She came near. She poised above him –

And the altar fires drank her assent

Like a richer fuel.

They flared up, three times,

Tossing horns of flame.

Pygmalion hurried away home

To his ivory obsession. He burst in,

Fevered with deprivation,

Fell on her, embraced her, and kissed her

Like one collapsing in a desert

To drink at a dribble from a rock.

But his hand sprang off her breast

As if stung.

He lowered it again, incredulous

At the softness, the warmth

Under his fingers. Warm

And soft as warm soft wax –

But alive

With the elastic of life.

He knew

Giddy as he was with longing and prayers

This must be hallucination.

He jerked himself back to his senses

And prodded the ivory. He squeezed it.

But it was no longer ivory.

Her pulse throbbed under his thumb.

Then Pygmalion’s legs gave beneath him.

On his knees

He sobbed his thanks to Venus. And there

Pressed his lips

On lips that were alive.

She woke to his kisses and blushed

To find herself kissing

One who kissed her,

And opened her eyes for the first time

To the light and her lover together.

Venus blessed the wedding

That she had so artfully arranged.

And after nine moons Pygmalion’s bride

Bore the child, Paphos,

Who gave his name to the whole island.

OVID’S DEFENCE

Tristia, Book I

Ovid

Translated by A. D. Melville, 1992

In AD 8, Emperor Augustus exiled Ovid to Tomis (modern Constanţa, in Romania) on the shores of the Black Sea for reasons which are now unclear. The poet blamed his miserable fate on carmen et error – ‘a poem and a mistake’. The poem was his Ars Amatoria, a scandalous guide to love and love-making. Augustus had embarked upon a moral crusade against adultery in Rome, and Ovid’s text did not sit well with the legislation passed to revive old-fashioned values. Ovid here embarks upon his journey and pens a heart-breaking self-defence, which forms part of a longer work of Tristia (‘sad poems’). Whatever ‘mistake’ Ovid made, it was not forgiven, for he died in exile in AD 17 or 18.

I do not plough the main in greed for endless

Riches and trade, my wares from shore to shore,

Nor, as in student days, do I seek Athens

And Asian towns and places seen before.

Nor do I sail to Alexander’s city

To see the merry Nile’s delightful strand.

Why I want easy winds—who would believe it?—

Is that my sails shall reach Sarmatia’s land.

To reach the Black, unlucky, Sea I’ve made my

Vows—and complain my flight from home’s so slow!

I pray my journey’s short—to see Tomitans!

Where in the world that place is, I don’t know.

If you gods love me, quell these ghastly billows,

Bless my poor ship, and keep the waters flat.

Or if you hate me, steer me where I’m ordered,