Writers from a Writer Ep. VIII: Ovid

Maya Dietrich

Aug 31

6 min read

Hello curious readers!

This month has brought a whole bunch of new, fun, and exciting projects and things, most notably being the release of my SECOND SINGLE Serendipitous timing.

It's out everywhere and if you like the tail end of summer, sprinklers in the rain, reminiscing about old Disney movies and feeling lucky but overwhelmed at your nostalgia for how (for lack of a better word...) serendipitous it was that you had that specific memory and life and people around you, then you'll probably really really enjoy it. I'd love to have you join my writing world! ♡

Now listen, we've studied some really interesting writers lately, but so far they've only covered a span of about 200 years. So I thought it was high time to take a look at some really early writings.

There are so many pieces from all over the world that predate modern history, but alas, I only own so many copies and there are so few preserved in their entirety, so I chose to focus on one that I actually own a copy of.

Publius Ovidius Naso (or, Ovid) was an ancient Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus Caesar from 43 BC - AD 17. He was born outside Rome (Sulmona, Italy to be specific) to an equestrian family (which were essentially nobles), and was sent to school in Rome along with his brother. In true teenaged fashion, Ovid rejected his father's desire for him to become a civil servant (these were elites who handled ancient Roman government admin, financial + bureaucratic tasks and whatnot), and would often skip school to write poetry on the lawn.

After eventually graduating, he did the classic lost-college-kid thing, which is of course to take a year off and travel! Specifically, he visited what would have been the most enticing places for a recent graduate to see: Greece, Sicily, and Asia Minor - Turkey.

He probably realized that "Full-Time Traveller" wasn't a sustainable career (sigh, you would have loved the world of travel bloggers), and so he returned home and began to take some junior official positions (like an intern for a civil servant basically). However, and get this, he basically abandoned that work to go write more poetry, and lucky for him his first work (the "Amores" - the Loves) was immediately successful. He followed it with a whole whack of poems about love (the "Art of Love", "Remedies for Love," the "Art of Beauty"), but also the Heroides.

This is the one I will be focusing on.

Published between 5 BC and AD 8, it is an epistolary work, which chronicles well known myths primarily through the lens of the heroes' lover(s). For example, it describes a fictionalized back-and-forth between Paris and Helen, set just before her kidnapping and the ensuing war. There are also letters written from the perspective of Medea to Jason, Dido to Aeneas, and Ariadne to Theseus. In total, there are 21 letters, largely written from a female perspective.

This was incredibly rare, as the male voice was often used, or at the very least a male lead. Heroides is therefore one of the most understudied works of Ovid, and was considered throughout the 19th century as "suited only for women."

It is a fascinating (and easy!) read, and I highly recommend flipping through a few. Each letter only lasts about 10-20 pages, so they're great to read before bed.

The word "heroides" directly translates to "heroine," so it's literally called "The Heroines" (no wonder it was seen as 'womanly'). It is an intriguing look into the history of study and understanding toward women throughout history... namely, that at the time of its original publication it was considered an incredible new work from a promising young poet, and in the last several hundred years has largely been considered inadequate for study or real consideration. Take with that what you will.

I was very lucky to have been exposed to this work in an academic environment (that is not to say that all disinterest in this collection stemmed from academics, in fact, anyone interested in literature academically tend to be the first to realize a work's potential.)

Ovid's Heroides gives us a look into what men thought of women and how the female perspective and stories were told during the ancient period.

While it would of course be more accurate if an actual woman wrote her own story, that is exceedingly rare for both men and women during this time.

The average person was far too busy with their actual life to bother writing about it
Writing utensils were expensive
The memoir - and autobiography - were not yet invented

It is not simply that women didn't have a voice, (or didn't write for that matter), but that the inclusion of a female perspective from a man's hand gives evidence to say that women did impact their society (no shit!), and that they did have a vital role in every aspect of their world. In my opinion, it is more demeaning to pity historical women and assume they didn't have a voice until the Suffragette Movement when in reality, women influence a society and culture whether we have a direct say or not (never or not, please, never or not!!). This text offers a direct line of evidence for this argument, where the masculine understanding of a female voice largely dominates.

It is the height of hubris for us modern women to look at history and pity the women we find, and assume they must surely have been destitute, downtrodden, and outnumbered. NOT BECAUSE THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN, but rather, it is unfair for us to say that because they didn't impact society in the same way we currently do, that they must simply not have had a voice at all. Women have always had opinions. Women have always said them. How much they were prioritized, valued, and remembered is what has changed. Not the female as a whole.

Ok I've left this until the last minute (not for lack of effort all I do is write and share that with you all lol), so I'm just gonna jump straight into the excerpt from Ovid's Heroides.

Medea to Jason:

"What great treachery,

wretched man, would then have died with you and what

awful grief would have been turned from me.

I find that I can take some little pleasure

in accusing you with the favours

I did for you. I will enjoy that pleasure,

the only pleasure I'll have from you.

Directed to turn your ship towards Colchis,

you set your feet on my native land.

In that place I was as your new bride is here,

as rich as her father, so was mine.

Her father rules everything along

the shore of the Pontus, to the Scythian snows.

Aeëtes welcomes the young Greek men

to his house and these Pelasgian heroes

rest their bodies on the couches draped

with embroidered cloth. It was then that I saw

you, then that I began to know you,

then that came the step of my soul's downfall."

As you can tell, it still has that poetry cadence to it. Each letter feels less and less like an actual letter, and more like a mini epic. I wanted to try my hand at this (although to be honest I've actually never really liked poetry)… PLEASE DON'T HATE ME! I just feel like I never fully grasp what exactly a poet is saying I'M SORRY. It's amazing and awesome for the people that get it and I'm glad it's a well-crafted art form that definitely requires skill, I am just most certainly not one of those people.

But, alas, this is what happens when you:

chose a career built on judgement and
wanted to push your own writing further by studying and learning from these writers and
understand the importance of applying skills you're unfamiliar with to become a well-rounded writer

Now that I've rambled (because I'm not the biggest fan of this next piece of writing), I'm here to remind you (and myself!) that while who knows what people will think of the storytelling, I know exactly what would happen if you (I) didn't even bother to share it: A whole lot of nothing.

Winter to Summer:

What does it feel to know love?

A distance beyond the sea can bring a shred of hope,

like mittens left outside in the fresh fallen snow.

I have begged my heart and my mind to coincide

but I feel as though a flame longs to ignite.

I stretch out on the beach

and trace the sand lines, watch it fall from my fingertips

and taste the sea air like a tear

burnt against my cheek.

What does it feel to know love?

Is it to absolve separation? -