Book 1

Little book, you will go to the city without me—and I do not begrudge it— but, alas for me, your master is not allowed to go! Go, but unadorned, as befits the book of an exile; wear, poor thing, the dress that suits this season of mine. Let no berry-dye veil you in purple stain— that color does not become a time of mourning— let no vermilion mark your title, no cedar-oil your page, nor carry white bosses upon a black brow. Let such trappings adorn books that are fortunate; it becomes you to keep my own fortune in mind. Let no brittle pumice polish your two edges, that you may go forth shaggy with disordered hair. Be not ashamed of blots; whoever sees them will sense that they were made by tears of mine. Go, book, and greet in my words the places I love: I will touch them at least with the foot that is allowed me. If there is anyone among the crowd not forgetful of me, if anyone who chances to ask how I fare, you will say that I live, yet deny that I am safe; and that even my living is a gift I owe to a god. And so be silent—he who seeks more must read on— take care lest by chance you speak what is best unspoken! At once the reader, reminded, will recall my charges, and I shall be condemned, the public defendant on every tongue. You take care not to defend me, though words may sting you; my cause being bad, a pleading would make it worse. You will find someone who sighs for me, banished, and reads these poems through with cheeks not dry, and who, in silence, lest some ill-wisher hear, will wish that, with Caesar appeased, my punishment grow light. I too pray that whoever it be may know no misery, who wishes the gods to be merciful to the wretched; may what he wishes come to pass, may the prince's anger be lifted, and may he grant me the power to die in my native land. Though you carry out my charges, book, you may be blamed, and be judged below the measure of my talent's praise. It is the judge's duty to weigh the matter and the time of the matter alike; the time being weighed, you shall be safe. Poems come forth drawn out of a serene mind; my days are clouded with sudden ills, poems ask for the writer's retirement and leisure; I am tossed by the sea, the winds, the savage winter. All fear is hostile to poems; ruined, I look each moment for the sword to lodge in my throat. That I do even this, a fair judge will marvel, and will read what I write, such as it is, with indulgence. Give me Homer himself and ring him round with so many disasters, and all his genius would fall away beneath such ills. In short, remember, book, to go careless of fame, and feel no shame at having displeased the reader. Fortune does not so far show herself my friend that you should keep account of any praise of yours. While I was unharmed, the love of repute touched me, and I burned with eagerness to seek a name. Now let it be enough if I do not hate the poems and the pursuit that harmed me; thus my exile was won by my own gift. Yet go you for me, you to whom it is allowed, look upon Rome; would the gods grant that I might now be my own book! And do not think, because you come a stranger into the great city, that you can come unknown to the people. Though you should lack a title, you are known by your very color; though you may wish to dissemble, it is plain that you are mine. Yet enter in secret, lest my poems do you harm; they are not, as once they were, full of favor. If there shall be anyone who thinks you, because you are mine, not worth reading, and casts you from his lap, say to him, 'Look at the title; I am no teacher of love; that work has already paid the penalty it earned.' Perhaps you wonder whether I shall bid you, sent on high, climb to the Palatine and the house of Caesar. May the august places and the gods of the place forgive me! It was from that citadel that the lightning fell upon my head. I remember indeed that there are most gentle powers in those abodes, yet I dread the gods who harmed me. The dove is terrified by the least whir of a wing, once wounded, hawk, by your talons. Nor does any lamb dare to wander far from the fold, once it has been snatched from the teeth of the greedy wolf. Phaethon, were he alive, would shun the sky, and the horses he foolishly longed for he would not wish to touch. I too confess I fear the weapons of Jove I have felt: I think myself the mark of the hostile fire when it thunders. Whoever of the Argive fleet escaped Caphereus ever steered his sails away from the Euboean waters; and my own bark, once struck by a vast storm, shudders to approach the place where it was harmed. Therefore beware, book, and look about with timid mind, that it may be enough for you to be read by the common folk. While Icarus sought too lofty heights on feeble wings, he gave his name to the waters of the sea. Yet it is hard to say from here whether you should use oars or sail: the plan, the circumstance, and the place will decide. If you can be delivered when he is at leisure, if you see all things mild, if his anger has broken its own force, if there is anyone who, when you hesitate and fear to approach, will deliver you, and first speak a few words, then go in. On a good day, and more fortunate than your master himself, may you arrive there and lighten my woes. For these either no one can take away, or only he who made my wounds, after Achilles' fashion, alone. Only take care, while you wish to help, that you do no harm— for my hope is less than my mind's fear— and beware lest the anger that was at rest, being stirred, blaze again, and you become a second cause of my punishment! Yet when you have been taken into my inner room, and reached your home, the curved bookcase, you will see your brothers there set out in order, whom the same toil kept watch and wrought. The rest of the throng will display their titles openly, and bear their names upon an uncovered brow; three you will see far off, hiding in a dark corner— even so, what no one fails to know, they teach men to love. These either shun, or, if you have face enough, contrive to call them by the names of Oedipus and Telegonus. And of those three, I warn you, if you have any care for your parent, love none of them, though it should teach you itself. There are also the changed forms, fifteen rolls, poems lately snatched from my funeral. Bid these to say that the look of my own fortune can be reckoned among the transformed bodies. For that look has suddenly been made unlike its former self, now to be wept over, though once it was glad. More charges, if you ask, I had to give you, but I fear to have been the cause of slow delay; and if you were to carry with you, book, all that comes to mind, you would prove a heavy burden for the bearer. Long is the way, make haste! For me there is to be dwelt the world's last edge, a land far removed from my own land.

Gods of sea and sky—for what but prayers is left?— spare to break apart the timbers of my shattered ship, and do not, I beg, subscribe to great Caesar's anger! Often, when one god presses, another god brings aid. Mulciber was against Troy, for Troy stood Apollo; Venus was fair to the Trojans, Pallas hostile. Saturnian Juno, nearer to Turnus, hated Aeneas; yet he was kept safe by the power of Venus. Often fierce Neptune assailed wary Ulysses; often Minerva snatched him from her uncle. And for me too, though I am far below those men, what forbids some power to stand by when a god is wroth? A wretch, I waste idle words that profit nothing. The heavy waters spatter my very face as I speak, and the dreadful South Wind hurls away my words, and lets my prayers not reach the gods to whom they are sent. So the same winds, lest I be harmed in one way only, carry off my sails and my vows I know not where. Wretched me, how great the mountains of water that roll! Now, now you would think they would touch the highest stars. How deep the valleys that sink when the sea is parted! Now, now you would think they would touch black Tartarus. Wherever I look, there is nothing but sea and sky, the one swollen with waves, the other threatening with clouds. Between the two the winds roar with monstrous murmur. The wave of the sea knows not what master to obey. For now the East Wind takes its strength from the crimson dawn, now the West Wind comes, dispatched in the late evening, now icy Boreas rages from the dry North, now the South Wind wages his battles full in front. The helmsman is in doubt, and finds not what to flee or seek: his very skill is dumbstruck amid the baffling perils. Surely we perish, and there is no hope of safety, and as I speak, the wave overwhelms my face. The flood will crush this life, and with mouth praying in vain I shall take in the waters that will be my death. Yet my faithful wife grieves for nothing but my exile: this one of my ills she knows and bemoans. She knows not that I am tossed upon the boundless deep, knows not that I am driven by winds, knows not that death is near. O it is well that I did not suffer her to embark with me, lest in my misery I should have to bear death twice! But now, even if I perish, since she is free of peril, in half of me at least I shall survive. Alas, how swift the flame that flashed amid the clouds! How great the crash that thunders from the height of heaven! The planks of the sides are struck by the waves no more lightly than a wall is struck by the heavy weight of a ballista. This wave that comes rises above all the others: it is after the ninth and before the eleventh. I do not fear death; it is the manner of death that is wretched. Take away the shipwreck, and death will be a gift to me. It is something, when one falls by his own fate or by the sword, to lay his dying body upon the solid ground, to give some charge to his kin and hope for a tomb, and not to be food for the fishes of the sea. Suppose me worthy of such a death—I am not alone borne here. Why does my punishment drag the undeserving down? O gods above, and you green gods who care for the waters, let both your throngs now cease your threats, and the life that Caesar's most gentle anger granted me, let me carry, unhappy, to the place commanded. If you wish to destroy me with the punishment I have earned, my fault, by my own judge, is less than death. Had Caesar wished already to send me into the Stygian waters, he had no need of your aid for this. He has of my blood a store not to be envied; and what he gave, when he wishes, he himself will take. But you, whom surely I have harmed by no crime, I think, be content now, I pray, with my woes! And yet, though you all should wish to save the wretch, what has perished can no longer be a head that is safe. Though the sea grow calm and I have favoring winds, though you spare me, I shall be no less an exile. I do not, greedy for endless gain, plow the wide sea to exchange merchandise, nor do I seek Athens, which once I sought as a scholar, nor the towns of Asia, nor places seen before, nor, carried to Alexander's famous city, to see your delights, sportive Nile. That I pray for fair winds—who could believe it?— it is the Sarmatian land that my sails seek. I am bound to touch the wild shores of the leftward Pontus; and I complain that my flight from my country is so slow. That I may see the Tomitans set in I know not what corner of the world, I make by my prayers a quick way to a place I shun. Whether you love me, restrain these mighty floods, and let your powers be favorable to my ship; or whether you hate me, drive me on to the appointed land: part of my punishment lies in the region I seek. Bear me—what do I here?—swift winds, bear my body away! Why do my sails long for the Ausonian shores? Caesar did not wish it; why do you hold him whom he drives forth? Let the land of Pontus look upon my face. He bids it, and I have deserved it; nor do I think it right or pious to defend the charges he has condemned. Yet if mortal deeds never deceive the gods, you know that crime is absent from my fault. Indeed, if you know it so, if my error carried me away, and my mind was foolish, not wicked, if—what even the humblest may do—I favored that house, if Augustus' public commands were enough for me, if under this leader I spoke of happy ages, and offered incense for Caesar and the loyal line of Caesars— if this was my spirit, then spare me, you gods! If not, let a wave from on high fall and overwhelm my head! Am I deceived, or do the heavy clouds begin to fade, and is the wave of the changed sea broken and subdued? Not by chance, but called under a condition, you gods, whom none can deceive, you bring me this aid.

When there comes to mind the most sorrowful image of that night, which was my last hour in the city, when I recall the night on which I left so many things dear to me, even now a tear slips from my eyes. Now the day was near at hand on which Caesar had bidden me depart from the bounds of farthest Ausonia, and neither time nor mind had been fit enough for preparing: my heart had grown numb with the long delay. I took no thought of choosing slaves or companions, of fitting clothing or supplies for a fugitive. I was as stunned as one struck by the fires of Jove, who lives yet, and is himself unaware of his life. But when grief itself dispelled this cloud from my mind, and at last my senses gathered strength, about to go, I addressed my sorrowing friends one last time, who, of many, were now but one or two. My loving wife, weeping, held me, who wept more bitterly still, with the rain falling ceaselessly down her undeserving cheeks. My daughter, far away, was apart beneath the Libyan shores, and could not be told of my fate. Wherever you looked, grief and groaning sounded, and within was the look of a funeral that did not keep silence. Women and men, even children, mourned at my undoing, and every corner in the house had its tears. If in small things one may use great examples, this was the face of Troy in the hour of its capture. And now the voices of men and dogs were stilled, and the Moon on high was driving her nocturnal steeds. Gazing up at her, and beholding by her light the Capitol, which neighbored my household gods in vain, I said, 'You powers that dwell in the nearby abodes, and you temples never again to be seen by my eyes, and you gods I must leave, whom the lofty city of Quirinus holds, receive my farewell for all time. And though I take up the shield late, after my wounds, yet unburden this exile of your hatred, and tell the heavenly man what error deceived me, that he may not think a crime to be a fault, that the author of my punishment may feel what you know. With the god appeased, I can cease to be wretched.' With this prayer I worshipped the gods above; my wife with many more, her sobs breaking off the words half-spoken. She too, before the household gods, with hair unbound, prostrate, touched the dead hearth with trembling lips, and poured out many words to the adverse Penates, words of no avail for her lamented husband. And now the headlong night denied space for delay, and the Parrhasian Bear had wheeled down from her axis. What was I to do? I was held back by the sweet love of my country, but that was the last night before my commanded flight. Ah, how often, when someone hastened me, I said, 'Why press me? See either where you hasten to go, or whence.' Ah, how often I lied that I had a fixed hour that was fit for the journey I had set. Three times I touched the threshold, three times I was called back, and my foot itself, indulging my heart, was slow. Often, having said farewell, I again spoke many things, and, as if departing, gave the last of my kisses. Often I gave the same charges and deceived myself, looking back with my eyes at the dear pledges of my love. At last I said, 'Why do I hasten? It is Scythia to which I am sent, it is Rome that must be left. Each is a just cause for delay. My wife, alive, is denied to me, alive forever, and my house, and the sweet members of my faithful house, and the comrades I have loved with a brother's love, O hearts joined to me with the faith of Theseus! While I may, I will embrace you: never, perhaps, will it be allowed more; the hour granted me is so much gain.' Without delay, I leave the words of my speech unfinished, embracing in my heart each one dearest to me. While I speak and we weep, in the high heaven most brightly, a star heavy with woe for me, the Morning Star had risen. I am torn apart no otherwise than if I left my limbs behind, and a part seemed wrenched away from its own body. So Mettus grieved when the horses, turned in opposite ways, were the avengers of his treachery. Then indeed arose the clamor and the groaning of my people, and sorrowing hands struck their naked breasts. Then indeed my wife, clinging to my shoulders as I went, mingled these sad words with my tears: 'You cannot be torn away. Together, together we shall go,' she said, 'I will follow you, and an exile's wife, an exile I shall be. For me too the way is made, me too the farthest land receives: I shall come as a small burden to your fugitive ship. Caesar's anger bids you depart from your country, my love bids me; this love shall be my Caesar.' Such things she attempted, as she had attempted before, and scarcely yielded her conquered hands to expediency. I went forth—or rather, that was to be carried out for burial— squalid, with unkempt hair over my rough face. She, frenzied with grief, fell, they tell me, as darkness rose before her, half-lifeless, in the midst of the house. And when she rose, her hair fouled with vile dust, and lifted her limbs from the cold ground, she wept now for herself, now for the deserted Penates, and often called the name of her husband torn away, and groaned no less than if she had seen the built-up pyres holding the body of her daughter or of me; and she wished to die, to lay down her senses by dying, yet did not perish, out of regard for me. Let her live, and, since the fates have so willed, let her live to support her absent husband ever with her aid.

The Guardian of the Bear of Erymanthus dips into the ocean, and with his star troubles the waters of the sea. Yet we cleave the Ionian sea not of our own will, but are forced by fear to be bold. Wretched me! With what mighty winds the waters swell, and the sand, churned from the lowest depths, boils up! No lower than a mountain, the wave leaps upon the prow and the curved stern, and lashes the painted gods. The pine-built planks resound, the rigging shrieks when struck, and the keel itself groans at my woes. The sailor, his cold fear confessed by his pallor, now follows his ship, defeated, no longer guiding it by skill, and as a feeble rider lets fall the unavailing reins upon the stiff neck of his horse, so I see the charioteer give the sails to the ship not where he wished, but where the rush of the wave drives. And unless Aeolus send out changed winds, I shall be borne to places I must now not approach. For far off, with Illyria left on the left, forbidden Italy is seen by me. Let the wind cease, I pray, to strive toward the forbidden lands, and obey with me the great god. While I speak, and at once fear and long to be driven back, with what force the wave struck the side! Spare me, you blue powers of the sea, spare me, and let it be enough that Jove is my enemy. Snatch my weary soul from cruel death, if only one who has perished can not have perished.

O you to be named after no comrades ever, and to whom my lot seemed your own above all, who, when I was thunderstruck, were the first, I remember, dearest one, who dared to sustain me with your words, who gave me gentle counsel to live, when in my wretched breast there was a love of death, you know well to whom I speak, by the tokens set in place of your name, and your duty, friend, does not escape you. These things will always be fixed in my deepest marrow, and I shall be the perpetual debtor of this life, and my breath shall sooner go to be thinned into the empty air, and shall leave my bones on the warm pyre, than forgetfulness of your services steal upon my mind, and that loyalty of yours fade with the long day. May the gods be kind to you; may they grant you a fortune that wants no man's help, and is unlike my own. Yet if this ship were borne by a friendly wind, that loyalty of yours would perhaps go unknown. Pirithous would not have felt Theseus so true a friend had he not gone living to the infernal waters. That you should be an example of true love, sad Orestes, your madness, Phocian, brought it to pass. Had Euryalus not fallen among the Rutulian foes, no glory would there be for Nisus, son of Hyrtacus. Just as tawny gold is tested in the fire, so in a hard time loyalty must be tried. While Fortune helps and smiles with serene face, all things follow undiminished wealth: but as soon as she thunders, they flee, nor is he known to any who was lately ringed with troops of companions. And these things, once gathered from the examples of men of old, are now known to me as true by my own ills. Of so many, scarce two or three of you, my friends, are left: the rest were Fortune's throng, not mine. The more, O you few, succor my stricken state, and give safe shores to my shipwreck, and do not, fearful ones, tremble with false dread lest the god take offense at this loyalty! Often Caesar has praised loyalty even in hostile arms, and loves it in his own, approves it in the foe, My cause is the better, who fostered no opposing arms, but earned this flight by my simplicity. Watch then over my fortunes, I beg, if any of the god's anger can be diminished. If anyone desires to know all my misfortunes, he seeks more than the matter allows to be done. I have suffered as many ills as there are stars shining in the sky, and as many bodies as the dry dust holds; and I have borne much that is greater than belief, and that, though it has befallen, will not be believed. Even a part of it must die with me, and I would that it could be hidden while I conceal it. If I had an unbreakable voice, a breast firmer than bronze, and many mouths with many tongues, not even so could I embrace all in words, the matter surpassing my strength. Write of my woes, learned poets, in place of the Neritian chief: for I have borne more woes than the Neritian. He in a short span wandered through many years between the homes of Dulichium and of Ilium: me, having measured seas distant by all the stars, fate has borne to the Getic and Sarmatian gulfs. He had a faithful band and loyal comrades: me, a fugitive, my companions deserted. He, glad and victorious, sought his native land: I, conquered and an exile, fled from my country. And I have no home in Dulichium or Ithaca or Samos, places from which to be absent is no great punishment, but the one which from its seven hills surveys the whole world, Rome, the seat of empire and of the gods. He had a body hard and patient of toils: my strength is feeble and gently bred. He was ceaselessly driven amid savage arms: I myself was accustomed to gentle pursuits. A god has crushed me, with none to lighten my woes: a warrior goddess brought him aid. And though he who reigns in the swelling waters is less than Jove, him Neptune's anger pressed, me the anger of Jove. Add that the greatest part of his toils is fiction; in my woes there is no fable. At last he reached the home he had sought, and gained, after all, the fields he had long sought: but I must forever be deprived of my native earth, unless the anger of the wronged god grow softer.

Not so dearly was Lyde loved by the Clarian poet, nor so dearly Bittis loved by her Coan, as you, my wife, cling to my breast, worthy of a less wretched husband, not a better one. Upon you my ruin has rested, as on a beam set beneath it: if I am still anything, all is your gift. You make it that I am not despoiled, nor stripped by those who sought the planks of my shipwreck. And as a ravening wolf, goaded by hunger and greedy for blood, seizes upon a sheepfold left unguarded, or as the devouring vulture looks about for some body that it may spy laid out beneath no earth, so someone, false to me in my bitter circumstances, would have come upon my goods, had you allowed it. Your courage, through brave friends, drove him off, to whom no worthy thanks can be returned. Therefore he proves it, by a witness as wretched as true, if only such a witness has any weight. Neither Hector's wife is before you in uprightness, nor Laodamia, companion of her husband in death. Had you been allotted the Maeonian bard, the fame of Penelope would be second to yours: whether you owe this to yourself, made loyal with no teacher, and your character was given you with the new light, or whether the woman who is first, honored by you through all the years, teaches you to be the example of a good wife, and has made you like herself by long acquaintance, if it is allowed to liken small things to great— alas for me, that my poems have no great strength, and that my words are too small for your deserts!— and that, if there was once any living vigor in me, it is all quenched, fallen beneath my long woes!— otherwise you would hold first place among the holy heroines, first would you be seen for the goodness of your soul. Yet, however far my praises shall avail, you shall live in my poems for all time.

Whoever you are who have features like mine in a portrait, take the ivy, Bacchus' garlands, from my hair. Those fortunate emblems become happy poets: a crown is not fit for times like mine. Conceal this from yourself, yet feel it spoken, best of men, you who turn and return me upon your finger, and, clasping my likeness in tawny gold, look upon the dear face, such as you may, of the banished. As often as you gaze on it, the thought may come to you to say, 'How far from us is Naso, my comrade!' Your devotion is welcome, but my poems are the greater image of me, which I bid you read, such as they are, poems that tell of the changed shapes of men, a work that the master's unhappy flight broke off. These, as I departed, like many of my things, I myself, in sorrow, laid with my own hand upon the fire. And as the Thestian, they tell, burned her son in the brand, and was a better sister than a mother, so I laid the undeserving little books, doomed to perish with me, my own flesh, upon the swift pyre: whether because I hated the Muses, as my own crimes, or because the poem was still growing and unfinished. And since these were not utterly destroyed, but survive— I think they were written out in many copies— now I pray that they may live, and that they may delight the reader's not idle leisure, and remind him of me. Yet they will not be read with patience by anyone who does not know that the final hand is missing from them. That work was taken from the midst of the anvils, and the last file was wanting to my writings. And I ask pardon in place of praise: I am praised enough if I am not scorned by you, reader. These six verses too, if you think they should be set at the very front of the little book, take them. "Whoever you are who touch these rolls bereft of their parent, to these at least let a place be given in your city. And that you may favor them the more, these were not published by him, but snatched, as it were, from their master's funeral. Whatever fault, therefore, this rough poem shall have, I would have amended, had it been allowed."

Into their own springs shall the deep rivers glide back from the sea, and the Sun, with horses reversed, shall run backward: the earth shall bear stars, the sky be cleft by the plow, the wave shall give flames, and fire give water, all things shall go contrary to the laws of nature, and no part of the world shall keep its own course, all things shall now happen which I denied could happen, and there is nothing in which faith should not be placed. This I prophesy, because I am deceived by him whom I thought would bring aid to me, wretched. Did so great a forgetfulness of me seize you, false one, and was it so great a fear to approach me, afflicted, that you neither looked back nor consoled me, fallen, hard man, nor followed my funeral train? Does that holy and venerable name of friendship lie for you a thing of no worth, beneath your feet? What was it to visit a comrade laid low by a vast weight, and lighten him in part with your words, and, if not to let fall a tear over my misfortunes, yet to bear a few words of feigned grief, and at least to say—what even strangers do— and follow the voice of the people and the public talk— finally, to behold my mournful face, never to be seen again, while you might on that last day, and to hear, once and never more in all your life, the word that had to be said, and return it with an equal "farewell"? But others did, joined to me by no bond, and gave the tears that are the tokens of their hearts. What, if I had not been joined to you by companionship and strong ties and the love of a long time? What, if you had not known so many of my jests and so many of my cares, and I myself had not known so many of your jests and cares? What, if you had been known to me only at Rome, admitted so often into every kind of place? Have all these things gone vain into the sea-winds? Are all sunk and borne off in the waters of Lethe? I do not think you were born in the peaceful city of Quirinus, the city my foot may now no longer approach, but among the crags which the leftward Pontus holds here, and on the wild ridges of Scythia and Sarmatia: veins of flint are round your heart, and your hard breast holds the seeds of iron, and the nurse who once gave you, to draw with tender palate, her full breasts, was a tigress: or you would think my woes less alien than now you do, and I would not arraign you as guilty of hardness. But since this too is added to my fated losses, that my first days lack their proper measures, make me not remember this offense, and let me praise your service with the very lips with which I now complain.

May it be granted you to reach the goal of life unhindered, you who read this work of mine without enmity. And would that my prayers could avail for you, which for me did not touch the hard gods! While you are unharmed, you will count many friends: if the times grow cloudy, you will be alone. You see how the doves come to white roofs, how the dingy tower receives no birds. The ants never make for empty granaries: no friend will come to wealth that is lost. And as the shadow accompanies those who walk in the sun's rays, but flees when he hides, pressed by clouds, so the fickle crowd follows the lights of Fortune: when these are covered, night drawn over them, it departs. I pray that these things may always seem false to you; yet by my own case they must be confessed true. While I stood, my house, known indeed but not ambitious, had crowd enough, but as soon as it was struck, all feared its ruin, and warily turned their backs in common flight. I do not wonder that they fear the savage thunderbolts, by whose fires whatever is nearest is wont to be scorched, yet Caesar approves a friend who remains in hard times, however hateful the foe, nor is he wont to be angry—for none is more moderate— when one, in adversity, still loves what he loved. When Thoas had learned of the comrade of Argive Orestes, he himself, they tell, approved of Pylades. The loyalty that was ever between the son of Actor and great Achilles was wont to be praised by the lips of Hector. That loyal Theseus went as a comrade to the shades with his friend, they say the god of Tartarus grieved. When the loyalty of Euryalus and Nisus was told to you, Turnus, it is credible that your cheeks were wet with tears. There is loyalty even in the wretched, and it is approved in a foe— alas for me, how few these words of mine move! Such is my state, such now is the fortune of my affairs, that there should be no measure to my tears, yet my breast, though most saddened by its own fall, has been made serene by your advancement. This I saw would come, dearest one, even then, when a fairer wind still bore your ship along, whether there is some price in character or in a life free from stain, no one was to be bought for more: or whether one has lifted his head through the noble arts— any cause is made good by your eloquence. Stirred by these things, I said to you at once yourself, "A great stage awaits your gifts, my friend." This was told me not by the entrails of sheep or the thunder on the left, nor by the cry or wing of a watched bird: reason is my augury, and conjecture of the future: by this I divined and gained my knowledge. And since it is true, with all my heart I congratulate you and myself that your talent did not lie hidden. But would that mine had lain hidden in deepest darkness! It had profited my pursuit that the light were absent. And as the stern arts profit you, eloquent one, so unlike arts have harmed me. Yet my life is known to you. You know that from those arts their author kept his own conduct apart. You know this poem was an old sport of my youth, and that those jests, though not to be praised, were yet but jests. Therefore, as I think my crimes can be defended by no color, so I think they can be excused. Excuse them as you can, and do not forsake your friend's cause: as you have well begun, so may you ever go on well.

I have, and may I keep, I pray, the guardianship of yellow-haired Minerva, and my ship has its name from the painted helmet. Whether there is need of sails, she runs well to the lightest breeze, or whether of the oar, she makes her way by the rower. Not content to outrun her fellows in winged course, she overtakes the ships that have set out however far before, and bears alike the waves and the seas leaping far, nor, conquered, does she grow waterlogged by the savage waters. She, first known to me at Cenchreae of Corinth, remains faithful, leader and companion of my fearful flight, and through so many chances and seas stirred by hostile winds, was kept safe by the power of Pallas. Now too, I pray, may she safely cut the mouths of the vast Pontus, and enter the waters of the Getic shore that she seeks. When she had brought me down to the sea of Aeolian Helle, and made the long journey by a narrow track, we bent our course to the left, and from the city of Hector we came to your harbors, land of Imbros. Thence, with a light wind reaching the Zerynthian shores, the weary keel touched Thracian Samos. From here it is a short leap to Tempyra for one bound across: thus far did she follow her master. For it pleased me to traverse the Bistonian plains on foot: she retraced the Hellespontine waters and made for Dardania, which bears its founder's name, and you, Lampsacus, kept safe by the rustic god, and the strait which, where the maiden was ill carried across the narrow waves, separates Sestos from the Abydene city, and Cyzicus, clinging to the Propontine shores, Cyzicus, the noble work of the Haemonian race, and the Byzantine shores that hold the jaws of Pontus: this is the vast gateway of the twin sea. These, I pray, may she overcome, and, driven by strong south winds, may she briskly pass the shifting Cyanean rocks and the Thynian gulfs, and from these by Apollo's city direct her course beneath the close walls of Anchialus. Thence may she pass the Mesembrian harbors and Odessus and the citadels named with your name, Bacchus, and those whom they say, sprung from the walls of Alcathous, set up their household gods as fugitives in these abodes, from whom may she come safe to the Milesian city, where the wrath of an offended god has carried me. If these things befall, a lamb shall fall for deserving Minerva: a greater victim does not suit my means. You too, sons of Tyndareus, brothers whom this island honors, I pray, be present, gentle powers, to the twofold way! For one of our ships prepares to go through the narrow Symplegades, the other to cleave the Bistonian waters. Grant that, when we seek diverse places, the one may have her winds, and no less the other hers.

Every letter you have read in this whole little book was made by me in the anxious time of my journey. Either the Adriatic saw me writing these, amid its waters, while I shivered in the cold month of December, or, after I had crossed by my course the twin-sea Isthmus, and a second keel was taken for my flight, that I made verses amid the wild murmurs of the sea, I think the Aegean Cyclades stood amazed. I myself now marvel that, amid such tumults of mind and sea, my talent did not fail. Whether numbness or madness is the name for this pursuit, by this care all my care is lightened. Often I was tossed in doubt by the stormy Kids, often the sea was threatening with the star of Sterope, and the Guardian of the Atlantean Bear darkened the day, or the South Wind had drained the Hyades of their late rains, often the sea was within the ship, yet I myself drew out my poems, such as they are, with trembling hand. Now too the rigging shrieks, taut with the North Wind, and the hollowed water rises in the shape of a mound. The helmsman himself, lifting his palms to the stars, forgetful of his skill, demands aid with prayers. Wherever I look, there is nothing but the image of death, which with doubtful mind I fear, and fearing, pray for. Should I reach harbor, I shall be terrified by the harbor itself: the hostile land holds more of fear than the water. For I labor at once under the snares of men and of the sea, and the sword and the wave make my twin terrors. The one I dread will hope for plunder from my blood, the other will wish to have the glory of my death. The leftward part is barbarous, and used to greedy plunder, which gore and slaughter and wars ever hold, and though the sea is stirred by the wintry waves, their breasts are more troubled than the sea itself. So much the more should you forgive these poems, candid reader, if they are, as they are, below your hope. These I did not write, as once, in my gardens, nor, accustomed couch, do you hold my body. I am tossed in the untamed deep on a winter's day, and the very page is struck by the dark-blue waters. The cruel storm fights and is indignant that I dare to write while it shakes its rigid threats. Let the storm conquer the man! But at the same time, I beg, let me set an end to my song, and it to its own.