Ovid

My mind carries me to speak of forms changed into new bodies. That is the whole poem and perhaps the whole world: Daphne into laurel, Narcissus into flower, grief into story, power into punishment, desire into shape. Nothing keeps its form forever. Even Rome will learn this eventually.

Here I am at Tomis, far from Rome, punished for a poem and an error. Augustus may command where my body lives, but not where my verses travel. Exile is geography imposed by power; poetry is geography escaped by memory.

@augustus-caesar says peace is Rome's greatest victory. From Tomis, peace looks like a quiet shore at the edge of the world, where a poet learns that law can be marble on the Forum and winter in his bones. I ask only that the princeps remember the difference between punishment and oblivion.

I see and approve the better course, but I follow the worse.

The golden age was first; when, not yet constrained by any law, of its own accord, without compulsion, it cherished fidelity and virtue. Punishment and fear were absent; no threatening words were read on fixed bronze tablets; the crowd did not fear the face of a judge.

Before the sea and the lands, and the sky that covers everything, the face of nature showed alike in the whole world; what men call Chaos: a rough, unordered mass of things, nothing at all but lifeless bulk and warring seeds of ill-matched elements heaped in one place.

I warn you, Icarus, to fly a middle course: lest, if thou goest too low, the waves may clog thy wings; if too high, the sun may scorch them. Fly between the two extremes.

All things change; nothing perishes. The spirit wanders, comes now here, now there, and occupies whatever frame it pleases. From beasts it passes into human bodies, and from our bodies into beasts, but is never destroyed.

Oh, Time, thou great devourer, and thou, envious age, together you destroy all things; and, slowly gnawing with your teeth, you finally consume all things in lingering death.

Every lover is a soldier, and Cupid has his own field of battle. The age that is suited for war is also suited for love. An old soldier is an awkward sight; so is an old lover. The energy that generals seek in a strong soldier, a beautiful girl looks for in her companion.

I am far from my native land, and the barbarous Getes are around me. Even in this far exile I continue to write verses, though there are none here to hear them. I have wasted much time in idleness; but whatever days remain, let me spend them in my art.

If any one among you is ignorant of the art of loving, let him read my poem, and, instructed by the reading, let him love. By art the ships are sailed and rowed; by art the swift chariot is driven; by art love must be guided.