BITTERS

Translated from the Latin by Tess Taylor

I.6

Not so greatly was Lyde adored by her bard Antimachus, 

or Bittis beloved by her poet from Coos  

as the great love that binds you in my heart, wife

deserving at least a less wretched, if not better man.  

You’re the ballast on which I’ve leaned my ruin:

if I’m anything still, it’s all by your gift.

You’ve seen that I’m not plundered or stripped

by those who’d pillage my shipwreck’s last timbers. 

Just as, hungry and pricked by that hunger, 

eager for kill, a wolf springs an unguarded sheepstall,

or as some hoarding vulture circles trying to spy

any corpse the earth’s left unburied 

so there’s one who, faithless in my bitter fortune

would, if he could, have had at my goods.  

With your virtue, with our good friends, you foiled him. 

No thanks I offer could ever be equal.

As sad as he’s true, this witness stamps approval—

if witness like mine holds any weight.

In marks for uprightness, Hector’s wife can’t outrank you,

nor Laodomia, her husband’s partner 

in death. If fate offered you your own Homer,

Penelope’s fame would be second to yours.

Among all hallowed heroines, you’d be first,

an archetype of all good spirit, goodwill. 

Whether you owe this to your nature

and you have a piety no teacher could have showed you

and such morals were granted you at your life’s dawn—

or whether our lovely Empress, whose image you’ve nurtured

has over years modeled how to be a good wife’s exemplar

and her long instruction makes you like herself—

(if it’s allowed to compare great subjects to small).

Alas—great force doesn’t rest in these songs, 

Alas my mouth doesn’t merit your merits!

If ever before I had spark or vigor,

it’s all been extinguished by sorrow!

Still, as far as my praise has any power

you will endure for all time in my songs. 

III.3

If, by chance, you’re wondering why my letter was written

in someone else’s handwriting, I’m sick. 

Sick at the unmapped world’s farthest reaches,

uncertain of ever recovering.

What mood do you think I’m in now, hurled to the dire Danube, lying here among this pack of Slavs? 

I can’t stand the weather or abide these waters:

I don’t know why. Even landscape can’t please.

No house here’s set up right. No food fits a sick man.

No one doctors discomfort with Apollo’s art. 

No one comes to soothe me, or tricks slippery hours

away with good talk. There are no friends. 

Among foreign people in the middle of nowhere,

the figures and forms I most lack rear to haunt me.

It all haunts me—but among vanquished forms, wife,

you make up the better part of my longing.

I talk to your rootless ghost, I cry for you only. 

Without you, neither night nor day comes to me. 

They say even when feverish, I babbled in madness 

to feel your name form on my lips.

Now if my tongue falters, and, stuck on its palate,

can’t even be perked up by dribbling in wine,

let someone only mention that my woman was coming:

I’d rise—strength all caused by hopes for you. 

But while I’m uncertain of even living, could 

you enjoy yourself, not thinking of me?

I’m certain you couldn’t. I’m sure of it, dearest. 

Without me, your time could only be sad.

Still, if my lot’s up, and these destined years 

are finished and it’s bound to end soon,

how great, O great gods, to have mercy on the dying: 

to let me be buried in my native soil. 
If only this punishment had been held off until death,

if only some sudden death preceded my flight. 

Whole, in possession of rights, as I was not long ago—

I could have happily ended my own life: 

now life is doled out to me.

Therefore I’ll die far from everything on an unknown shore:

my fate rendered bitter by this place itself.

My body won’t weaken on a chosen divan:

when I’m laid out, no one will weep.

My wife’s tears, as they slip down my face, 

won’t add brief seconds to my life.

I won’t murmur last wishes as, with a final sob,

some tender hand closes my dying eyes—

but instead without funeral or gravestone, this head

shall lie, unlamented, in a barbarous land.

You, when you hear this, will your whole heart be shaken? 

Will you beat your faithful breast with quivering hand?

Stretching your arms in vain towards these parts

will you cry out the name of your poor husband?

Still: spare your cheeks the scratch-marks. 

Don’t tear out all your hair.

I won’t be the first time I’ve been wrenched away. 

I was first destroyed when I first lost my homeland.

That earlier death was heavier to me. 

Now, if you could—but you can’t, O best of wives—

rejoice that death ends so many hardships.

What you can do: with a strong soul, lighten

this sadness to which you’re now so accustomed. 

If only our spirits came apart with our bodies,

so no part of me escaped greedy flame—

for if Pythagorus’ teachings are true ones,

and emptying death sets the spirit adrift,

a Roman will wander a among Sarmatian shadows,

always lingering a stranger among wild shades.

But my bones—see them borne home in a small urn.

Let me not be an exile even in death:

it’s not outlawed: Antigone placed her brother

in a tomb even though a king forbade.

Mingle me with dried leaves and powdery amom:

preserve and place these near our city walls. 

And on a marble tomb, engrave these verses so large

that any hurried passerby or traveler may read: 

I WHO LIE HERE, ONCE-COMPOSER OF LOVE-SONGS,

AM NASO THE POET: DESTROYED BY MY WIT!

YOU WHO PASS: DON’T JUDGE! YOU’VE LOVED, TOO.

PRAY: “O MAY THE BONES OF OVID LIE SOFT.” 

That will do for inscription. My volumes

are a greater, more enduring memorial to me.

I am sure that these (however much they have hurt him)

will earn their author some fame for a while. 

In any case, to your dead, you might bring offerings—

strung flower garlands, wet with your tears.

And although flame will transform the body to ashes

gloomy embers will still sense some pious deed. 

I’d write more, but my voice grows tired, 

and my parched tongue lacks strength for dictation.

Accept these words, perhaps the last from my mouth: 

he that sends them doesn’t: fare well.

V.2

Well? When a new note comes from Pontus, do you pale, 

do you unroll it with trembling hand?

Put fear aside, I’m yet well: the body which before

had no strength and couldn’t bear labor

now holds up. Experience toughens me, all by itself, 

or perhaps I just lack the freedom to be weak? 

My mind still is ill—time won’t make it oak. 

Now as before my troubled spirit remains. 

Wounds I once thought time and distance would stitch

ache now, as if just opened.

Yes, passing years help soothe minor troubles. 

With large ones, time adds curses to ruin.

For almost ten whole years Philoctetes nourished

infectious wounds a fat snake had given. 

Consumed by eternal illness, Telephus would have collapsed

if the hand which had first hurt him hadn’t brought aid. 

And me, if I have committed no great crime, I pray:

he who makes wounds, may he wish to lighten, 

and satisfied with my portion of sorrows and bitters

may he pour a bit of water off this great sea. 

Though he pour much, much will remain bitter.

Any part of my penalty equals its whole. 

As many as the mussel-blue shells on the sea-shore,

or flowers  that bloom in Ostian meadows,

as many grains as in one sleep-inducing poppy,

as many beasts as roam the woods,

as fish that swim the sea, or feathers

with which any bird makes the soft air yield—

so many are the hardships which overwhelm me.

Were I to weave them, I’d craft the whole tale 

of Icarus’ sea. Dangerous routes, bitter sea voyage,

hands drawn to kill me—say nothing of these—

only that a wild land at the globe’s remote corner

contains me on all sides, cinched by enemies. 

I might be moved from these—my crime wasn’t blood-tainted—

if only you cared for me as you ought.  

That Emperor-God, to whom Rome’s power’s entrusted

has often been mild to his vanquished enemies. 

Why be guarded? Why doubt or fear? Ask him. 

No one in the wild world’s gentler than Caesar.

And: miserable me! What do I do if you, nearest, abandon? 

Unbound, do you now slip your neck from the yoke? 

Who’ll carry me? Where, in these exhausting matters

will I find solace? Nothing anchors my craft. 

Though hated, I’ll take refuge at the sacred altar:

you’ll see. The altar can repel no hands.

V.11

To insult you, someone called you “an exile’s wife”—

or so your letter complains. It hurts me:

not as much that someone’s maligning my fate

(I’d say I can handle misery bravely)

but that I cause shame in someone I’d hope not to, 

and that you blush at my misfortunes. Endure. Toughen up.

You managed more difficult things

when our great princeps in wrath tore me from you.

That ruling by whose judgement I’m called “exile”

is faulty. Penalty followed my guilt,

but my punishment is for having offended—

(would that the hour of my death had come first!)

My craft’s been badly shaken, not submerged or sunk.

Seeking a port, it still floats on the water.

He took neither life, nor work, nor citizen’s rights from me:

all of which I deserved to lose by my fault.

But because no deed attached to that same error

he only dispelled me from my country’s hearth.

As to innumerable others, so to me 

Caesar’s great godhead was mild, gentle even. 

He’s used the term “relegated,” not “exile.”
My case is now safe because of its judge. 

And rightly, Caesar, my songs—whatever they are, 

sing your praises, however they have any strength. 

Rightly, I earnestly pray that the great gods 

close off (for now) the heavens to you,

I pray you be held a god, but held separate from them. 

May the people pray for the same thing, 

as a wide river runs into the immense sea

so run these scattered waters into a brook. 

But you, by whose mouth I’m called exile—stop

making my fate harder with that lying name.

V.14

What a great monument to you I’ve made in my books

O wife, dearer me than I am to myself, don’t you see?

Although fate detracts so much from their author

you’re nonetheless lit with some fame by my skill.

As long as people read, your fame will be named with mine.

You cannot disappear into the sad pyres.

Though your husband’s fall makes you seem pity-worthy,

others would wish to be where you are, 

and, because you now share my misfortunes, 

some would call you happy and  even envy you.

Not even with wealth could I give you more—

no man can take his riches to death.

I’ve reaped you the huge harvest of eternal name.

My offering to you couldn’t be greater. 

Besides, you alone still guard my property:

(no small honor for you). And my works

never stop talking about you. You should be proud

of your husband’s witness. Stand firm,

lest anyone thinks it was granted in haste.

Preserve the duty and faith of us both. 

While I was in good standing, your reputation 

remained flawless, but it was really that 

nobody spread cruel gossip—that’s all. 

Because of my fall, space has opened:

let your virtue be a pillar anyone can see.

It’s easy to be good when nothing forbids it,

when nothing obscures wifely duty.  

Yet when some god thunders, not to avoid the storm—

in the end that’s duty, that’s conjugal love. 

Virtue is rare that’s not driven by Fortune,

that stays on firm footing when Fortune is exiled. 

Whenever virtue is sought as her own reward,

and stays present even in unhappy events

no era leaves her unnoticed,

and she’s admired as far as the ages or world’s roads run.

Do you see how faithful Penelope’s name is 

inexhaustible, praised through long ages?

Do you see how the wives of Admetus and Hector are sung

and Evadne who dared climb the funeral pyre?

Or the fame of Laodamia, wife of the Phylician warrior

whose fleet foot marched on Trojan soil:

I don’t require your death, but your faith and love.

Don’t seek fame by any treacherous path—

don’t believe I beseech you because you’re not working.

I only give sails to a ship that already has oars. 

By reminding you to do what you’re doing, I’m praising— 

I’m approving your deeds by urging them along.  

Ex Ponto: I.4 

Now a declining season sprinkles me with gray hairs.

Wrinkles of old age furrow my face.

My life-force lies slackened in my shot-through frame. 

If you glimpsed me, you wouldn’t know me—

The wreckage time wreaks is that great. I admit:

years make it, but there’s another cause—

my spirit’s anguish, its unending labor.

Indeed, if anybody counted my suffering instead of my years

believe me, I’d be older than Pylian Nestor.

You see how in the stubborn fields, the bulls’ strong bodies

are broken by toil—and what’s stronger than cattle? 

Soil never allowed to rest vacant, go fallow

grows exhausted through endless production.

Any horse that enters every race 

without leaving the course sometimes is done for. 

However fleet, the ship never pulled off rolling waters

to dry out on land will shatter on the waves.

Crippled by an unending series of hardships,

I’m also made old before my time.

Spare time nourishes the body, lets the spirit 

graze, whereas immoderate labor despoils.

Look how much praise Aeson’s son Jason

receives from the ages for coming to these parts.

His life’s burdens were lighter than mine. 

I don’t want to sour his great name, but I’ll note 

he was sent here on a mission to Pontus by Pelias

and just barely tiptoed across his Thessalian border—

I was sent here, as a deliberate harm,

by Great Caesar at whom the earth trembles

from the sun’s rise to its setting. Besides,

Thessally’s much nearer to Pontus 

than Rome is to the mouth of the Danube, so great Jason 

traveled a shorter distance than I!  And of course he had

the first and best of Greek rulers with him, as comrades:

I was wrenched from everyone on my journey. 

I plowed the vast ocean in a frail piece of timber

while Aeson’s son traveled in a stylish keel. 

I had no Tiphys for helmsman, nor any Phineaus

to show which ways to follow, which to flee.

He was schooled by Pallas Athena, by royal Juno.

No divine powers watch over my head. 

He was guarded by the arts of cunning Cupid

(I wish that Amor had not learned them from me!) 

He returned home: I will die on these fields

if the stubborn wrath of the hurt god endures.

My task is harder, then, O faithful wife

than that which Aeson’s son suffered.

You, too, whom I left in youth, departing our city,

you’ve probably grown old during this misfortune.

O may the gods grant that I see you as you are now,

and place tender kisses on your now-changed hair,

and fold your slight frame in my arms, saying

“Worry about me has made you waste away!” 

Tear for tear, I’ll tell you tales of my sufferings

delighting in conversation I never had hope for,

and with grateful hand  I’ll offer the incense

due to Great Caesar, and Caesear’s worthy wife,

(who are True Gods). Would that Dawn, Memory’s mother, 

with rosy lips call her daughter to remind the Prince to relent!

Ex Ponto III.1

Sea, first lashed by Jason the oarsman,

land, always kept hostage by enemies and snows,

will there ever be a time when I, Ovid, leave you, 

ordered, finally, at last, someplace less hostile?

Surely it’s not right for me to be buried

in this barbarous land, in this Black Sea soil? 

By your leave, Pontus, by your peace, if you’ve got any

(your borders are paths worn by enemy horses)

by your leave and peace, nonetheless I would tell you: 

you, this place, are the worst part of my exile.

You are the region that makes heaviest my cares. 

You never feel the spring crowned in flowers,

nor glimpse the bare bodies of harvest reapers, 

Autumn never offers you up clustered grapes:

you’re always cinched with intemperate cold.  

Your waves are ice-locked: in the sea

trapped fish swim, roofed by frozen water. 

You have no fountains, except made of brine—

I can’t tell if drinking slakes or increases thirst.

Rare, rarely happy, is the tree that rears

in open fields, on bare land which is sea

in thinly veiled form: No bird interrupts—

unless one from far-off forests, here to tipple

salt water with a hoarse, raucous gullet.

Emptied plains bristle with wormwood,

and the harvest of sorrows fits the bitter site.

Now factor my fear, add the walls struck by strangers—

fatal arrows soaked with death and decay:

how far this sparse region is from any known track.

No one comes safely by foot or by boat.

No wonder—if wishing for some other ending—

I might beg once more for at least some other country. 

And the real wonder is that you, my wife

can’t overcome this—that you hold back tears

at my sorrow. You want to know what you should do? 

Surely you should be asking yourself.

You’ll discover, if, in fact, you actually want to know.

It’s the same way with wishing: you need desire 

for the thing, so fierce that fretfulness shortens your sleep.

Many desire this: who’s now so hostile

as to actively wish me no peace in my exile?

It’s fitting that you, with your whole heart

and every last nerve struggle for me, 

that you strain for me night and day. 

Campaign with our friends, so that others

help too: realize your role as a leader.

Great character’s imputed you in my writings:

you’re portrayed as the good wife’s exemplar.

Beware, lest you stumble from this— 

look to my work, guard your fame

so that my public praises seem true.

For while I won’t gripe on my own,

Fame, will, when I’m silenced

complain, as she should, if you didn’t care.

As for me, Fortune’s exposed me to the public eye,

giving me more exposure than I had before.

A lightning-strike turned Capanaeus notorious; 

Ampharius became known for his horses

devoured by the earth. If he’d wandered less

Ulysses would have less esteem: Philoctetes’

great fame was bound up in his wound.

If there’s place among huge names for this small one

you might say my ruin makes me worth a small note. 

And so my pages won’t go unknown, 

the writings by which I once called you 

the equal of Coan Bittis. Whatever you do now 

is seen on a vast stage. Be the pious wife 

before so much witness. Believe me, 

as much as you’re praised in my hymns,

those reading will also wonder if you deserved them—

though I believe many will approve you, 

more than a few will carp, saying

“She’s lazy about the health of her poor, miserable husband.” 

Since I’m weakening, since I can’t drive the cart,

see that you alone sustain its weak yoke.

I’m sick, watching the doctor, while my pulse flees.

While a remnant of spirit remains with me, stand by.

What I’d offer you in support, if I were stronger,

now, while you’ve got strength to, offer me. 

Our  love and our marriage vows urge this.

You’re impelled, wife, by your morals—

you owe the household by which you’re known 

that you adorn it not only with duty 

but also with character, all your goodness.  

Whatever you do, if you’re not praiseworthy,

no one will take pity if you lobby for me,

no one will believe you’re celebrated as a good wife. 

And I don’t deserve nothing—to be fair,

I should get at least some rewards for my service: 

and you should offer some interest—besides,

asking them can’t really hurt you, even if some people desire it. 

Just add this small task to all your previous actions:

don’t yield in the matter of my misfortune.

Work so I can move to live in a less troubled region,

then no part of your duty will have any fault.

I know I ask great deal—but nothing too hateful. 

If you don’t succeed, you will have done no harm. 

And don’t be annoyed if, in this poem,

I ask you to mimic deeds you’re already doing:

the trumpeter’s used to urging on the strong,

and the duke rouses with his own cries 

all those soldiers who already fight well. 

Your upright ways are already time-tested: 

don’t let your courage be less than your goodness.

You don’t have to brandish the axe of an Amazon,

or sport some moon-shaped shield on your arm—

the God’s to be begged now: not that he befriend me

but just that he be less enraged than before. 

If he shows no favor, tears will win you favor:

you will rouse gods that way or not at all.

Of tears—you’ll have no shortage. Our troubles insure it,

with me as a husband you’ll have a wealth—

tears in abundance. As things are with me now,

I think you may well cry for all time.  

Here are the riches my fortune supplies you. 

If you needed to redeem my death with your own

(what a terrible notion!) the wife of Admetus

would be who to follow. You’d ape Penelope

by virtue of chaste trickery if you 

hoped to play bride before eager suitors.

If you followed your dead husband down to the shades

you’d need to follow Laodamia as guide—

keep Iphias before your eyes, if you desire

to throw yourself bravely on the funeral pyre.

But there’s no need for death, or Penelope’s weavings:

your lips must simply beseech Caesar’s wife,

who shows with her virtue that all ancient ages

don’t surpass our own in chastity,  

and who with Venus’ frame and the mores of Juno 

is alone worthy of a heavenly bed! 

Why tremble? Why be afraid to go? She’s no 

Impious Procne, or vile Medea, 

to be moved by your voice, no Danaid woman

who killed her husband on their wedding night

nor any cruel wife of Agamemnon, nor Scylla

who terrorized the Sicilian waters

with her loins, no shape-changing Circe, not even Medusa

binding snakes in gnarled hair—

but our first lady, in whom Fortune reveals

herself as far-seeing, and never blind— 

whom nothing the earth holds, from sun’s set to its rising

is more glorious, with of course the one

exception of Caesar. So, carefully choose a time

to petition: don’t launch your boat on unlucky waters,

oracles don’t always offer sacred

auguries; temple doors don’t always stand open.

When the state of our Rome is as I now judge it,

and people’s faces aren’t drawn in grief,

when Augustus’ house, (now cherished by custom

as our Capitol) is happy and full, abundant with peace:

then may the gods offer a chance for approach.

Believe your words might affect some change.

Still, if she’s got some great task, delay your attempt.

Beware of tossing my hopes off in haste.

Also, I advise, don’t pick a time when she’s idle—

she barely has time for her own toilette. 

You should follow among the throng of people.

When it comes time for you to approach our Juno,

see that you play and remember your part.

Don’t defend my deed: my poor case demands silence.

Instead your words must all be sorrowful pleas.

Remove all barriers to tears, and, prostrate on the ground,

stretch your arms out to the immortal feet.

Ask for nothing except that I leave this enemy:

that fate be enemy enough. 

I can imagine more, but I think that troubled, 

voice trembling with fear, you might only say that. 

It won’t harm you, I think.  She’ll see you’re terrified

of her Majesty. And—do cry a little. Cut your voice

with tears: tears may work better than speech.

But first, kindle fires on the holy altar, 

offer wine and incense to the Great Gods.

Worship the Godhead Augustus above all among them—

his loyal descendants, his partner in bed.

If only they’d be mild to you—in their usual habit—

watching you cry—their faces not hard.