Amores

Ovid, Tom Bishop

• Publisher: Fyfield Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781847776105
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Ovid (c. 43 BC - AD 17), a daring, original and passionate poet, has been an enduring influence on later poets. Amores is the work that first made Ovid famous, and infamous. A scandal in its day, and probably in part responsible for Ovid's banishment from Rome, Amores lays bare the intrigues and appetites of high society in the imperial capital at the time of Caesar Augustus. Clandestine sex, orgies and entertainments, fashion and violence, are among the subjects Ovid explores: the surface dazzle and hidden depths, secret liaisons and their public postures. This new translation by Tom Bishop closely follows the movement and metre of Ovid's verse, rendering his world of love, licentiousness and conspiracy so as to catch Ovid's raciness. His introduction sets the work in historical context.

BOOK THREE

1

Year after year, unfelled and ancient stands the wood;

a god might well inhabit it, you think:

the sacred spring within, the cave hung with limestone,

the gentle plaint of birdsong everywhere.

As I was wandering here beneath the tree-dark shade,

wondering what work to take up next,

Elegy came with her perfumed chevelure in a braid,

and one of her feet, I think, a trifle longer:

trim figure, love-lit face, a very slinky gown,

even the limp managed a sort of charm.

Hysterical Tragedy too clumped up with her seven-league stride,

frowning through her fringe and draggling her dress.

Her left hand waved her regal sceptre loftily,

she sported thigh-high Lydian tragical jackboots,

and blurted, ‘Is there still no end in sight for you,

you Johnny-one-note poet love-machine?

At cocktail-parties you’re the topic of discussion,

graffiti cry your deeds at every crossroad,

someone’s always pointing fingers in the street

and crowing, “There’s the hunk of burning Love!”

You’ve no idea you’re a laughing-stock all over town,

while you proclaim your stunts without a blush.

It’s high time you were struck with a more sublime vocation.

Enough messing about – start something major!

You stifle your gift with trivia. Write some real heroics.

Tell yourself: “This is my race to run!”

Inspiration played her schoolgirl songs for you,

her juvenilia of callow verse –

now let me take the limelight: Roman Tragedy.

Your genius exactly fills my bill.’

Oration done, her boots and she some three or four

times nodded her elaborate mound of hair.

Her friend, as I recall, slipped me a sidelong smirk,

and was that a myrtle sprig in her right hand?

‘You will heave at me,’ she said, ‘such heavy words,

Tragedy – must you be so grandiose?

I see this time you’ve stooped to using elegiacs,

and tried to sandbag me in my own metre.

I wouldn’t dare compare your awful odes to mine:

your palace overwhelms my humble hut.

I’m frivolous, and so’s my darling little Cupid,

I’m no more virile than my subject needs.

Lascivious mother Venus would still remain a bumpkin

without me: I’m her pander and companion.

The door you can’t demolish using heavy boots

melts away before my blandishments,

and this superior power I learnt by stomaching

indignities your pride would never stand.

Thanks to me Corinna learned to fool the guard,

to break the bolted gate’s security,

to slip from bed veiled in a flimsy dressing-gown

and pad the night on velvet-sounding feet.

How many times have I hung nailed to a stubborn door,

unafraid to be scanned by passers-by?

Once I recall I was even stuffed in a housemaid’s bra –

an agony until the guard retired.

And what about when you send me as a birthday ode,

and she rips me up and drowns me down the loo?

If now your brain sprouts poems, I first sowed them there:

the gift that woman seeks from you is mine.’

And so she finished. I began: ‘I beg you both –

I hope my nervous words find ready ears –

one of you honours me with sceptre and regal boots,

already I can feel my tongue emblazoned;

the other lends my love an everlasting glory:

stay, ...