NOTES.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY,

Tristium: there were five books of these elegies, called by Ovid Tristia because they were written in exile.

1. Ille ego: these words, placed before qui for emphasis, announce the subject of this elegy. Ille may be translated with lusor. fuerim: the tense is from the point of view of the reader, not the writer. The clause has a very emphatic position, since it is placed before ut, though the object of noris. -amorum: Ovid wrote in early life three books of poems, called Amores, and other love poems besides.

2. quem legis explains lusor.ut noris shows the purpose of accipe.

3. Sulmo was among the Apennines.

4. Urbe: Rome.

6. cecidit. . . pari: this was the year 43 B.C., when in the month of April, near Mutina, in Northern Italy, the consuls Pansa and Hirtius were slain in successive victories over Antony. Such an unusual event had not taken place since the Second Punic War.

8. fortunae munere: after the proscriptions of the civil wars many families were raised to the nobility.

12. una... dies: observe the gender of dies, meaning day.-duo liba the custom of giving birthday cakes seems to have been an old one.

13. festis: the Quinquatrus, a festival sacred to Minerva, was celebrated on the nineteenth of March. The next four days were

devoted to gladiatorial contests. The first of these, therefore, would be the twentieth of March, Ovid's birthday.

15. teneri: through our early years; first home training, then the teaching of men of Rome, famous for their skill.

19. caelestia sacra: the divine art of poetry.

22. Maeonides: Homer, according to one tradition, said to be a native of Maeonia or Lydia.

23. Helicone: this mountain, the home of the Muses and sacred to Apollo, is used for poetry. In his "Progress of Poesy" Gray makes it the starting point of poetry, thus:

"From Helicon's harmonious springs

A thousand rills their mazy progress take."

25. numeros: numbers, referring to the measures of poetry; so Longfellow: "Tell me not, in mournful numbers."

28. liberior... toga: this was the toga virilis, generally assumed by the Roman boy at the completion of his fourteenth year. It took the place of the toga practexta, the garment of children. The toga was a large, flowing outer garment, carried over the left shoulder around the body and then over the left shoulder again.

29. lato... clavo: this broad stripe of purple was the sign of senatorial rank, but it was allowed by Augustus to the sons of some equites of high position, thus indicating that they were to become

senators.

33. primos... honores: it was necessary for the Roman citizen to pass through several grades of office in order to reach the highest positions. Thus Cicero says that the Roman People raised him ad summum imperium per omnis honorum gradus. Cat. I. II.

34. eque viris . . . tribus: although there were other commissions of three, it is probable that Ovid became one of the police commissioners.

35. curia restabat: a poetical way of saying that Ovid did not become a senator. — mensura coacta est: if a young man that had the privilege of becoming a senator did not wish to do so, his broad stripe was made narrow, still designating his rank in the equestrian order. To Ovid the senatorial life was irksome. He facetiously

says in the next line that the broad purple stripe was too heavy for his strength.

38. fugax ambitionis: the genitive is used with verbals in ax. 39. Aoniae . . . sorores: the Muses.

42. aderant: were present in any company where Ovid was; tot is implied with deos as the antecedent of quot.

43. suas volucres: his birds, the subject of a poem. Macer, a Roman poet, who died 16 B.C., a native of Verona, wrote a poem or poems on birds, serpents, and plants.

45. Propertius: an elegiac poet, born in Umbria about 51 B.C. He closely followed Greek models, but was highly regarded by the Romans. — ignes: used for poems because of their divine or inspired character.

46. iure sodalicii: in or in accordance with the tie of brotherhood. They both evidently belonged to the same society or club.

Little

47. Ponticus, of whom Ovid speaks as famous for his heroic or Epic verse, is mentioned by Propertius, but is little known. also is known of Ovid's friend Bassus, a writer of iambics.

49. Horatius: Horace was born in Apulia, 65 B.с., more than twenty years before Ovid's birth. He showed the power of the Latin language in polished verse, as seen in his Odes, Satires, and Epistles.

51. tantum: only. - Tibullo: Tibullus, one of the great elegiac poets, was born about 54 B.C., and died about 19 B.C.

53. Galle: Gallus was born in Gaul about 66 B.C.

tion of elegies in four books has perished.

His collec

56. Thalia: one of the nine Muses, here used for poetry.

63. cum fugerem: Ovid went into exile A.D. 9.

66. quodque ... moveret: que connects this clause to inexpugnabile as another predicate after erat. moveret is in the subjunctive mode in a relative clause of result characterizing an indefinite antecedent.

67. cum: concessive, though. — hic: this one, such a one.

70. nupta fuit: remained my wife.

72. in nostro firma. . . toro: long my wife.

78. lustris: there was a purification of the Roman people in the

Campus Martius after the census was taken. As this occurred once in five years, the time between the purifications was also called a lustrum. Then the term was used for any period of five years.

87. fama ... mea: report about me.

88. crimina nostra: charges against me.

89. causam although there are many conjectures, what he says here is all that is known of the cause of his enforced exile.

95. Pisaea... oliva: the olive was the symbol of victory in the Olympic games. Although the Olympiad was, strictly speaking, a period of four years, it is used here by the poet for the lustrum. Accordingly Ovid was fifty years of age at the time of his banishment. 106. cepi temporis arma: I took up the arms or work of the time, i.e., I met the emergency, or exigency.

108. stellae: Ovid's difficulties and misfortunes were as many as all the stars. The visible stars around the north pole indicated a hidden pole below, the south pole.

110. Sarmatis: the Sarmatians dwelt in what is now Russia and Poland. The adjective is used for the shore of the Black Sea. The Getae dwelt south of the Danube.

113. Quod refers to carmine and is the subject of referatur. 115. quod vivo: that I am alive; depends upon gratia.

118. curae requies: as a rest from care.

119. abducis: in imagination and enjoyment.

130. ut moriar: concessive clause.

131. carmine: by my song; in the same construction as favore. 132. iure: modifies ago.

Amorum: the Amores consisted of forty-nine poems arranged in three books. They were published about 9 B.C. They are chiefly amatory in character. The following extract is personal, giving the poet's estimate of poetry in comparison with regal power or gold or display, and also his hope of immortality.

36. Castalia... aqua: from the fountain near Delphi, representing the inspiration of poetry.

38. sollicito . . . amante: the ablative absolute, expressing the relation of time.

1-4. Introduction.

METAMORPHOSES.

FIRST BOOK.

1. In nova: the thought is completed when corpora is read. – fert animus: my soul moves me, — I would.

2. coeptis meis: my undertaking; coeptum is rare in the singular. — et illac: upon this way also. The poet desired that, as the gods had already favored him in other courses of thought, so they would favor him while he pursued this way also, new to Roman poetry — the story of the Metamorphoses.

3. aspirate: since favorable breezes bear on the ship.

4. perpetuum carmen: the adjective is used predicatively with the object. It is a song of the changes of form from the formation of the world to the deification of Julius Caesar.

5-20. The original chaos with all elements mingled in one mass. 5. terras: plural as including all that belongs to the earth.

7. chaos: see vocabulary.

8. eodem: into one place.

9. non ... rerum: the warring elements of matter not properly united.

10. lumina: its beams.

Titan: sun; as below, Phoebe, moon, and Amphitrite, sea; the person for the thing personified, while tellus is employed without personification. The Titans were the children of Uranus and Gaea, but Titan is put for Apollo, the son of the Titan Hyperion.

11. nova predicate adjective. - crescendo: by waxing.

13. ponderibus librata suis: balanced by its own load; the plural refers to the burdens the earth bears, rather than to its own weight.

14. margine: in poetry without a preposition. 15. Ut... sic: though... yet.

16. instabilis: not firm. -innabilis: not liquid. These words are translated as passive by some, but instabilis would not be so regarded if it were not for innabilis. As Ovid apparently invented