https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/en\/aut-insanit-homo-aut-versus-facit-horace<\/a><\/p>\n\n\tWell, in this year 2017 it is commemorated the bimillenary <\/em>of the death of the Latin <\/em>poet Ovid <\/em>in his exile in Tomis<\/em>, on the shores of the Euxine Pontus<\/em>, then the Black Sea<\/em>. He was expelled there by a severe emperor Augustus<\/em>, displeased with the poet.<\/p>\n\n\tI will also say as a curious detail that Ovid <\/em>was born on March 20, 43 BC<\/em>, the year before the assassination of Julius Caesar<\/em>, the day before that than later, in 1999, the UNESCO <\/em>set the day to celebrate the poets of the world and their creative ability.<\/p>\n\n\tAgain and again Ovid <\/em>tells us in his poems that he wrote in the exile, in his Tristia <\/em>and Epistulae ex Ponto<\/em>, (Letters from the Black Sea<\/em>), that one of the causes of his sentence was to have written a booklet of erotic poetry , his celebrated Ars Amatoria<\/em> or Ars amandi <\/em>("The Art of Love<\/em>"). The other, undoubtedly more serious cause was a certain indiscretion or vision of something prohibited that he does not clarify.<\/p>\n\n\tIn that exile among half-savage barbarian peoples where he lacks all the comforts of his life in Rome, he has only the consolation of poetry, as he himself confesses. So if poetry was the cause of his ruin, it was also his comfort in difficult times. As the popular saying goes: "the one who sings his evils scares<\/em>", also collected by Cervantes in his Don Quixote, I, 22<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\t"What are gurapas?" asked Don Quixote.
\n\t"Gurapas are galleys," answered the galley slave, who was a young man of about four-and-twenty, and said he was a native of Piedrahita.
\n\tDon Quixote asked the same question of the second, who made no reply, so downcast and melancholy was he; but the first answered for him, and said, "He, sir, goes as a canary, I mean as a musician and a singer."
\n\t"What!" said Don Quixote, "for being musicians and singers are people sent to the galleys too?"
\n\t"Yes, sir," answered the galley slave, "for there is nothing worse than singing under suffering."
\n\t"On the contrary, I have heard say," said Don Quixote, "that he who sings scares away his woes."
\n\t"Here it is the reverse," said the galley slave; "for he who sings once weeps all his life."
\n\t"I do not understand it," said Don Quixote; but one of the guards said to him, "Sir, to sing under suffering means with the non sancta fraternity to confess under torture; they put this sinner to the torture and he confessed his crime. <\/strong>((DON QUIXOTE, by Miguel de Cervantes. Translated by John Ormsby (1829-1895))<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\tEl cual era un mozo de hasta edad de veinte y cuatro años, y dijo que era natural de Piedrahíta. Lo mesmo preguntó don Quijote al segundo, el cual no respondió palabra, según iba de triste y malencónico; mas respondió por él el primero, y dijo:
\n\t–éste, señor, va por canario; digo, por músico y cantor.
\n\t–Sí, señor –respondió el galeote–, que no hay peor cosa que cantar en el ansia.
\n\t–Antes, he yo oído decir –dijo don Quijote– que quien canta sus males espanta.
\n\t–Acá es al revés –dijo el galeote–, que quien canta una vez llora toda la vida.
\n\t–No lo entiendo –dijo don Quijote.
\n\tMas una de las guardas le dijo:
\n\t–Señor caballero, cantar en el ansia se dice, entre esta gente non santa, confesar en el tormento.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\tThe poet reiterates this idea again and again in his poems, but he has a poem especially focused on this question, the first elegy of Book IV of his Tristia (Sorrows).<\/em> As much of Ovid's poetry, this elegy is somewhat rhetorical, plagued in addition to references to Greco-Latin mythology<\/em>, which can make its reading somewhat difficult and heavy in modern times. But it seems a good way to commemorate in this year 2017 the World Poetry Day<\/em>, celebrating also the bimillenary <\/em>of the death of Ovid.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\tI transcribe, therefore, in full the elegy Tristia, IV, 1<\/em> ,with enough notes to clarify the meaning even at the risk of destroying the poem.<\/p>\n\n\tBOOK IV I. A PLEA FOR INDULGENCE<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\tWhatever faults you may find -and you will find Them- in my books, hold them absolved, reader, because of the time of their writing. I am an exile ; solace, not fame, has been my object that my mind dwell not constantly on its own woes. This is why even the ditcher, shackled though he be, resorts to song, lightening with untutored rhythm his heavy work. He also sings who bends forward over the slimy sand, towing against the stream the slow-moving barge, or he who pulls to his breast in unison the pliant oars, timing his arms with measured strokes upon the water. The weary shepherd leaning upon his staff or seated upon a rock soothes his sheep with the drone of his reeds. At once singing, at once spinning her allotted task, the slave girl beguiles and whiles away her toil. They say too that when the maid of Lyrnesus was taken from him, sad Achilles relieved his sorrow with the Haemonian lyre(1). While Orpheus was drawing to him the forests and the hard rocks by his singing, he was sorrowing for the wife twice lost to him(2).<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\tMe also the Muse comforted while on my way to the appointed lands of Pontus ; she only was the steadfast companion of my flight -the only one who fears neither treachery, nor the brand of the Sintian(3) soldier, nor sea nor winds nor the world of the barbarians. She knows also what mistake led me astray at the time of my ruin, -that there is fault in my deed, but no crime. Doubtless for this very reason is she fair to me now because she injured me before, when she was indicted with me for a joint crime. Well could I wish, since they were destined to work me harm, that I had ne'er set hand to the holy service of the Pierian ones(4). But now, what am I to do ? The very power of that holy service grips me ; madman that I am, though song has injured me, 'tis still song that I love. So the strange lotos tasted by Dulichian palates gave pleasure through the very savour which wrought harm(5). The lover is oft aware of his own ruin yet clings to it, pursuing that which sustains his own fault. I also find pleasure in my books though they have injured me, and I love the very weapon that made my wounds.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\tPerchance this passion may seem madness, but this madness has a certain profit : it forbids the mind to be ever gazing at its woes, rendering it forgetful of present mischance. As the stricken Bacchante feels not her wound while in ecstasy she shrieks to the accompaniment of Idaean(6) measures, so when my heart feels the inspiring glow of the green thyrsus, that mood is too exalted for human woe ; it realizes neither exile nor the shores of the Scythian sea nor the anger of the gods, and just as if I were drinking slumber-bringing Lethe's draughts(7), I lose the sense of evil days.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\t‘Tis right then for me to revere the goddesses who lighten my misfortunes, who came from Helicon(8) to share my anxious flight, who now by sea, now by land, deigned to follow my route on ship or afoot. May they at least, I pray, be propitious to me ! For the rest of the gods take sides with mighty Caesar, heaping upon me as many ills as the sands of the shore, the fishes of the sea, or the eggs of the fish. Sooner will you count the flowers of spring, the grain-ears of summer, the fruits of autumn, or the snowflakes in time of cold(9) than the ills which I suffered driven all over the world seeking in wretchedness the shores to the left l of the Euxine. Yet no lighter since my coming is the lot of my misfortunes ; to this place also fate has followed my path. Here also I recognize the threads of my nativity, threads twisted for me from a black fleece. To say naught of ambushes or of dangers to my life -true they are, yet too heavy for belief in truth- how pitiable a thing is living among Bessi and Getae(10) for him who was ever on the people's lips ! How pitiable to guard life by gate and wall, and scarce to be safe-guarded by the strength of one's own position ! The rough contests of military service I shunned even as a youth and touched arms only with a hand intending to play ; but now that I am growing old I fit a sword to my side, a shield to my left arm, and I place a helmet upon my gray head. For when the guard from the lookout has given the signal of a raid, forthwith I don my armour with shaking hands.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\tThe foe with his bows and with arrows dipped in poison fiercely circles the walls upon his panting steed, and as the sheep which has not found shelter in the fold is carried and dragged through field,through forest by the ravening wolf, so 'tis with him whom the barbarian finds not yet sheltered within the hedge of the gates, but in the fields : that man either follows into captivity and submits to the bonds cast about his throat or he dies by an envenomed missile. This is the place in which, a new colonist in an abode of anxiety, I lie secluded -alas ! too long is the period of my fate !<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\tNevertheless my Muse has the heart to return to rhythm, to her old-time rites, a friendly guest amid these great misfortunes. But there is none to whom I may read my verses, none whose ears can comprehend Latin words. I write for myself -what else can I do ?- and I read to myself, and my writing is secure in its own criticism. Yet have I often said, " For whom this careful toil ? Will the Sauromatae and the Getae read my writings ? " Often too my tears have flowed as I wrote, my writing has been moistened by my weeping, my heart feels the old wounds as if they were fresh, and sorrow's rain glides down upon my breast.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\tAgain when I bethink me what, through change of fortune, I am and what I was, when it comes over me whither fate has borne me and whence, often my mad hand, in anger with my efforts and with itself, has hurled my verses to blaze upon the hearth. And since of the many not many survive, see thou readest them with indulgence, whoever thou mayst be ! Thou too take in good part verse that is not better than my lot, O Rome forbidden to me ! <\/strong><\/em>(<\/em><\/strong>Translated by Arthur Leslie Wheeler. (The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachussets Harvard University Press\/London William Heibemann LTD. MCM XXXIX<\/p>\n\n\tNotes<\/em>:
\n\t1. Briseis was the daughter of Brises, a priest of the city of Lyrnessus. Slave and spoil of Achilles, she was taken away by Agamemnon; Achilles, angry, abandoned the fight in the siege of Troy. It is called "Haemonian" the lyre because Haemonia was a province of Thrace and it was the gift of Hermes to the Thracian Orpheus.
\n\t2. Orpheus is the musician and singer par excellence, who with his lyre and zither attracted the beasts and plants and rocks leaned in his path. He went down to the hells in search of his beloved Eurydice, killed by the sting of a snake when he fled Aristeo's harassment. Hades and Persephone agree to give him his wife on the condition that Orpheus should go ahead on his way out of hell and not look back to see her until the arrival to earth; But Orpheus doubts whether his wife follows him and turns to see her. At that moment Eurydice dies again, returns to Hell and Orpheus can no longer recover her.
\n\t3. The "Sintians" are inhabitants of Macedonia and by extension the name also designates the Thracians.
\n\t4. The Muses<\/p>\n\n\t5. It is allusions to the episode of Odyssey IX, 82 et seq. in which Ulysses or Odysseus and his companions stop in the country of the lotophages, or lotus eaters, plant that makes you forget. Dulichian was an island neighboring Ithaca and that's because Ulysses and his companions are called so.<\/p>\n
\n\t6. By the relationship of the Phrygian hill Ida with the rites of the cult to Cibeles.<\/p>\n
\n\t7. The Lethe (from which derives "lethal") is a river of the Hells, whose waters made forget to the dead his previous life.<\/p>\n
\n\t8. It is the sacred mountain where the Muses live.<\/p>\n
\n\t9. They are examples of "adynata" or impossible facts (from the Greek \u1f00δυνατον, "impossible thing"), of α- (a- "without") + δ\u03cdναμαι (dynamai, "power, to be powerful"). They are rhetorical resources to which the poet is so fond of.<\/p>\n
\n\t10. They are two of the barbarian peoples of Pontus.<\/p>\n
\n\tTristia IV, 1<\/em><\/p>\n\n\tSiqua meis fuerint, ut erunt, vitiosa libellis,
\n\texcusata suo tempore, lector, habe.
\n\texul eram, requiesque mihi, non fama petita est,
\n\tmens intenta suis ne foret usque malis.
\n\thoc est cur cantet vinctus quoque compede fossor,
\n\tindocili numero cum grave mollit opus.
\n\tcantat et innitens limosae pronus harenae,
\n\tadverso tardam qui trahit amne ratem;
\n\tquique refert pariter lentos ad pectora remos,
\n\tin numerum pulsa brachia pulsat aqua.
\n\tfessus ubi incubuit baculo saxove resedit
\n\tpastor, harundineo carmine mulcet oves.
\n\tcantantis pariter, pariter data pensa trahentis,
\n\tfallitur ancillae decipiturque labor.
\n\tfertur et abducta Lyrneside tristis Achilles
\n\tHaemonia curas attenuasse lyra.
\n\tcum traheret silvas Orpheus et dura canendo
\n\tsaxa, bis amissa coniuge maestus erat.
\n\tme quoque Musa levat Ponti loca iussa petentem.
\n\tsola comes nostrae perstitit illa fugae;
\n\tsola nec insidias, Sinti nec militis ensem,
\n\tnec mare nec ventos barbariamque timet.
\n\tscit quoque, cum perii, quis me deceperit error,
\n\tet culpam in facto, non scelus, esse meo,
\n\tscilicet hoc ipso nunc aequa, quod obfuit ante,
\n\tcum mecum iuncti criminis acta rea est.
\n\tnon equidem vellem, quoniam nocitura fuerunt,
\n\tPieridum sacris inposuisse manum,
\n\tsed nunc quid faciam? vis me tenet ipsa sacrorum,
\n\tet carmen demens carmine laesus amo.
\n\tsic nova Dulichio lotos gustata palato
\n\tillo, quo nocuit, grata sapore fuit.
\n\tsentit amans sua damna fere, tamen haeret in illis,
\n\tmateriam culpae persequiturque suae.
\n\tnos quoque delectant, quamvis nocuere, libelli,
\n\tquodque mihi telum vulnera fecit, amo.
\n\tforsitan hoc studium possit furor esse videri,
\n\tsed quiddam furor hic utilitatis habet,
\n\tsemper in obtutu mentem vetat esse malorum,
\n\tpraesentis casus inmemoremque facit,
\n\tutque suum Bacche non sentit saucia vulnus,
\n\tdum stupet Idaeis exululata modis,
\n\tsic ubi mota calent viridi mea pectora thyrso,
\n\taltior humano spiritus ille malo est.
\n\tille nec exilium, Scythici nec litora ponti,
\n\tille nec iratos sentit habere deos.
\n\tutque soporiferae biberem si pocula Lethes,
\n\ttemporis adversi sic mihi sensus abest.
\n\tiure deas igitur veneror mala nostra levantes,
\n\tsollicitae comites ex Helicone fugae,
\n\tet partim pelago partim vestigia terra
\n\tvel rate dignatas vel pede nostra sequi,
\n\tsint, precor, haec saltem faciles mihi! namque deorum
\n\tcetera cum magno Caesare turba facit,
\n\tmeque tot adversis cumulant, quot litus harenas,
\n\tquotque fretum pisces, ovaque piscis habet,
\n\tvere prius flores, aestu numerabis aristas,
\n\tpoma per autumnum frigoribusque nives,
\n\tquam mala, quae toto patior iactatus in orbe,
\n\tdum miser Euxini litora laeva peto.
\n\tnec tamen, ut veni, levior fortuna malorum est :
\n\thuc quoque sunt nostras fata secuta vias.
\n\thic quoque cognosco natalis stamina nostri,
\n\tstamina de nigro vellere facta mihi.
\n\tutque neque insidias capitisque pericula narrem,
\n\tvera quidem, veri sed graviora fide,
\n\tvivere quam miserum est inter Bessosque Getasque
\n\tillum, qui populi semper in ore ruit .
\n\tquam miserum est, porta vitam muroque tueri,
\n\tvixque sui tutum viribus esse loci!
\n\taspera militiae iuvenis certamina fugi,
\n\tnec nisi lusura movimus arma manu;
\n\tnunc senior gladioque latus scutoque sinistram,
\n\tcanitiem galeae subicioque meam.
\n\tnam dedit e specula custos ubi signa tumultus,
\n\tinduimus trepida protinus arma manu.
\n\thostis, habens arcus imbutaque tela venenis,
\n\tsaevus anhelanti moenia lustrat equo,
\n\tutque rapax pecudem, quae se non texit ovili,
\n\tper sata, per silvas fertque trahitque lupus,
\n\tsic, siquem nondum portarum saepe receptum
\n\tbarbarus in campis repperit hostis, habet:
\n\taut sequitur captus coniectaque vincula collo
\n\taccipit, aut telo virus habente perit.
\n\thic ego sollicitae lateo novus incola sedis .
\n\theu nimium fati tempora longa mei!
\n\tet tamen ad numeros antiquaque sacra reverti
\n\tsustinet in tantis hospita Musa malis,
\n\tsed neque cui recitem quisquam est mea carmina, nec qui
\n\tauribus accipiat verba Latina suis.
\n\tipse mihi—quid enim faciam?—scriboque legoque,
\n\ttutaque iudicio littera nostra suo est.
\n\tsaepe tamen dixi cui nunc haec cura laborat?
\n\tan mea Sauromatae scripta Getaeque legent?
\n\tsaepe etiam lacrimae me sunt scribente profusae,
\n\tumidaque est fletu littera facta meo,
\n\tcorque vetusta meum, tamquam nova, vulnera novit,
\n\tinque sinum maestae labitur imber aquae,
\n\tcum vice mutata, qui sim fuerimque, recordor,
\n\tet, tulerit quo me casus et unde, subit,
\n\tsaepe manus demens, studiis irata sibique,
\n\tmisit in arsuros carmina nostra focos,
\n\tatque ita de multis quoniam non multa supersunt,
\n\tcum venia facito, quisquis es, ista legas.
\n\ttu quoque non melius, quam sunt mea tempora, carmen,
\n\tinterdicta mihi, consule. Roma, boni.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 21st of March of each year it is celebrated the World Poetry Day . It is a day to sing the excellences of the poetic work. In this blog they are numerous times that I have talked about poetry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,6,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-education","category-habits","category-language-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}