To AtticusnA Writer in ExilenOvid’s Epistulae Ex Ponto, //. 7nrendered by David R. SlavittnThe Roman poet, Publius Ovidius Naso, was exiled to Tomis on the Black Sea bynthe Emperor Augustus in 8 A.D.nFrom the Getan badlands, my letter comes to you with goodnwishes, Atticus. How goes life for you?nAnd I wonder how it goes for me with you—do I keepna place, still, in your heart? I ought not doubt,nbut I take nothing for granted and dread at every stepnthe treacherous footing. I pray you will indulge me. =nEven unruffled waters can scare a shipwreck survivor;na fish that has once felt the hook is warynof the bronze barb that every morsel thereafter may hide;nthe lamb, afraid of the wolf, may even fleenthe protecting sheepdog … Or better, think of a man with a woundnwho can’t help but shrink from the doctor’s touch.nIt doesn’t make any sense: one understands but can’tnhelp flinching. What’s happened to me has changed me,nmade me gun-shy, turned me jumpy, turned my mentalnlandscape ghastly. Every random shadownis quick with menace. The world has changed, turnedninimical, inhospitable, the godsnare implacable. Even Fortune, no longer fickle, has steadiednto hold me fast in her malign regard.nIt sounds implausible? Yes, I agree, it does, for the longnstring of my woes and losses breaks all rules,ndefies reason itself so that calculation is pointless,nas it is in a field of wheat, each ear, each grainna blur no eye can accommodate, no mind take in.nInstead, by the blooms in a rolling meadow of thyme,nby the birds in a wheeling flock, the fish in a gleaming school,nreckon my hurts of land and air and sea.nNowhere in all the world is there a more savage and brutishntribe than the Getans, my neighbors, but even theynare pained to hear my misfortunes, a full accounting of whichnwould run on, hypnotic, grand, my cataloguenof the ships, every one of them wrecked, foundered, sunk.nIf I fear to hear how you think of me these days,nit’s nothing you’ve done or failed to do, but only menand my terrible luck. Whatever bad can happen,nwill. And it looms. And I fear it. I cannot remembernwhat carelessness was, or joy. Grief is my habit,nmy keeper, the only mirror in which I can recognizenmy face, care-worn and scarred as a rock waternhas pock-marked so that there’s no space left for any newnblow’s bruise. I’m worn thin as an oldnnnplowshare some poor peasant leaves to his eldest son.nMy heart is an Appian Way for the wagon wheelsnand hoofs to pound with one burden after another.nIn the hope of renown, men devote their livesnto art; my gifts brought me only disgrace and ruin.nMy life was blameless — much good has that done me.nIt’s hardly a comfort to think of my unrewarded virtues.nSerious sinners are pardoned—because their friendsnhave prayed for them; my friends are all of a sudden mutes.nSome have managed to plead in their own behalf—nin order to manage that, you have to be there at the earnof power: I was away at the critical timenand could say nothing to help myself The silent displeasurenof Caesar is fearsome enough, but what he saidnof me aloud, aroused, was everywhere reported.nIt was terrible, ill luck piled upon ill luck:nthe dead of winter, storms, rough seas, and bitter cold;nno friend in sight but only a ravening hordeneager to take advantage, to profit from my misfortunes;nthe worst possible venue, the most dismal,nthe farthest from Rome, the least protected, the most barrennThe abraded soul can sometimes find some solacenin tending a garden: I look out on a barren, stonynfield, its poor stalks stunted by icynSarmatian winds and broken by hostile raiders’ horses’nhoofs that have crossed and then swept back again.nThe nervous, the near mad can take a kind of comfortnin the gentle purling of streams and the play of lightnon running water; here the rivers are dun and dullnor brackish when the tide runs. Everything stinksnor is broken, or they are fresh out of it, or they nevernheard of it . . . All I’m going on here is nerve,ncourage, more than I thought I had. I am not mad;nI hang on; I do exercise; I keepnmy chin up and my head comparatively high —nto let go even a little is to fallncompletely apart. It’s stupid, and yet I continue to hope,nimagining how one day the prince’s irenmay yet melt. To give up on that would be to give upnabsolutely. You and a few friendsnhave held fast, as I hold fast to you, believingnin your belief, without which I would drown.nOCTOBER 19881 11n