Ovid and his book

From "The Unbearable Lightness of Ovid": Tom Hendrickson offers a careful description of the "books" Ovid, exiled, wrote of in Tristia:

Like many of those who now open the pages of the Tristia, I was looking for something specific rather than reading at my leisure when I stumbled across it in Pisa. I was doing research on ancient books, and the very first poem of the Tristia is addressed to the book itself and provides a lush description of the ancient bookroll as an aesthetic object. Ovid instructs his book to look mournful and unkempt, in keeping with his situation (1.1.5–12):

      
Nec te purpureo uelent uaccinia fuco — 
non est conueniens luctibus ille color — 
nec titulus minio, nec cedro charta notetur,
candida nec nigra cornua fronte geras…
Nec fragili geminae poliantur pumice frontes,
hirsutus sparsis ut uideare comis.

Let no whortleberry veil you with crimson dye — 
That color is not fit for mourning — 
Let your title-slip be marked by no cinnabar, your papyrus with no cedar,
And may you not carry gleaming horns on your dark forehead…
Let your twin faces be smoothed by no delicate pumice,
So that you seem shaggy, with scraggly hair. (1.1.5–12)

Books in the Roman world were typically papyrus scrolls. They could be utilitarian tools, but they could also be luxury objects, works of art in their own right. The papyrus would be stained with cedar oil (cedro charta notetur), which kept it free from pests and rot, but which also gave it a heavenly color and scent. The edges of the scroll, which could become torn and ragged, would have to be frequently filed with pumice (fragili geminae poliantur pumice frontes), allowing book-owners to indulge in a kind of “care of the book” ritual. A center-rod, which might be made of precious materials, would be used to unroll the scroll. Here the center-rod sticking out of either end of the scroll must be ivory, since Ovid describes it as being like the gleaming horns on a cow’s dark forehead (candida … nigra cornua fronte). Each scroll would have a small title slip attached to the top and naming the author and work, here imagined to be written in scarlet ink (minio). The “crimson dye” (purpureo … fuco) refers to a slip-cover in which the book could be stored and transported in safety.

Love for sale: Ovid's love doctor

Aeacidae Chiron, ego sum praeceptor Amoris 

As Chiron to that son of Aeacus, I am the tutor of Love* (AA 1.17)

From the start, the Tutor of the Ars Amatoria has used car salesman written all over him. This praeceptor - not to be confused with Ovid -- declares his mastery, promises the reader success in the ways of love, then proceeds to deliver "wisdom" so tenuous, trivial, inconsistent and derelict that even the dullest of pupils would have second thoughts about further lessons.

Book 1 ends with the praeceptor pulling into port:

Pars superat coepti, pars est exhausta laboris.     Hic teneat nostras ancora iacta rates. 

Part of the task I've undertaken is done, part remains;
here let the anchor be cast and hold my ship.

Our Chiron wannabe, who began by claiming expertise in the arts of Love on a par with Tithys' command of the Argo, here drops anchor. While translators tend to translate rates as "boat" or "ship," it might be closer to "raft." The Tutor's epic persona, and all his appointments, are looking a bit shopworn and degraded at this point.

Part of the joy of reading Ovid is in getting a feeling for what he's up to. In the Ars, his persona proudly vaunts his ability to dare verba. 

Pauperibus vates ego sum, quia pauper amavi;     Cum dare non possem munera, verba dabam. 

I'm a prophet for paupers, because I loved as a pauper;     since I wasn't able to give gifts, I gave words.

As translator Julia Dyson Hejduk notes, dare verba was an idiom signifying "to trick." In the service of Love, all is fair, and all moves from, and with, the magical dazzle of empty words, signifiers, promises, cheap talk.

What is Ovid on about here, dabbling in the nature of love and language, faith and folly, myth and streetsmarts mingling in the Tutor's endless gab? Indeed one work that seems most like the Ars is Erasmus's Praise of Folly. In both, the inspiring divinity is both all powerful and all silly, all the time.

There's also the roaming eye of the flaneur, prowling and probing the high and hidden places of the city; there's the gaze of the social order, the ploys of the hunter, the threadbare experience -- usus -- of the one who spills the secrets of Amor and Roma with a saucy air.

There's nothing for it but to dive into the Tutor's wordstream -- to play the reader -- and target -- of his ploys.

*Translations are from The Offense of Love, Julia Dyson Hejduk, whose fidelity to the texts of the Ars, the Remedia Amoris, and Tristia is virtually line by line, and whose notes are invaluable for us grateful modern clods.

Writing oneself into difficulty

Near the conclusion of Tristia 2, Ovid laments at some length his exile at the command of Augustus. In addition to saying, essentially, "why me?" he mentions his Metamorphoses along with the Fasti as poems deserving of honor, not banishment:

And I also sang bodies changed to new forms,
though my efforts lacked the final touch.
If only you might calm your anger for a while
and order some of it read while you’re at leisure,
a few lines, where having started from the world’s
first origin, I bring the work, Caesar, to your times!
You’ll see how much you yourself have inspired my spirit,
how in song my mind favours you, and yours.  555 ff