Narrative poetry in fifteen books that describes the Creation myth and history of the world....
. It describes his arduous travel to the furthest edge of the empire, giving him a chance to draw the obligatory parallels with the exiles of Æneas and Odysseus

Odysseus

Odysseus or Ulysses , in Greek mythology , was a legendary Greeks king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
and excuse his work's failings. The introduction and dedication, which caution the departing volume against the dangers of its destination, were probably written last.

The second volume takes the form of a plea to Augustus to end the unhappy exile brought about by the famous carmen et error—the nature of the mistake is never made clear, although some speculate it may have had something to do with Ovid's overhearing - or rather discovery - of the adulterous nature of Augustus' daughter, Julia. He defends his work and his life with equal vigor, appealing to the many poets who had written on the same themes as he—among them Anacreon, Sappho

Sappho

Sappho...
, Catullus

Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Roman poet of the 1st century BC. His work remains widely studied, and continues to influence poetry and other forms of art....
, even Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
. He goes perhaps too far when he compares his works to those of Augustus's favorite, Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
(2.532–536).

The plea—if plea it was, rather than justification to posterity—proved unsuccessful; Ovid would live out the remainder of his years in exile among the Thracian Getae

Getae

The Getae was the name given by the Greeks to several Thracian tribes that occupied the regions south of the Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria, and north of the Lower Danube, in Romania....
. The last three books of the Tristia grow increasingly grim as their author grows old, knowing that he will never return to his home. At one point he sends his epitaph

Epitaph

An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively....
:

hic ego qui iaceo tenerorum lusor amorum

ingenio perii Naso poeta meo;

at tibi qui transis ne sit graue quisquis amasti

dicere "Nasonis molliter ossa cubent"

Translation:

I that lie here, the bard of playful love,

The poet Ovid, perished for my play.

Oh passing lover, scorn not thou to pray

That no ill chance my restful bones may move.

The last part of the book addresses Ovid's wife, praising her loyalty throughout his years of exile and wishing that she be remembered for as long as his books are read.

Tristia

The poems

External links