ABSTRACT
Book 1 of the Amores ends with a reflection on poetic fate. Ruminating on the nature of fama and optimistically foretelling his own literary immortality, Ovid offers the (now rather clichéd) suggestion that poets’ postmortem existences are conferred by the literary reception of their works. The self-reflexive meditation of Amores 1.15 therefore equates Ovid’s physical and poetic corpora by suggesting that he will live on after death through textual diffusion: Ergo, cum silices, cum dens patientis aratri depereant aevo, carmina morte carent. cedant carminibus reges regumque triumphi, cedat et auriferi ripa benigna Tagi! vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua, sustineamque coma metuentem frigora myrtum, atque a sollicito multus amante legar! pascitur in vivis Livor; post fata quiescit, cum suus ex merito quemque tuetur honos. ergo etiam cum me supremus adederit ignis, vivam, parsque mei multa superstes erit. (1.15.31–42)
What though devouring time wear down the flint, and blunt the share of the enduring plough, yet poetry shall never die. Let kings, then, and all their train of conquests, yield to poetry, to poetry let the happy shores of the golden Tagus give place. Let the vulgar herd set their hearts on dross if they will. For myself, let Apollo bestow on me cups overflowing with the waters of Castaly; let the myrtle that dreads the cold adorn my brow and let my verses ever be scanned by the eager lover. While we [poets] live we serve as food for Envy; when we are dead we rest within the aureole of the glory we have earned. So, when the funeral fires have consumed me, I shall live on, and the better part of me will have triumphed over death.
