‘TIS the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,
Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks ;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays ;
The world’s whole sap is sunk ;
The general balm th’ hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed’s-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr’d ; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring ;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness ;
He ruin’d me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death—things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have ;
I, by Love’s limbec, am the grave
Of all, that’s nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown’d the whole world, us two ; oft did we grow,
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else ; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death—which word wrongs her—
Of the first nothing the elixir grown ;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know ; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means ; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love ; all, all some properties invest.
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.
But I am none ; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all,
Since she enjoys her long night’s festival.
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year’s and the day’s deep midnight is.
![ecrivaine:
Fair enough! I’m never going to be too much a fan of straight white guys, but I will say, I don’t really blame Ovid, as it’s not like he invented all the myths about the rapey gods, he just put them into a popular form. I guess I just, ignorantly, wasn’t expecting it!
I hear you, yeah. I wouldn’t apply modern labels of sexuality to ancient authors, of course, but (going only by comments in his works and letters) Ovid seems a little less bi than the average Roman. Obviously no author so far removed from our current culture is going to match up perfectly with our values and mores, but Ovid’s a special guy to me because he seems interested in women and in how they think and what they want. He allows them (enthusiastically!) to have sexual desires and with the Heroides he gives a close look at the thoughts and desires of women who were formerly just accessories/enemies/obstacles to the heroes. A man writing from the 1st-person POV of a woman in epistolary form was unique in Latin literature.
Here he is writing from Medea’s perspective, after Jason has fucked her over:
“There’s a wood, dark with pine and oak branches, the sun’s rays can scarcely reach there: in it, there is – or was for certain – a temple of Diana: there a golden goddess stood made by barbarian hands. Do you know it, or has the place been forgotten, along with me? We came there: you began to speak first, with false words…[…]So I quickly became a girl captivated by your words. And you yoked the brazen-footed steeds, your body un-scorched, and split the solid earth with the plough, as you were ordered. You filled the furrows with venomous teeth, instead of seed, and warriors were born, armed with swords and shields. I, who gave you the charms, sat there pale of face, when I saw these men, suddenly born, take up arms, until the earth-born brothers – marvellous happening! – with drawn swords, joined battle amongst themselves. Behold the sleepless guardian, coated with rattling scales, hissed, and swept the ground with his writhing body. Where was the rich dowry then? Where was the royal bride for you then, and that Isthmus splitting the waters of twin seas? I, the woman who has come to seem, at last, a barbarian to you, who am now poor, who am now seen to be harmful, subdued those burning eyes, with sleep-inducing drugs, and safely gave you the fleece you carried away. My father is betrayed, kingdom and country forsaken, for which, it is right, my reward’s to suffer exile, my virginity becomes the prize of a foreign thief, my most dearly beloved sister, with my mother, lost.[…] You ask, where’s my dowry? I numbered it on that field that was ploughed by you, in taking the fleece. My dowry’s that golden ram known by its thick fleece, that you’d deny me if I said to you: ‘Return it.’ My dowry is your safety: my dowry’s the youth of Greece. Cruel man, go: compare this to the wealth of Corinth. That you live, that you have a wife and powerful father-in-law, that you can even be ungrateful, all that’s due to me. Indeed, what’s on hand – but why should I be concerned to warn you of your punishment? Great anger teems with threats. I’ll follow where anger takes me. Perhaps I’ll regret my deeds: I regret having been concerned for an unfaithful husband. Let the god see to that, who now disturbs my heart. Assuredly I do not know what moves my spirit most.”
Anyway, my point is that I think Ovid is bombass and your post made me feel like quoting from the Heroides.
(PS he named the fictional subject of his erotic poetry after the female poet Corinna, a teacher and rival to Pindar. Quoth Wiki: “Aelian said she defeated Pindar five times, and in response to these defeats, Pindar called her a sow.” I’m done now.)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llmxz08Hax1qayfe2o1_1280.png)
