Ovid In Exile, At Tomis, In Bessarabia, Near The Mouths Of The Danube
(Tristia, Book III. Elegy X.)
Should any one there in Rome remember Ovid the exile,
And, without me, my name still in the city survive;
Tell him that under stars which never set in the ocean
I am existing still, here in a barbarous land.
Fierce Sarmatians encompass me round, and the Bessi and Getae;
Names how unworthy to be sung by a genius like mine!
Yet when the air is warm, intervening Ister defends us:
He, as he flows, repels inroads of war with his waves.
But when the dismal winter reveals its hideous aspect,
When all the earth becomes white with a marble-like frost;
And when Boreas is loosed, and the snow hurled under Arcturus,
Then these nations, in sooth, shudder and shiver with cold.
Deep lies the snow, and neither the sun nor the rain can dissolve
it;
Boreas hardens it still, makes it forever remain.
Hence, ere the first ha-s melted away, another succeeds it,
And two years it is wont, in many places, to lie.
And so great is the power of the Northwind awakened, it levels
Lofty towers with the ground, roofs uplifted bears off.
Wrapped in skins, and with trousers sewed, they contend with the
weather,
And their faces alone of the whole body are seen.
Often their tresses, when shaken, with pendent icicles tinkle,
And their whitened beards shine with the gathering frost.
Wines consolidate stand, preserving the form of the vessels;
No more draughts of wine,--pieces presented they drink.
Why should I tell you how all the rivers are frozen and solid,
And from out of the lake frangible water is dug?
Ister,--no narrower stream than the river that bears the
papyrus,--
Which through its many mouths mingles its waves with the deep;
Ister, with hardening winds, congeals its cerulean waters,
Under a roof of ice, winding its way to the sea.
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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