With the exception of the Metamorphoses, the Epistles have been greater favourites than any of the works of Ovid. Some were translated by Drayton and Lord Hervey. The beautiful translation, by Pope, of the epistle from Sappho to Phaon, is familiar to all; and his touching picture of the struggle between passion and principle, in the letter of Eloisa to Abelard, owes a portion of its inspiration to the Epistles of Ovid.
Love in the days of Ovid had nothing in it chivalrous or pure—it was carnal, sensual. The age in which he lived was morally polluted, and he was neither better nor worse than his contemporaries. Great and noble as was the character of the Roman matron, the charms of an accomplished female education were almost as rare as at Athens. She had sterling worth; but she had not often the power to fascinate those numbers who considered woman the minister to the pleasures of man. She was wise, self-sacrificing, patriotic, courageous—a devoted mother, an affectionate wife—and a man of heroic mould valued as she deserved such a partner of his fortunes. But those who sought merely the allurements of passion looked only for meretricious pleasure and sensual enjoyment. Hence grossness is the characteristic of Ovid’s Art of Love. The instructions contained in the first two books, which are addressed to men, are fit only for the seducer. The blandishments in the third are suited only to the abandoned of the other sex.
The Art of Love was followed by the Remedies of Love, in one book: “Let him,” he says, “who taught you to love, teach you also the cure; one hand shall inflict the wound and minister the balm. The earth produces noxious and healthful herbs; the rose is often nearest neighbour to the nettle.”[[751]]
His Metamorphoses were just finished, and not yet corrected,[[752]] when his fall took place. When in his despair he burnt it, fortunately for the world some copies transpired. Afterwards he prayed that they might be preserved to remind the readers of the unhappy author. The Metamorphoses consist of fifteen books, and contain a series of mythological narratives from the earliest times to the translation of the soul of Julius Cæsar from earth to heaven, and his metamorphosis into a star. This poem is Ovid’s noblest effort: it approaches as near to the epic form as is possible with so many naturally unconnected episodes. In many parts, especially his descriptions, we do not merely admire his natural facility in making verses, but picturesque truthfulness and force—the richest fancy combined with grandeur and dignity. Amongst the most beautiful portions may be enumerated the story of Phaeton, including the splendid description of the Palace of the Sun;[[753]] the golden age;[[754]] the story of Pyramus and Thisbe;[[755]] the cottage home and the rustic habits of Baucis and Philemon,[[756]] Narcissus at the fountain;[[757]] the powerfully sketched picture of the Cave of Sleep,[[758]] Dædalus and Icarus,[[759]] Cephalus and Procris,[[760]] and the soliloquy of Medea.[[761]] In this poem, especially, may be traced that study and learning by which the Roman poets made all the treasures of Greek literature their own. In fact, a more extensive knowledge of Greek mythology may be derived from it than from the Greeks themselves, because the books which were the sources of his information are unfortunately no longer extant.
The “Fasti” is an antiquarian poem on the Roman calendar. Originally it was intended to have formed twelve books, one for each month of the year, but only the first six were completed:[[762]]——
Sex ego Fastorum scripsi totidemque libellos
Cumque suo finem mense volumen habet.
It is a beautiful specimen of simple narrative in verse, and displays more than any of his works, his power of telling a story, without the slightest effort, in poetry as well as prose. As a profound study of Greek mythology and poetry had furnished the materials for his Metamorphoses and other poems, so in this he drew principally from the legends which had been preserved by the old poets and annalists of his own country.
The five books of the Tristia and the four books of the Epistles from Pontus were the outpourings of his sorrowful heart during the gloomy evening of his days. Without the brilliancy, the wit, and the genius, which beamed forth from his joyous spirit in the time of his prosperity, without the graceful and inspired querulousness of the ancient models, they are, nevertheless, conceived in the spirit of the Greek elegy—they utter the voice of complaining, and deserve the Horatian epithet of miserabiles.[[763]] It was natural to him to give utterance to his hope and despair in song: he had sported like a gay insect in the sunshine of prosperity. He was too fragile, delicate, and effeminate to bear the storm of adversity—his butterfly spirit was broken; but, with all his faults, that broken heart was capable of the tenderest emotions, and his letter to his daughter Perilla[[764]] is full of purity and sweetness. The carelessness of one who would not take the trouble to correct, and who was conscious of his dangerous facility, is compensated for by the commiseration which his natural complaints excite, and for the powerful descriptions which occasionally enliven the monotony inseparable from grief.
His minor poems consist of an elegiac poem, “Nux,” in which a nut-tree bewails its hard fate and the ill treatment which it receives; a long and bitter satire, entitled Ibis, on some enemy, or, perhaps, some faithless friend; a poem on Cosmetics (Medicamina facici;[[765]]) another on Fishing (Halieutica;[[766]]) and an address of condolence to Livia Augusta. None, however, of these last three are universally admitted to be genuine. Other works which were the offspring of his prolific genius have perished. During his exile he acquired sufficient knowledge of the Getan language to write some poems in it; and these were as popular with the barbarians as his Latin works were at Rome. Lastly, he was the author of the Medea; a tragedy of which Quintilian says, that it shows of what grand works he was capable, if he had been willing to curb instead of giving reins to the luxuriance of his genius.[[767]] Two lines only are extant; but we can judge of the conception which he formed of the character of Medea from the epistle in the “Heroides,” and her eminently tragic soliloquy in the Metamorphoses.