Enduring myths

Jeremy Pound delves into the world of classical poetry to explore how Ovid’s Metamorphoses has inspired a wealth of composers over the centuries

In 8 AD, the poet Ovid found himself in a bad place. Quite literally. Exiled by Emperor Augustus, he was destined to live out his final years in the Black Sea port of Tomis where, on the fringes of the Roman world, few people spoke his language. Had Ovid – or, to give him his full name, Publius Ovidius Naso – lived in our social media age, he would have doubtless leapt straight onto Twitter; as it was, he poured out his feelings of woe in two sets of verse, the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto.

In his own words, it was ‘carmen et error’ – a poem and a mistake – that had got him banished. The, his instructional guide to making love, written at the very time that Augustus was promoting wholesome living and family values. The ‘error’ may well have been something he had unwittingly seen or heard in imperial circles – serious enough to make Augustus want him as far out of the way as possible.