An Ongoing Translation of Ovid's Heroides
The Heroides are among Ovid's earliest works. They are in the form of fictitious letters, written by mythological women to the famous lovers who have abandoned them. They don't have the great emotional range or the often sharp political irony of the Metamorphoses, but they do have keen portraiture and a matchless rhetorical virtuosity. In addition, they offer us a quintessentially Ovidian slant on well-known mythological and legendary themes, by letting the familiar stories of male heroes be retold by the women who suffered their neglect.
The translations given here are an ongoing project--for the most part, they are done in the spare moments which can be stolen from my other work. I offer them here because there is no public-domain text of the Heroides currently available on the WWW, and there is a need for at least a literal translation of this important collection of poetic and mythological material.
I have not attempted a verse translation. I have preserved the line-breaks as closely as possible--in part to allow ease of reference to the Latin text, and in part because Ovid structures his thought and syntax in line-pairs--but the text itself is essentially a prose translation.
To date, only six of the poems are complete: Heroides I-IV, VII and XII. More will be added as time permits. All of the translations may be copied and redistributed freely for non-commercial purposes, but I would appreciate it if you would let me know about it if you choose to use them: hunter@edgewood.edu
- Heroides I: Penelope to Ulysses It has been ten years since the end of the Trojan War; Ulysses (Greek: Odysseus) has been through all the adventures recorded in the Odyssey, and has almost battled his way home to Ithaca. Penelope, ignorant of her husband's imminent return, laments his long delay--and has a few sharp words to say about the possible reasons for it.
- Heroides II: Phyllis to Demophoon Phyllis fell in love with one of the sons of Theseus, who promised to return to her after he had seen to his affairs in Athens. After a long delay, she fell into despair and hanged herself, transforming into an almond tree upon her death. When Demophoon finally returned, he could only embrace the tree, which put forth leaves in recognition of their love. This letter is written shortly before her suicide.
- Heroides III: Briseis to Achilles During the seige of Troy, Briseis is taken from Achilles by the leader of the Greek armies, Agamemnon. Achilles, incensed at the insult, refuses to fight for the Greeks any further. In an attempt to resolve the dispute, Agamemnon sends emissaries to Achilles, who offer to return Briseis and to give him lavish gifts in addition if he will return to the fighting. Achilles refuses--and Briseis writes to him, asking him why he will not take her back.
- Heroides IV: Phaedra to Hippolytus Phaedra, the wife of Theseus, has been overwhelmed by an illicit, incestuous passion for her stepson, Hippolytus. She writes to him in an attempt to persuade him to share her love. Hippolytus, however, is a devotee of Diana, the goddess of chastity, and he refuses her. Phaedra's crazed revenge on Hippolytus is recorded in Euripides' Hippolytus.
- Heroides V: Oenone to Paris (incomplete) The nymph Oenone has been abandoned by her lover, Paris, a younger son of King Priam of Troy. Following the famous "judgement," in which Paris selected Venus as the most beautiful of the goddesses on Olympus, Paris seized the opportunity to wed the beautiful Helen, daughter of Zeus and wife of Menelaus. Oenone complains of her lover's infidelity and sharply criticizes the virtue of his much-married bride, alluding as well to the havoc of the Trojan War which follows the abduction of Helen.
- Heroides VII: Dido to Aeneas Aeneas is about to sail from Carthage to pursue his own destiny in Italy. Dido, Carthage's founder and queen, upbraids him for leaving her in this intriguing reprise of Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid.
- HeroidesXII: Medea to Jason Jason, who built the Argo and captured the Golden Fleece, is abandoning Medea to marry the daughter of the king of Corinth; Medea is being exiled. Medea writes to Jason, reminding him of all that she has done for him, and foreshadowing the grisly revenge that she takes on him in Euripides' Medea.
