Tag Archives: Ovid

Happy Birthday, Ovid: with print-your-own-page edition

In honor of Ovid’s 2062nd birthday, I have uploaded a text of the birthday poem he wrote for himself in exile, Tristia III.13 (link). It’s a suitably depressing text for a time of plague and isolation, and may provide a … Continue reading

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A Missing Joke in Ovid?

Unable to communicate her plight to her father and sisters in any other way, boviform Io writes a message in the dust with her hoof (Met. 1.649-50): littera pro uerbis, quam pes in puluere duxit, corporis indicium mutati triste peregit. … Continue reading

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When Did Ovid Die?

For Ovid’s 2059th birthday, here’s a note on his death-year. It could use some footnotes, but this should do for a funeral offering. We’re all celebrating commemorating the 2000th anniversary of the death of Ovid this year, but the date … Continue reading

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A 2000th Anniversary, And I Almost Missed It

Ovid was born on March 20th, 43 B.C., and exiled to Tomis (now Constanza, on the coast of Romania) in A.D. 8. There he wrote five books of Tristia and four of Epistulae ex Ponto, lamenting his fate at great … Continue reading

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Hume on the Roman Poets

Ovid and Lucretius are almost as licentious in their style as Lord Rochester, though the former were fine gentlemen and delicate writers, and the latter, from the corruptions of that court in which he lived, seems to have thrown off … Continue reading

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Ovid’s Birthday

Publius Ovidius Naso is 2050 today. The vernal equinox seems a suitably Ovidian date. Though the specific date is (so far as I know) unknown, this year is also the 2000th anniversary of his banishment to Tomis: I wonder if … Continue reading

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Happy Birthday, Ibis!

Since David Meadows is on vacation, I suppose it falls to me to point out that today is the Dies Alliensis, and therefore the birthday of Ovid’s fictional enemy Ibis. Here are the more amusing bits from Part IV of … Continue reading

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