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Bulfinch’s Mythology · Chapter

Ovid explained

This chapter provides a biographical sketch of the Roman poet Ovid (Naso), detailing his birth in 43 BC, his education, his early career in public office, and his devotion to poetry.

What happens

This chapter provides a biographical sketch of the Roman poet Ovid (Naso), detailing his birth in 43 BC, his education, his early career in public office, and his devotion to poetry. It describes his life in Rome among contemporaries like Horace and Virgil, his banishment at age fifty to Tomi on the Black Sea, and his final decade of exile. The chapter highlights his two major works, the Metamorphoses and the Fasti, and includes a translation of the closing lines of the Metamorphoses, in which Ovid predicts his own literary immortality.

Themes in this chapter

  • Mortality and Immortality

    Ovid's prediction that his poem will survive him and achieve eternal fame directly engages with the theme of mortality versus immortality.

  • Cultural Transmission and Education

    The chapter emphasizes how Ovid's Metamorphoses preserved and transmitted Greek and Roman mythology, serving as a source for later poets, painters, and sculptors.

Characters to notice

  • Ovid

    Ovid (Naso) is the central figure of the chapter; his life, exile, and poetic works are described.

  • Jupiter

    Mentioned in the translated closing lines of the Metamorphoses as 'Jove,' whose ire cannot destroy the poem.

Key passages

  • “And now I close my work, which not the ire Of Jove, nor tooth of time, nor sword, nor fire Shall bring to nought. Come when it will that day Which o'er the body, not the mind, has sway, And snatch the remnant of my life away, My better part above the stars shall soar, And my renown endure forevermore. Where'er the Roman arms and arts shall spread, There by the people shall my book be read; And, if aught true in poet's visions be, My name and fame have immortality.”

    Ovid declares that his completed work is indestructible—immune to divine anger, time, violence, or fire. Even when death claims his body, his soul and fame will ascend beyond the stars, and his book will be read wherever Roman influence reaches, ensuring his name lives forever.

    This is a literal translation of the closing lines of the Metamorphoses, expressing Ovid's confidence in his poetic legacy.

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