Ovid
Список книг автора OvidA Treatise on Fishing, The Walnut Tree, Consolation to Livia, and Other Spurious Works
The Roman poet known to the English speaking world as Ovid is best known for his work Metamorphoses, a mythological epic which chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar. Widely considered as one of the most important authors of Latin literature, Ovid produced an extensive body of work. Some of these works have been lost to history and in the case of the works of this volume have a doubtful attribution to the author. «Halieutica» or «A Treatise on Fishing,» «Nux» or «The Walnut Tree,» and «Consolatio ad Liviam» or «Consolation to Livia» are amongst the works that at one time were contributed to Ovid but are now considered to be spurious. These works are presented here in this volume in an English prose translation by Henry T. Riley. «A Treatise on Fishing» is a short work which as one would assume details the manner and method by which fish might be caught. The Walnut Tree is a monologue spoken by a walnut tree urging a group of young boys not to pelt her with stones in order to get at her nuts. «Consolation to Livia» is a consolation to Augustus' wife Livia on the death of her son Drusus. Also included in this volume are a handful of fragmentary works. While the attribution of these works may be in doubt their inclusion in the corpus of Ovid provides meaningful insight into the scholarship of the author.
The Metamorphoses (Translated and annotated by Henry T. Riley)
Perhaps one of the most influential works of mythology ever written, “The Metamorphoses” is an epic and narrative poem by Roman author Ovid. Finished in 8 A.D., this work, organized into fifteen books, combines a stunning arrangement of mythological tales that are masterfully connected by a theme of transformation, most often through love. Beginning with the world’s creation, the poet utilizes unparalleled wit to describe the history of the world, incorporating the most commonly known Greek and Roman myths and legends of his time in a style both dramatic and mischievous. Ovid’s often sensuous poems weave together the tales of Daedalus and Icarus, Pygmalion, Persueus and Andromeda, the Trojan War, and the deification of Augustus, frequently changing the human men and women into remarkable beings with magic that rivals that of the gods. The best known classical work to writers during the medieval period and influencing other great artists such as Shakespeare and Titian, “The Metamorphoses” is indubitably a work that will continue to endure and inspire throughout the coming ages. This edition follows the translation with annotations by Henry T. Riley.
The Fasti (Verse)
"The Fasti" was believed to have been left incomplete when Ovid was exiled to Tomis by the emperor Augustus in 8 AD. The work, which is structured based on the Roman calendar, is a series of elegiac couplets which present the first-hand accounts of vates, or «poet-prophets» with Roman deities regarding the origin of various Roman holidays and associated customs. The first six months of the year are all that is included in the work and it is unclear whether this was the intention of Ovid, whether the work is incomplete, or if the books on the last six months are simply lost. The book is dedicated to Germanicus, great-nephew of the Emperor Augustus, and it's speculated that «The Fasti» was written with the intention of restoring Ovid's standing with the rulers of Rome and to secure his release from exile. Presented here in this edition is the verse translation by John Benson Rose.
The Fasti, Tristia, Pontiac Epistles, and Ibis (Prose)
"The Fasti", a work structured on the Roman calendar, is believed to have been left incomplete when Ovid was exiled to Tomis by the emperor Augustus in 8 A.D. It is a series of elegiac couplets which present the first-hand accounts of vates, or «poet-prophets» with Roman deities regarding the origin of various Roman holidays and associated customs. The first six months of the year are all that is included in the work and it is unclear whether this was the intention of Ovid, whether the work is incomplete, or if the books on the last six months are simply lost. «The Tristia» or «Sorrows» is a collection of letters written in elegiac couplets during Ovid's exile from Rome. Despite being five books in length, the work provides no clues as to the reason for Ovid's exile. «The Pontiac Epistles» or «Letters from the Black Sea» is a collection also written in exile in which Ovid describes the rigors of his exile and pleads for leniency. «Ibis» is a collection of mythic stories in which Ovid uses to curse and attack an enemy who is harming him in exile. This collection brings together the works that Ovid wrote just prior to and during his exile and give great insight into the author's life during this period. These works are presented here in an English prose translation by Henry T. Riley.
The Poems of Exile
In the year A.D. 8, Emperor Augustus sentenced the elegant, brilliant, and sophisticated Roman poet Ovid to exile—permanently, as it turned out—at Tomis, modern Constantza, on the Romanian coast of the Black Sea. The real reason for the emperor's action has never come to light, and all of Ovid's subsequent efforts to secure either a reprieve or, at the very least, a transfer to a less dangerous place of exile failed. Two millennia later, the agonized, witty, vivid, nostalgic, and often slyly malicious poems he wrote at Tomis remain as fresh as the day they were written, a testament for exiles everywhere, in all ages. <br /><br />The two books of the <i>Poems of Exile, </i>the <i>Lamentations (Tristia) </i>and the <i>Black Sea Letters (Epistulae ex Ponto), </i>chronicle Ovid's impressions of Tomis—its appalling winters, bleak terrain, and sporadic raids by barbarous nomads—as well as his aching memories and ongoing appeals to his friends and his patient wife to intercede on his behalf. While pretending to have lost his old literary skills and even to be forgetting his Latin, in the <i>Poems of Exile </i>Ovid in fact displays all his virtuoso poetic talent, now concentrated on one objective: ending the exile. But his rhetorical message falls on obdurately deaf ears, and his appeals slowly lose hope. A superb literary artist to the end, Ovid offers an authentic, unforgettable panorama of the death-in-life he endured at Tomis.
Ovid's Erotic Poems
The most sophisticated and daring poetic ironist of the early Roman Empire, Publius Ovidius Naso, is perhaps best known for his oft-imitated Metamorphoses . But the Roman poet also wrote lively and lewd verse on the subjects of love, sex, marriage, and adultery—a playful parody of the earnest erotic poetry traditions established by his literary ancestors. The Amores , Ovid's first completed book of poetry, explores the conventional mode of erotic elegy with some subversive and silly twists: the poetic narrator sets up a lyrical altar to an unattainable woman only to knock it down by poking fun at her imperfections. Ars Amatoria takes the form of didactic verse in which a purportedly mature and experienced narrator instructs men and women alike on how to best play their hands at the long con of love. Ovid's Erotic Poems offers a modern English translation of the Amores and Ars Amatoria that retains the irreverent wit and verve of the original. Award-winning poet Len Krisak captures the music of Ovid's richly textured Latin meters through rhyming couplets that render the verse as playful and agile as it was meant to be. Sophisticated, satirical, and wildly self-referential, Ovid's Erotic Poems is not just a wickedly funny send-up of romantic and sexual mores but also a sharp critique of literary technique and poetic convention.
Metamorphosen
In seinen «Metamorphosen» erzählt Ovid von der Entstehung der Welt und des Menschen und führt dann in rund 250 Verwandlungssagen durch die antike Mythologie bis in die Gegenwart des antiken Lesers. Die berührenden Geschichten um Ariadne, Arachne, Pyramus und Thisbe hat Michael von Albrecht gut lesbar ins Deutsche übertragen. Dabei hat er Ovids Hexameter nicht in die deutsche Versform gezwungen, sondern sich für eine flüssige und verständliche Prosaübersetzung der «Metamorphosen» entschieden. Michael von Albrechts Übertragung von Ovids «Metamorphosen» gilt als die beste Prosaübersetzung dieses bedeutenden antiken Werks.
