Book 3

If there shall be faults in my little books, as there will be, hold them, reader, excused by their time. I was an exile, and rest, not fame, was my aim, that my mind might not be ever fixed on its own ills. This is why even the digger, bound in his fetters, sings, when he softens his heavy toil with an untrained measure. He sings too, leaning forward on the muddy sand, who drags the slow boat against the stream; and he who brings the pliant oars together to his breast, beats the water with his arms in time as the water is struck. When the weary shepherd has leaned upon his staff or sat upon a rock, he soothes his sheep with a reed-pipe's song. Singing alike, alike drawing out her allotted task, the slave-girl's labor is beguiled and cheated. Sad Achilles too, they tell, when Lyrnesis was taken from him, eased his cares with the Haemonian lyre. When Orpheus drew the woods and hard rocks by singing, he was mourning his twice-lost wife. Me too the Muse comforts as I seek the appointed lands of Pontus. She alone has stood firm, the companion of my flight; she alone fears neither ambush, nor the Sintian soldier's sword, nor sea, nor winds, nor barbarism. She knows too, when I perished, what error deceived me, and that there was fault in my deed, not crime, just for this reason now kind, that she harmed me before, when she was arraigned as defendant of a crime joined with me. I would not indeed, since they were to harm me, have laid my hand on the rites of the Muses, but now what am I to do? The very power of those rites holds me, and, mad, I love the poetry by which I was wounded. So the lotus, new-tasted by the Dulichian palate, was pleasant in the very flavor by which it harmed. The lover for the most part feels his loss, yet clings to it, and pursues the matter of his own fault. I too am delighted by the little books, though they harmed me, and I love the weapon that made my wounds. Perhaps this pursuit may seem to be madness, yet this madness has something of usefulness: it ever forbids the mind to be fixed in the sight of its ills, and makes it forgetful of present misfortune. And as the Bacchant, wounded, feels not her own wound, while she is rapt, screaming to the Idaean measures, so when my breast grows warm, stirred by the green thyrsus, that spirit is higher than human woe. It feels not the exile, nor the shores of the Scythian sea, it feels not that the gods are angry. And as if I drank the cups of sleep-bringing Lethe, so the sense of the adverse time is absent from me. Rightly therefore I revere the goddesses who lighten my ills, companions of an anxious flight from Helicon, who deigned to follow my steps, part by sea, part by land, whether by ship or on foot, be these at least, I pray, kind to me! For the rest of the gods' throng sides with great Caesar, and heap me with as many woes as the shore has sands, and as many fish, and fishes' spawn, as the sea has, sooner shall you number the flowers in spring, the ears of grain in summer, the apples in autumn, and the snows in the cold, than the ills which, tossed over the whole world, I suffer, while, wretched, I make for the leftward shores of the Euxine. Yet, since I came, the fortune of my woes is no lighter: hither too my fates have followed my ways. Here too I recognize the threads of my birth, threads made for me from a black fleece. And, not to tell of snares and perils of my life, true indeed, but graver than belief in the true, how wretched it is to live among the Bessi and the Getae, for one who was ever rushing in the people's mouth! How wretched, to guard one's life by gate and wall, and scarce to be safe by the strength of one's own place! As a youth I shunned the harsh contests of soldiery, nor handled arms save in sport; now, an old man, I gird my side with sword, my left arm with shield, and set the helmet upon my gray hairs. For when the watchman from the lookout has given the signal of alarm, straightway we don our arms with trembling hand. The foe, holding bows and shafts steeped in venom, savage, circles the walls on his panting horse, and as a ravening wolf carries off and drags the sheep that has not sheltered in the fold, through fields, through woods, so, if the barbarian foe has found anyone in the plains not yet received within the gates, he takes him: he either follows captive, taking the chains cast on his neck, or perishes by the venom-bearing weapon. Here I, a new dweller, hide in an anxious abode. Alas, the time of my fate is far too long! And yet my Muse, a stranger amid such great ills, holds out, that I may return to the numbers and the old rites, but there is no one to whom I may recite my poems, nor who may take in Latin words with his ears. For myself—for what am I to do?—I write and read, and my writing is safe in its own judgment. Yet often I have said, "For whom does this care now labor? Or will the Sauromatae and Getae read my writings?" Often too tears were shed as I wrote, and the letter was made wet by my weeping, and my heart feels its old wounds as though new, and the rain of sad water glides into my bosom, when, by the turn of fate, I recall what I am and was, and it comes to mind where chance has borne me, and whence. Often, mad, my hand, angry at my pursuits and itself, cast my poems into the fire to burn, and so, since of many not many remain, make it, whoever you are, that you read them with indulgence. And you, Rome, forbidden to me, look kindly upon my song, no better than my times, as the good.

Now savage Germany, like the whole world, can have bent the knee, conquered, to the Caesars, and the high Palatine may perhaps be veiled with garlands, and incense sound in the fire and discolor the day, and the white victim, struck on the neck by the drawn axe, may beat the ground with its crimson blood, and both the victorious Caesars prepare to render to the temples the gifts of friends promised to the gods, and the youths who grow up under Caesar's name, that that house may rule the lands forever, and Livia with the good brides give to the deserving gods gifts for her son's safety, often to give them, and the matrons together, and those who without stain guard the chaste hearths with perpetual virginity; let the pious commons and the senate with the pious commons rejoice, of which I, a knight, was lately a small part. Me, far expelled, the common joys escape, and the news comes, from so far off, only small, so all the people will be able to behold the triumphs, and read the captured towns with the leaders' titles, and see the kings bearing chains on their captive necks go before the garlanded horses, and discern the faces of some turned to suit the time, of others terrible and unmindful of themselves, of whom one part will ask the causes and the affairs and the names, another will tell, though it knows too little. "This man, who shines aloft in Sidonian purple, was the leader of the war, that one next to the leader. This one, who now fixes his pitiable eyes on the ground, had not that face when he bore arms. That one, fierce and still burning with hostile eyes, was the urger of the battle and its counsel. This treacherous one shut in our men by the snare of the ground, who covers his squalid face with hanging hair. By that one, who follows, they say, captured bodies were often sacrificed to a god who refused them. This lake, these mountains, these so many forts, so many rivers were full of savage slaughter, full of gore. Drusus once earned his title in these lands, who was a good offspring, worthy of his parent. Here, with broken horns, ill-covered by the green sedge, the Rhine was discolored with his own blood. Lo, Germany too is borne with disheveled hair, and sits in mourning beneath the foot of the unconquered leader, and, offering her spirited neck to the Roman axe, bears chains in the hand with which she bore arms." Above these, Caesar, you will ride in the victor's chariot, in purple, fitly through the faces of your people, and wherever you go, you will be clapped round by the hands of your own, flowers thrown on every side covering the ways. Your brows will be girt with Phoebean laurel, and "io, io, great triumph!" the soldier will sing with mighty voice, you yourself, amid the sound and applause and roar together, will often see the four-horse team halt. Thence you will seek the citadel and the shrines favorable to vows, and the laurel of your vow will be given to deserving Jove. These things, banished, I shall behold with the only mind I can: that has the right of the place taken from me; it ranges free over the boundless lands, it reaches the sky by a swift way, it leads my eyes into the midst of the city, and does not let them be free of so great a good; and the mind finds a place from which to view the ivory cars; so at least for a brief time I shall be in my country. Yet the happy people will catch the true spectacle, and the throng will be glad, present with its leader. But I must take in this fruit only by imagining, and with ears far removed, and, sent into a world far from Latium, there will scarce be one to tell me, eager, of those things. He too will tell of an already late and old triumph: yet at whatever time I hear it, I shall be glad. That day will come on which I lay aside my mourning, and the public cause will be greater than my private one.

Greater and Lesser Bears, of whom one rules the Greek, the other the Sidonian ships, both ever dry, since, set on the highest pole, you behold all things, and do not sink beneath the western waters, and your circle, girding with its embrace the airy citadel, stands clear of the untouched ground, look, I pray, on those walls which once, they say, Remus, son of Ilia, ill-fatedly leaped across, and turn your shining faces to my mistress, and tell me whether she is mindful of me or not. Alas, why do I fear? I ask what is plain. Why does my hope lie mixed with doubtful dread? Believe what is, and what you wish, and cease to fear safe things, and let your faith be sure of a sure fidelity, and what the fires fixed in the pole cannot tell you, tell yourself with a voice that will not lie, that she is mindful of you, for whom you have the greatest care, and that she keeps, as she can, your name with her. She clings to your features as if you were present, and, though removed far off, loves you, if only she lives. And when your sick mind has lain down to its just grief, does gentle sleep depart from your warned heart? Then do cares come on, while bed and place touch you, and do not let you be forgetful of me, and does the fever come, and does the night seem endless, and do the weary bones of your tossed body ache? I do not doubt that these and other things befall, and that your love gives signs of sad grief, nor are you tormented less than when the Theban woman saw bloody Hector dragged from the Thessalian car. Yet what to pray for myself I doubt, nor can I say what feeling of mind I would have you hold. Are you sad? I am indignant that I am the cause of your grief; are you not? Yet you would be worthy of a husband, if you had lost one. But do you grieve your losses, most gentle wife, and pass a sad time amid my ills, weep for my misfortunes: there is a certain pleasure in weeping; grief is filled and discharged by tears, and would that you had to mourn not my life, but my death, and that you were left alone by my death! This breath would have gone out through you into my native air, pious tears would have sprinkled my breast, and on the last day, as my eyes gazed on the familiar sky, your fingers would have closed them, and my ash, laid in my ancestral tomb, would have rested, and the earth I touched at birth would hold my body; finally, as I lived, I should have died without reproach. Now my life is shamed by its own punishment. Wretched me, if you, when called the wife of an exile, turn away your face and a blush comes to your cheeks! Wretched me, if you think it shameful to be seen married to me! Wretched me, if now you are ashamed to be mine! Where is that time when you used to boast of your husband, and not to hide the name of your spouse? Where is the time when—unless you do not wish those things recalled— it pleased you, I remember, both to be called and to be mine? And, as is worthy of a good woman, I pleased you with every gift: your favoring love added much to the true. Nor was there another man whom you would prefer—so great did I seem to you— or whom you would rather have for your own. Now too be not ashamed that you are married to me; your grief should be here, your shame should be absent, when rash Capaneus fell by a sudden stroke, do you read that Evadne blushed for her husband? Nor, because the king of the world checked fires with fires, was Phaethon himself therefore to be denied. Nor was Semele estranged from Cadmus, her father, because she perished, ambitious, by her own prayers. Nor let it bring a crimson blush to your soft face that I am struck by the savage fires of Jove. But rather rise to the care of guarding me, and be to me the example of a good wife, and fill the sad matter with your virtues: glory goes by a steep and headlong path. Who would know Hector, had Troy been happy? The public way of virtue lies through ills. Your art, Tiphys, lies idle, if there is no wave on the sea: if men are well, your art, Phoebus, lies idle. Virtue, which lies hidden and rests unknown in good fortune, appears and is proved by ills. My fortune gives you place for a title, and your devotion has whereby to lift its head conspicuous. Use the times, of whose gift it is now made, and a wide field lies open for your praises.

O you who, though noble by the names of your ancestors, surpass your stock by the nobility of your character, in whose mind is the image of your father's candor, yet so that that candor lacks not its own sinews, in whose genius is the eloquence of your country's tongue, than which there was none before in the Latin forum— because I least wished it, you have been named by tokens set in place of your name: forgive your own praises. I have done no wrong; your known virtues betray you; if you appear what you are, my fault is dissolved. Nor do I think the service done you by my poem can harm you, the prince being so just. The father of his country himself—for what is more gracious than he?— suffers to be read often in my poem, nor can he forbid it, for Caesar is a public thing, and of the common good my part too is a portion. Jupiter grants his divine power to the genius of poets, and lets himself be celebrated by any mouth, your cause is safe by the example of two of the gods, of whom one is seen, the other believed a god. Though I ought not to have, yet I shall bear this charge: it was not in your choice that my letter was sent. Nor is it a new wrong of mine that I speak with you, with whom, when unharmed, I often spoke. That you may the less fear lest I, your friend, be a charge to you, the author can bear the odium, if any there be, for your father was ever cultivated by me from my earliest years— do not, surely, dissemble this— and he approved my genius—you can remember this— even more than I, the judge, deserved; and he spoke of my verses with the mouth in which there was a part of his great nobility. Therefore it is not now, because that house received me, but earlier, that words were given to your father. Nor were they given, believe me, yet: but in all my deeds, if you take away the last, my life is to be defended. This fault too, by which I perished, you will deny to be a crime, if so great a part of the ill were known to you. Either fear or error harmed me, error harmed me first. Ah, let me not remember my fate; nor, by handling them, let me break the wounds not yet closing: scarce will rest itself profit them. Therefore, as I justly pay the penalty, so all crime and design were absent from my offense; and the god feels this; for which neither was my light taken away, nor does another possess the wealth not stripped from me. Perhaps he will one day end this very flight—if only I live— when his anger, with time, shall be milder. Now I pray that he bid me depart hence to another place, if my prayers lack not modest shame, I wish a milder exile and a little nearer, and a place farther from the savage foe; and so great is the mercy in Augustus, that if anyone should ask him this for me, perhaps he would grant it. The cold shores of the Euxine Pontus hold me: it was called Axenus, the inhospitable, by the ancients. For neither are its waters tossed by moderate winds, nor does the foreign ship approach its peaceful harbors. Around are tribes that seek their plunder by blood; nor is the land less feared than the faithless water. Those whom you hear rejoice in human gore lie almost under the axis of the same star, nor is the place far from us where the Tauric altar of the quivered goddess is sprinkled with dire slaughter. This realm, before, as they tell, was not to be envied by the wicked nor desired by the good, the realm of Thoas. Here the Pelopean maid, in place of a substituted hind, tended the rites of her goddess, such as they were. Whither afterward—doubtful whether pious or wicked—Orestes, driven by his own Furies, had himself come, and his comrade, the Phocian, example of true love, who were two in body, one in mind, straightway they were bound and led to the grim altar, which stood, bloody, before the twin doors. Yet neither did his own death terrify the one, nor his the other; each was sad for the other's death. And now the priestess had stood with drawn blade, and the barbarian fillet had girded the Greek hair, when by the turn of speech she knew her brother, and to him Iphigenia gave embraces in place of death, and gladly, hating the cruel rites, she carried off the goddess's image from those places to better ones. This region, then, almost the last of the great world, which men and gods flee, is near to me: and near my land are the funereal rites, if indeed a barbarian land is Naso's own. O would that the winds by which Orestes was borne away might bring back my sails too, the god appeased!

O you the first part among my beloved comrades, the one altar found for my fortunes, by whose words this dying soul revived, as the watchful flame is wont with Pallas' oil poured on; who feared not to open faithful harbors, a refuge for the ship struck by the thunderbolt; by whose wealth I should not have felt myself in want, had Caesar snatched away my father's means. While the impulse of this moment carries me, forgetful of the time, alas, how nearly your name escaped me! Yet you recognize yourself, and, touched by the desire of praise, you would wish to be able to say openly, "It is I," surely I, if you allowed it, would give you the title, and win for your fame a rare credence. I fear to harm you, grateful one, by my poem, lest the untimely honor of a name stand in your way, what is allowed—and is safe—rejoice within your breast, that I was mindful of you and that you were loyal, and, as you do, strive at the oar to bring aid, till a gentler breeze come with the god appeased; and guard a life saveable by none, unless he who sank it raise it from the Stygian water; and show yourself constantly—which is rare—to every service of unswerving friendship. So may your fortune have perennial advances, so may you not yourself need help, and may you aid your own, so may your wife equal her husband in perennial goodness, and may no quarrel fall upon your bed; and may the partner of your blood ever love you with that affection with which a pious brother loves Castor; so may your son be a youth and like you, and may anyone recognize him to be yours by his character; so may your daughter make you a father-in-law by the marriage torch, and give you, while still young, the name of grandfather.

The bond of our friendship, dearest one, you neither wish, nor, should you wish it, can you dissemble, for, while it was allowed, neither was another dearer to me than you, nor was anyone in the whole city more joined to you than I, and that love was so witnessed to the people, that it was almost more known than you, and than I, were; and the candor of your mind toward your dear friends— those things are known to the very man you cherish. You hid nothing so that I was not privy to it, and gave many things to my breast to keep concealed: and to whom I told whatever secret I had, except that which ruined me, you were the only one. Had you known that too, you would enjoy your comrade safe, and by your counsel, my friend, I should be unharmed. But my fates were dragging me, surely, to my punishment: they close every road of useful good. Whether I could have shunned this ill by caution, or whether no reason avails to conquer fate, yet you, O most joined to me by long intimacy, almost the greatest part of my longing, be mindful, and if your favor has made you any strength, try those powers for me, I beg, that the anger of the wronged power may be made milder, and my punishment less by a changed place, and so, if there is no crime in my breast, and the beginning of my offense lies in error. It is neither brief nor safe to tell by what chance my eyes were made privy to the deadly ill; and my mind shrinks back, as from its own wounds, from that time, and at the reminder shame itself is renewed, and whatever things can bring such shame, it is fitting they be hidden, buried in blind night, nothing, then, will I tell but that I sinned, but by that sin no rewards were sought by me, and that my crime should be called folly, if you wish to give true names to the deed. If these things are not so, seek another, farther from which I may be; this place is a suburb to me here.

Go, hastily written letter, to greet Perilla, faithful minister of my speech. You will find her either sitting with her sweet mother, or among her books and her own Muses. Whatever she is doing, she will leave it when she knows you have come, nor delay to ask why you come, or what I do. You will say that I live, but so that I would not wish to live, and that my ills are not lightened by so long a time, and yet that I have returned to the Muses, though they harmed me, and force fit words into alternating measures. And do you say too, "Do you still cling to our common pursuits, and sing learned poems, not in your father's manner? For Nature, with the fates, gave you chaste morals and rare gifts and genius. This I first led to the Pegasid waters, lest the vein of fertile water perish ill; I first saw it in your tender maiden years, and was, as a father to his daughter, your guide and companion. Therefore, if the same fires remain in your breast, the Lesbian poetess alone shall surpass your work. But I fear lest my fortune now hold you back, and after my misfortunes your heart be idle. While it was allowed, I often read yours to me, mine to you; often I was your judge, often your master: either I gave my ears to verses just made, or, where you flagged, I was the cause of your blushing. Perhaps by my example, because the little books harmed me, you too may have followed the fate of my punishment. Lay aside, Perilla, your fear; only let no woman nor man learn to love from your writings. Therefore, most learned, remove the causes of your idleness, and return to the good arts and your sacred rites. That fair face will be marred by the long years, and a senile wrinkle will be on your once youthful brow, and ruinous old age, which comes with a step that makes no sound, will lay its hand upon your beauty; and when someone says, 'She was beautiful,' you will grieve, and complain that your mirror lies. Your means are modest, though you are most worthy of great ones: but suppose them equal to boundless wealth, surely Fortune gives whatever she pleases, and snatches it, and he is suddenly Irus who was lately Croesus. Not to tell each thing, we hold nothing immortal save the good things of heart and mind. Lo, I, who lack country and you and home, and from whom is snatched whatever could be taken from me, yet I myself company with and enjoy my own genius: in this Caesar could have no right. Let anyone end this life of mine with a savage sword, yet, when I am dead, my fame will survive, and while martial Rome, victorious, surveys from her hills the whole conquered world, I shall be read. You too, whom may a happier use of study await, flee, as you can, the coming pyres while you may!"

Now I could wish to stand on the chariot of Triptolemus, who sent the rude seed into the unknown soil; now I would wish to rein the dragons of Medea, which she had as she fled from your citadel, Corinth; now I would long to take up wings to ply, either yours, Perseus, or, Daedalus, yours: that, the tender air yielding to my flights, I might suddenly behold the sweet soil of my country, and the face of my deserted home, and my mindful comrades, and especially the dear face of my wife. Fool, why do you vainly wish these things with childish vows, which no day brings or will bring you? If you must wish once, adore the divine power of Augustus, and rightly pray to the god you have felt. He can give you wings and winged cars: let him grant return, and at once you are winged. If I should pray for this—for I can ask no greater— I fear my vows are too little modest. Perhaps one day, when he has already sated his anger, even then he must be asked with anxious mind. What is less, meanwhile, I count for the likeness of an ample gift: that he bid me go from here to any place. Neither sky nor waters nor land nor air agree with me; alas for me, a lasting languor holds my body! Whether the contagions of a sick mind taint my limbs, or the cause of my ill is in the region, since I touched Pontus, sleeplessness vexes me, and scarce does leanness cover my bones, nor does food please my mouth; and the color that is in the leaves through autumn, struck by the first cold, which the new winter has harmed, that holds my limbs, nor am I relieved by any strength, and the cause of querulous pain is never absent. Nor am I better in mind than in body, but each part is sick alike, and I bear a twofold loss. There clings before my eyes, like a body to be seen, the form of my fortune, standing to be read: and when I behold the place, the manners of men, their dress, their tongue, and it comes to mind who I am and who I was, so great is my love of death that I complain of Caesar's anger that he does not avenge his wrongs with the sword. But since he has once used hatred in a civil way, let my flight be lighter by a changed place.

Here too, then, are Greek cities—who would believe it?— amid the names of inhuman barbarism; hither too came settlers sent from Miletus, and set up Greek homes among the Getae. But the place has an older name, more ancient than the city's founding, which is agreed to have come from the slaying of Absyrtus. For in the ship which was made by the care of warlike Minerva, the first to run through untried waters, impious Medea, fleeing her deserted father, is said to have plied her oars to these shallows. When the watchman from a high mound saw it afar, "A stranger comes," he said, "I know the sails of Colchis." While the Minyae tremble, while the rope is loosed from the bank, while the anchor follows the swift hands as it is dragged up, the Colchian smote her breast, conscious of her deserts, having dared, and yet to dare, many impious deeds with her hand; and, though great daring remains in her mind, pallor was on the face of the thunderstruck maiden. Therefore, when she saw the approaching sails, "We are caught," she said, "and my father must be delayed by some trick." While she seeks what to do, while she turns her face to all things, by chance she turned her bent eyes to her brother. And when his presence was noted, "We have conquered," she said: "this one shall by his death be the cause of my safety." Straightway she pierces with rigid sword the innocent side of the boy, unknowing and fearing no such thing, and so tears him apart, and scatters the torn limbs through the fields, to be found in many places, and, lest her father not know, she sets on a high crag the pale hands and the bloody head, that the father, delayed by the new grief, and while he gathers the slain limbs, might tarry on the sad journey. Hence this place was called Tomis, because they say in it the sister cut up the limbs of her brother.

If anyone there still remembers Naso, taken away, and my name survives without me in the city, let him know that, set beneath the stars that never touch the sea, I live in the midst of barbarism. The Sauromatae, a wild race, the Bessi and Getae surround me— how unworthy names of my genius! Yet while the air is warm, we are defended by the Hister between: he, flowing, repels war with his waters, but when grim winter has put forth her squalid face, and the earth is made white with marble frost, when Boreas and the snow forbid one to dwell beneath the Bear, then these tribes plainly press, the pole trembling. The snow lies, and, that the sun and rains may not dissolve it once cast, Boreas hardens it and makes it lasting. So when the first has not yet melted, another comes, and in many places it is wont to remain two years; and so great is the force of roused Aquilo, that he levels high towers with the ground, and bears off the roofs he tears away. With skins and stitched breeches they keep off the cruel cold, and of the whole body only the face is exposed. Often the hair tinkles, stirred, with the hanging ice, and the white beard shines with the frost laid on it; and wines stand bare, keeping the shape of the jar, nor do they drink draughts of wine, but pieces given them. Why should I tell how the streams, bound, freeze with cold, and brittle waters are dug out of the pool? The Hister itself, no narrower than the papyrus-bearing river, which mingles with the vast sea through many mouths, freezes its blue waters as the winds harden them, and creeps into the sea with its waters roofed over; and where ships had gone, men now go on foot, and the horse's hoof beats the waves congealed with cold; and over the new bridges, with the waters gliding beneath, the Sarmatian oxen draw the barbarian wagons. I shall scarce be believed, indeed, but, since there are no prizes for falsehood, a witness ought to win sure credence: I have seen the vast sea stand still with ice, and a slippery crust pressed the motionless waters. Nor is it enough to have seen; I have trodden the hard sea, and the surface of the wave was under a foot not wet. Had you once had such a strait, Leander, your death would not be the crime of the narrow water. Then neither can the curved dolphins lift themselves into the air; the harsh winter checks them as they try; and though Boreas roar with beaten wings, there will be no wave in the besieged gulf; and the ships, shut in by frost, will stand in the marble, nor will the oar be able to cleave the rigid waters. I have seen fish held fast, bound in the ice, yet a part of them then too was alive. Whether, then, the savage force of too great Boreas freezes the waters of the sea, or those swollen by the river, straightway, the Hister leveled by the dry Aquilos, the barbarian foe rides in on his swift horse; the foe, strong in horse and in the far-flying arrow, lays waste the neighboring land far and wide. Some flee, and, with none guarding the fields, the unwatched wealth is plundered, the small wealth of the country, cattle and creaking wagons, and what riches the poor dweller has. Part are driven captive, their arms bound behind their backs, looking back in vain at their fields and homes: part fall, wretchedly pierced with barbed arrows, for there is a stained venom in the winged iron. What they cannot carry off or lead away, they destroy, and the enemy flame burns the innocent huts. Even when there is peace, they tremble with the dread of war, nor does anyone cleave the ground with pressed plowshare, this place either sees or fears the foe it does not see; the earth, abandoned, lies idle in rigid neglect. Here no sweet grape lurks under the vine's shade, nor do the boiling musts heap the deep vats. The region denies fruit, nor would Acontius have here whereon to write words for his mistress to read. You would see bare fields, without leaf, without tree. Alas, places not to be approached by a happy man! So, when the vast world lies open so far and wide, this is the land found out for my punishment!

If you are anyone, base man, who insults my misfortunes, and, bloodthirsty, drives me on as a defendant without end, you were born of crags and fed on the milk of a beast, and I shall say that your breast holds flint. What further step remains, to which your anger may reach? Or what do you see lacking to my ills? A barbarian land and the inhospitable shores of Pontus, and the Maenalian Bear with her Boreas, behold me. I have no commerce of tongue with the savage race: all places are full of anxious fear. And as the timid stag, caught by greedy bears, or as the lamb hemmed in by mountain wolves trembles, so I, fenced about on every side by warlike tribes, am terrified, the foe almost pressing my side. And though it were a small punishment that I lack my dear wife, that I lack my country and my pledges of love: though I bear no ill but Caesar's bare anger, is Caesar's bare anger too little ill for me? And yet there is someone who reopens my raw wounds, and loosens his eloquent mouth against my character. In an easy cause anyone may be eloquent, and the least force avails to break what is shattered: it is valor to overthrow citadels and standing walls; any coward presses what is already fallen. I am not what I was; why do you trample an empty shade? Why do you assail my ashes and tomb with stones? Hector was Hector when he warred; but the same was not Hector when bound to the Haemonian horses. Remember that I too, whom you once knew, am not: of that man these phantoms survive. Why, fierce one, do you assail phantoms with words, lover? Spare, I beg, to trouble my shade! Suppose all my crimes true, that there be in them nothing which you would think rather error than wickedness, lo, I, a fugitive, pay the penalty—sate your breast with punishments grievous by exile and by the place of exile. My fortune might seem worthy of an executioner's tears: yet to one judge alone it is too little drowned. You are crueler than grim Busiris, crueler than him who terrified the false bull with the slow fire, and who is said to have given the bull to the Sicilian tyrant, and to have commended his arts with these words: "In this gift, king, there is use, but more in the image, nor is the form of my work alone to be approved. Do you see this side of the bull, openable on the right? Into this must be cast whoever you would destroy. Straightway burn him, shut in, with slow coals: he will bellow, and that voice will be a true bull's. For these inventions, that you may pay gift with gift, give, I beg, rewards worthy of my genius." He had spoken, but Phalaris, "Wondrous inventor of punishment, yourself, present, baptize your work," he said. Nor was there delay: cruelly burned by the fires he had shown, he gave forth from his groaning mouth twin sounds. What have I to do with Sicilians, here among Scythia and the Getae? To you, whoever you are, my complaint returns, and that you may slake your thirst with my blood, and bear as much joy as you wish in your greedy heart, I have suffered so many ills fleeing by land, so many by sea, that I think you too could grieve at hearing them, believe me, if Ulysses be compared with me, Neptune's anger was less than Jove's has been. Therefore, whoever you are, do not reopen my crimes, and take your hard hands from my grievous wound; and, that forgetfulness may thin the fame of my fault, let my deeds draw a scar; and, mindful of the human lot, which lifts the same men and presses them down, dread yourself the uncertain turns. And since—what I thought could never be— you have the greatest care for my affairs, there is no cause for you to fear. My fortune is most wretched, Caesar's anger draws every ill with it. And that this may be the plainer, lest I be thought to feign it, I myself could wish that you might try my punishments.

Now the Zephyrs lessen the cold, and, the year being ended, the Maeotic winter has seemed longer than of old, and he who bore Helle ill, set upon him, makes the times of night equal to the day, now boys and merry girls gather the violet, which springs up wild, sown by no one; and the meadows grow green with the flower of varied colors, and the chattering bird, untaught, sings in the spring; and that she may lay aside the crime of an evil mother, the swallow makes her cradle and small dwelling beneath the beams; and the herb that lurked, buried in the Cerealian furrows, comes forth and spreads its soft tip from the ground; and where there is a vine, the bud is moved from the shoot: for far from the Getic shore the vine is absent; and where there is a tree, the branch swells on the tree: for far from the Getic borders the tree is absent. There is leisure now in your land, and, with the games joined in order, the chattering wars of the wordy forum give way. There is sport now of the horse, now men play with light arms, now the ball, now the hoop is rolled in a swift circle; now, when the youth is anointed with the gliding oil, they bathe their wearied limbs in the Virgin water. The stage flourishes, and favor burns for differing pursuits, and the three theaters resound for the three forums. O four times, O how often—it cannot be numbered—blest is he to whom it is allowed to enjoy the city not forbidden! But by me the snow is felt, melted by the spring sun, and the waters which are no longer dug hard from the pool. Nor does the sea congeal with ice, nor, as before, along the Hister does the Sauromatian herdsman drive his creaking wagons. Yet some keels will begin to swim hither, and a guest ship will be on the shore of Pontus. Eagerly I shall run to the sailor, and, the greeting given, ask why he comes, and who he is, and from what places. He, indeed, it would be strange if he had not, safe, plowed only the near waters from a neighboring region. Rare is the sailor who crosses so great a sea from Italy, rare he who comes to these harborless shores, yet whether he know how to speak in the Greek or Latin tongue—surely the latter's will be the more welcome; and it is possible that someone, from the mouth of the strait and the long Propontis, has set sail hither with a steady South Wind— whoever he is, he can report a rumor with mindful voice, and become a part and a step of report. He, I pray, may be able to tell of Caesar's triumphs heard, and of vows paid to Latian Jove, and that you, rebellious Germany, at last have set your sad head beneath the feet of the great leader. He who tells me these things, which I shall grieve not to have seen, will straightway be a guest in my house. Alas for me, is Naso's house now in the Scythian world? And does my punishment give me its place for a home? Grant, you gods, that Caesar wish this to be not my inner shrine and home, but the lodging-place of my punishment.

Lo, superfluous—for what use was it to be born?— my birthday comes to its own season, hard one, why did you come to the wretched years of an exile? You ought to have set an end to them. If you had any care for me, or any shame within you, you would not have followed me beyond my country, and in the place where I, an infant, was first ill-known to you, there you would have tried to be my last, and at my leaving, what my comrades did themselves, you too would have said, sad, "Farewell," in the city. What have you to do with Pontus? Did Caesar's anger send you too to the farthest ground of the icy world? You expect, no doubt, the honor of your accustomed rite, that a white robe hang from my shoulders, that the smoking altar be girt with flowering garlands, and the grain of incense crackle in the solemn fire, and that I give cakes that fitly mark my natal time, and frame good prayers with favoring mouth. I am not so placed, nor are these the times for me, that I can be glad at your coming. A funeral altar, girt with the death-cypress, suits me, and the flame prepared on the built-up pyre. Nor does it please me to give incense that entreats the gods for nothing, nor in such great ills do good words come to me. Yet if there is anything to be sought by me on this day, I pray that you come no more to these places, while Pontus, almost the last part of the world, called Euxine by a false name, holds me.

Cultivator and holy priest of learned men, what do you, ever friend to my genius? Do you, as you used once to celebrate me unharmed, now too take heed that I may not seem wholly absent? Do you take up my poems, only the Art excepted, which harmed its own maker? Nay, do so, I beg, student of new poets, and, as you can, keep my body in the city. Flight is decreed me, not decreed to my little books, which did not deserve their master's punishment. Often a fugitive father is exiled to foreign shores, yet his children may dwell in the city. After the example of Pallas, born of no mother, my poems were created of me; this is my stock and offspring. This I commend to you, which, the more bereft of its parent, the greater burden it will be to you, its guardian. I have three children who have followed my contagion: make the rest of the throng your care openly. There are also the changed forms, fifteen rolls, poems snatched from their master's funeral. That work could have had a surer name from the finishing hand, had I not perished first myself: now, uncorrected, it has come into the people's mouths, if anything of mine is in the people's mouth at all. This too, whatever it is, add to my little books, which comes to you sent from another world. Whoever shall read it, if anyone shall read it, let him weigh first at what time and in what place it was composed. He will be fair to writings of which he has learned that their time was exile, and their place barbarism; and amid so many adversities he will marvel that any poem I had the heart to draw out with a sorrowful hand. My ills have broken my genius, whose spring even before was unfruitful and whose vein was scant. But whatever it was, with none to exercise it, it has shrunk, and, dried up, perished by long neglect. Here is no store of books to invite and feed me; in place of books, bows and arms resound, none in this land, if I recite poems, is present whose understanding ears I might use; there is no place where I may withdraw. The guard of the wall and the closed gate keep off the hostile Getae. Often I seek some word, a name, a place, nor is there anyone from whom I might be more sure. Often, attempting to say something—shameful to confess!— words fail me, and I have unlearned how to speak. The Thracian and Scythian tongue resounds almost on every side, and I seem able to write in Getic measures. Believe me, I fear lest Pontic words be mixed in with the Latin, and that you read them in my writings. Such as it is, then, deem the little book worthy of pardon, and excuse it by the condition of my lot.