The Last Poems of Ovid | Page 7

fourth book of the _Ex Ponto_, he had lived in Tomis for six or more years, and it must have been clear to him that his chances of recall were slight. The result of this is a diminished use of his personal situation as a theme for his verse. Often he introduces his plight in only one or two distichs of a poem, subordinating the topic to the poem's main theme. The result of this technique can be seen in such extended passages as the descriptions of the investiture of the new consul (iv & ix), the address to Germanicus on the power of poetry (viii), or the catalogue of poets that concludes the book. In all of these passages Ovid's desire for recall is only a secondary theme.
The mixing of levels of diction
As well as variety of subject, the fourth book of the _Ex Ponto_ shows a variation in style that is typical of Ovid's letters from exile. The poems use the metre and language of elegiac verse. But at the same time they are _letters_, and are strongly influenced by the structure and vocabulary of prose epistles. This influence is naturally more obvious at some points than at others; and even within a single poem there can be a surprising degree of variation in the different sections of the poem.
Some poems tend more to one extreme than the other. The eleventh poem, a letter of commiseration to Gallio on the death of his wife, is extensively indebted to the genre of the prose letter of consolation; this prose influence is evident in such passages as:
finitumque tuum, si non ratione, dolorem?ipsa iam pridem suspicor esse mora
(13-14)
At the opposite extreme is the final poem of the book, a defence of Ovid's poetry; as this was a traditional poetic subject, the level of diction throughout the poem is extremely high, particularly in the catalogue of poets that forms the main body of the poem.
An interesting result of the mixture of styles is the presence in the poems of exile of words and expressions which belong essentially to prose, being otherwise rarely or never found in verse. Some instances from _Ex Ponto_ IV are _ad summam_ (i 15), _conuictor_ (iii 15), _abunde_ (viii 37), _ex toto_ (viii 72), _di faciant_ (ix 3), _secreto_ (ix 31), _respectu_ (ix 100), _quominus_ (xii 1), _praefrigidus_ (xii 35), and _tantummodo_ (xvi 49).
Both in subject and style the sixteen poems of _Ex Ponto_ IV show a wide variety, worthy of the creator of the _Metamorphoses_. The following section examines the special characteristics of each of the poems.
The letters to Sextus Pompeius
Sextus Pompeius is the recipient of poems i, iv, v, and xv; only Cotta Maximus and Ovid's wife have more letters from exile addressed to them. It is clear from the opening of IV i that Pompeius had himself prohibited Ovid from addressing him; and Ovid is careful to present himself as a client rather than a friend; the tone is of almost abject humility, and he shows circumspection in his requests for assistance.
In the opening of the first poem, Ovid describes how difficult it had been to prevent himself from naming Pompeius in his verse; in the climactic ten lines he declares that he is entirely Pompeius' creation. Only in the transition between the topics does he refer to future help from Pompeius, linking it with the assistance he is already providing:
nunc quoque nil subitis clementia territa fatis?auxilium uitae fertque feretque meae.
(25-26)
The fourth poem is a description of how Fama came to Ovid and told him of Pompeius' election to the consulship; Ovid then pictures the joyous scene of the accession. At the end of the poem he indirectly asks for Pompeius' assistance, praying that at some point he may remember him in exile. The device of having Fama report Pompeius' accession to the consulship serves to emphasize the importance of the event and raise the tone of the poem. Ovid had earlier used Fama as the formal addressee of _EP_ II i, which described his reaction to the news of Germanicus' triumph. In the fifth poem Ovid achieves a similar effect through the device of addressing the poem itself, giving it directions on where it will find Pompeius and what consular duties he might be performing[6]. Only in the concluding distich does Ovid direct the poem to ask for his assistance.
[Footnote 6: Ovid had used a similar technique in _Tr_ I i, where he gives his book instructions for its voyage to Rome, including directions on how it should approach Augustus.]
The fifteenth poem contains Ovid's most forceful appeal for Pompeius' assistance. It is interesting to observe the techniques Ovid uses to avoid offending Pompeius. The first part of the poem is a metaphorical description of how Ovid is as much Pompeius' property as his many