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THE METAMORPHOSES
maintained by the poet between himself and his creations, in spite of the excesses
and lapses of taste into which his wit was apt to lead him, in spite of the relentless
pursuit of point and paradox, in spite even of the apparent heartlessness of
some episodes, this remains the distinctive quality of the poem. Its unclassical
characteristics, which also emerge from the comparison with the Aeneid,
should offer no obstacle to appreciation in an age which appears to have broken
definitively with classicism in literature, art and music. Balance and proportion
are not necessarily and self-evidently the most important of the artistic virtues.
Ovid's vision of the world was not one of order and uniformity but of diversity
and change. For him the Augustan settlement was not, as it had been for
Virgil, the start of a new world, nouus saeclorum ordo, but another sandbank
in the shifting stream of eternity. The Aeneid stops where it does because of
the logic of a situation: there is a knot which can be cut only by the sacrifice
of Turnus. Blood must be shed so that reconciliation may follow. The Metamorphoses
stops where it does because this is where history has got to. In the
coda to the poem Ovid foretells his own metamorphosis and apotheosis:
iamque opus exegi, quod nee Iouis ira nee ignis
nee poterit ferrum nee edax abolere uetustas.
cum uolet, ilia dies, quae nil nisi corporis huius
ius habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aeui;
parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis
astra ferar, nomenque erit indelebile nostrum,
quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terns,
ore legar populi perque omnia saecula fama,
siquid habent ueri uatum praesagia, uiuam. (15.871—9)
And now I have finished a work which neither Jove's anger nor fire nor iron nor
gnawing age shall have power to destroy. That day which has authority only over my
body may when it pleases put an end to the uncertain span of my life; with the better
part of me I shall soar immortal high above the stars and my name shall not be
extinguished. Wherever the sway of Rome shall extend over the conquered lands, I
shall be read by the tongues of men and for all time to come, if the prophecies of bards
have any truth in them, by and in my fame shall I live.
In a perilous and uncertain universe the only created thing that can hope for
survival is poetry, for it comes from and lives through the spirit. In the mind
of a rationalist and a humanist this is the only kind of immortality that there is.
Only so can man's unconquerable soul ensure its own survival.
5. THE POEMS OF EXILE
The Metamorphoses was, so far as can be seen, substantially complete, if not
formally published, in the shape in which we now have it by A.D. 8. Ovid then
stood on the pinnacle of success; none could challenge his position as Rome's
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