Metamorphoses, Volume I

Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BCE–17 CE), born at Sulmo, studied rhetoric and law at Rome. Later, he engaged in considerable public service there and otherwise devoted himself to poetry and society. Famous at first, he offended the emperor Augustus with his Ars Amatoria and was banished because of this work and some other unknown reason. He dwelt in the cold and primitive town of Tomis on the Black Sea, where he continued writing poetry. Ovid was a kindly man, leading a temperate life, and he died in exile.

Ovid's main surviving works include the Metamorphoses, which has been a source of inspiration for artists and poets such as Chaucer and Shakespeare; the Fasti, a poetic exploration of the Roman year, of which Ovid completed only half; the Amores, love poems; the Ars Amatoria, a work that is not moral but clever and in parts beautiful; and the Heroides, fictitious love letters penned by legendary women to absent husbands. During his exile, he also wrote the dismal works Tristia, consisting of appeals to people including his wife and the emperor, and similar Epistulae ex Ponto. Poetry came naturally to Ovid, whose best works are lively, graphic, and lucid.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Ovid is presented in six volumes.