Latin: Ovid's Tour of Rome - Tristia 3.1

[guy]

 

(Thank you "An Italian Archaeologist in Scotland" for bringing this to our attention)

 

Here's a delightful rendition of Ovid's Tristia 3.1 in Latin (with English subtitles).

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This is a condensed version of the lecture I gave at GrecoLatinoVivo's Lilium2 in September 2019. In this video, we read Ovid's Tristia 3.1 for which I simplify the Latin for language learners and I provide a visual representation of the very path he follows on this imagined tour of Rome. Each verse or pair of verses is first presented on a separate screen free of my voice so that teachers can pause the video and analyze the text with students. After each verse I provide a visual representation of it as well as a simplified prose version in Latin.

 

The background on Ovid's Tristia is very poignant:

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The Tristia ("Sorrows" or "Lamentations") is a collection of letters written in elegiac couplets by the Augustan poet Ovid during his exile from Rome. Despite five books of his copious bewailing of his fate, the immediate cause of Augustus's banishment of the most acclaimed living Latin poet to Pontus in AD 8 remains a mystery.  He spent several years in the outpost of Tomis and died without ever returning to Rome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristia

Ovid's final lament in Book 3 during his permanent exile is truly unforgetable:

https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/OvidTristiaBkThree.php

 

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But make sure my bones are brought back in a little urn:

so I’ll not be an exile still in death.

No one forbids that: Theban Antigone buried

her brother’s body under the earth, despite the king.

and, mixing leaves and nard with my bones,

bury them in ground near the city:

and carve these lines in fine letters on the marble

for the hurried eyes of passers-by to read:

 

I LIE HERE, WHO TOYED WITH TENDER LOVE,

OVID THE POET BETRAYED BY MY GENIUS:

BE NOT SEVERE, LOVER, AS YOU PASS BY,

SAY ‘EASY MAY THE BONES OF OVID LIE’

 

That suffices for an epitaph. In fact my books

are a greater and a lasting monument,

those, I know, though they’ve injured him

will give their author fame and enduring life.

 

Summary: This is an entertaining rendition of a portion of the more obscure but delightful poem "Tristia" by Ovid.

Thanks, again, Italian Archaeologist in Scotland for bringing this to our attention.

 

guy also known as gaius

Edited October 14, 2021 by guy

[Crispina]

And I too thank you, Italian Archaeologist in Scotland,  for sharing this.

Are there any known likenesses of Ovid?