When I Find Myself In Times of Trouble... Ovid, Trist.1.5.17-34

 

Name:     Ovid Date:       43 BCE – 17 CE Region:   Sulmo [modern Italy] Citation: Sorrows 1.5.17-34

In this poem, the exiled poet Ovid writes about the importance of true friendship and loyalty.

 

If my ship were sailing on a friendly wind,

Perhaps I could forget your loyalty.

For Pirithous would not have felt Theseus’ friendship

If he hadn’t gone on a quest to the Underworld.

If not for wretched Orestes’ madness,

Pylades would not be seen as a paragon of love.

If Euryalus had not fallen in battle against the Rutulians, Nisus would have no glory.

Just like gold bubbles up from the smelter’s furnace,

Faith also must endure a tribulation.

Whenever Fortune smiles down upon us serenely

She blesses us with uninterrupted prosperity,

But as soon as she grows angry,

Our good times flee,

Instead of the tons of friends we once had,

We can scarcely find one.

And although I used to ponder examples of this trope,

Now this evil has befallen me, too.

Of all my “friends,” y’all are the two or three friends I have left.

The rest belong to Fortune’s clique, not mine.

  

Si tamen haec navis vento ferretur amico,

ignoraretur forsitan ista fides.

Thesea Pirithous non tam sensisset amicum,

si non infernas vivus adisset aquas.

Ut foret exemplum veri Phoceus amoris,

fecerunt Furiae, tristis Oresta, tuae.

Si non Euryalus Rutulos cecidisset in hostes,

Hyrtacidae Nisi gloria nulla foret.

Scilicet ut flavum spectatur in ignibus aurum,

tempore sic duro est inspicienda fides.

Dum iuvat et vultu ridet Fortuna sereno,

indelibatas cuncta sequuntur opes:

at simul intonuit, fugiunt, nec noscitur ulli,

agminibus comitum qui modo cinctus erat.

Atque haec, exemplis quondam collecta priorum,

nunc mihi sunt propriis cognita vera malis.

Vix duo tresve mihi de tot superestis amici:

cetera Fortunae, non mea turba fuit.

Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BCE – 17 CE, modern Italy] was one of the most famous love poets of Rome’s Golden Age. His most famous work, the Metamorphoses, provides a history of the world through a series of interwoven myths. Most of his poetry is erotic in nature; for this reason, he fell into trouble during the conservative social reforms under the reign of the emperor Augustus. In 8 CE he was banished to Bithynia [modern Turkey], where he spent the remainder of his life pining for his native homeland.