Tristia

The Tristia ("Sad things" or "Sorrows") is a collection of poems written in elegiac couplets by the Augustan poet Ovid during the first three years following his banishment from Rome to Tomis on the Black Sea in AD 8.

Despite five books in which he bewails his fate copiously, the immediate cause of Augustus' banishment of the most acclaimed living Latin poet to Pontus remains a mystery.

In addition to the Tristia, Ovid wrote another collection of elegiac epistles on his exile, the Epistulae ex Ponto, as well as a 642-line curse poem called Ibis, directed against the unnamed enemy who had apparently caused his downfall.

Ovid describes his arduous travel to the furthest edge of the empire, giving him a chance to draw parallels with the exiles of Aeneas and Odysseus (Ulysses) and excuse his work's failings.

At one point he even composes his epitaph: I who lie here, sweet Ovid, poet of tender passions, fell victim to my own sharp wit.

Ovid Banished from Rome (1838) by J. M. W. Turner
Opening of Book V of the Tristia , from a 1740 edition: Add this book also to the four I have already sent, my devoted friend, from the Getic shore. This too will be like the poet's fortunes: in the whole course of the song you will find no gladness. Mournful is my state, mournful therefore is my song, for the work is suited to its theme. Unhurt and happy with themes of happiness and youth I played (yet now I regret that I composed that verse); since I have fallen I act as herald of my sudden fall, and I myself provide the theme of which I write. As the bird of Cayster is said to lie upon the bank and bemoan its own death with weakening note… [ 2 ]