''Ibis'' is a curse poem by the Roman poet

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

, written during his years in

exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

at the port of Tomis on the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

(AD 8–14). It is "a stream of violent but extremely learned abuse", modeled on a lost poem of the same title by the Greek Alexandrian poet

Callimachus Callimachus (; ; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar, and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works, most of which ...

Identity of Ibis

The object of the poet's curses is left unnamed except for the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

"Ibis", and no scholarly consensus has been reached concerning the figure to whom this pseudonym might refer. Gaius Ateius Capito,

Hyginus Hyginus may refer to: People *Hyginus, the author of the '' Fabulae'', an important ancient Latin source for Greek mythology. *Hyginus, the author of the ''Astronomia'', a popular ancient Latin guide on astronomy, probably the same as the author ...

, Cassius Severus,

Titus Labienus Titus Labienus (17 March 45 BC) was a high-ranking military officer in the late Roman Republic. He served as tribune of the Plebs in 63 BC. Although mostly remembered as one of Julius Caesar's best lieutenants in Gaul and mentioned frequently ...

, Thrasyllus of Mendes,''The Athenaeum'', No. 2840, April 1, 1882
/ref> Caninius Rebilus, Ovid's erstwhile friend Sabinus, and the emperor

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

A. Schiesaro, "''Ibis Redibis''," ''Materiali e Discussioni'' 67 (2011): 79–150. have all been proposed, as well as the possibility that "Ibis" might refer to more than one person,Martin Helzle, "Ibis," in ''A Companion to Ovid'', edited by Peter E. Knox (Blackwell, 2009
online.
/ref> to nobody at all,A. E. Housman, "The Ibis of Ovid," ''Journal of Philology'' 35 (1920): 287–318G. D. Williams, ''The Curse of Exile: A Study of Ovid's ''Ibis (1996). or even to Ovid's own poetry. It was conjectured by the Belgian scholar Raoul Verdière that ''Tristia'' 3.11 and 5.8, which like ''Ibis'' (line 40) address an anonymous enemy of Ovid with the word 'shameless', were written in admonishment of the same person, a former friend of Ovid who dropped him when Ovid was relegated. Noting that the final letters of ''Tristia'' 5.8.1–4 read ''Atei'', Verdière suggested that the person anonymously mentioned was the jurist Gaius Ateius Capito. Subsequently another Belgian scholar, Lucien Janssens, discovered

acrostic An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the Fre ...

s and a telestic containing the names Ateius Capito in both ''Tristia'' 5.11 and in ''Ibis'', which, if correct, would confirm Verdière's conjecture.

Structure and themes

The 644-line poem, like all Ovid's extant work except the ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...

'', is written in

elegiac couplet The elegiac couplet or elegiac distich is a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than the epic. Roman poets, particularly Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, adopted the same form in L ...

s. It is thus an unusual, though not unique, example of invective poetry in antiquity written in elegiac form rather than the more common iambics or hendecasyllabics. The incantatory nature of the curses in the ''Ibis'' has sometimes led to comparisons with

curse tablets A curse tablet (; ) is a small tablet with a curse written on it from the Greco-Roman world. Its name originated from the Greek and Latin words for "pierce" and "bind". The tablets were used to ask the gods, place spirits, or the deceased to perfo ...

(''defixiones''), though Ovid's are elaborately literary in expression; the poem has also been seen as a type of ''

devotio In ancient Roman religion, the ''devotio'' was an extreme form of '' votum'' in which a Roman general vowed to sacrifice his own life in battle along with the enemy to chthonic gods in exchange for a victory. The most extended description of t ...

''. Drawing on the encyclopedic store of knowledge he demonstrated in the ''Metamorphoses'' and his other work — presumably from memory, as he purportedly had few books with him in exile — Ovid threatens his enemy in the second section of the poem (lines 251–638) with a veritable catalogue of "gruesome and mutually incompatible fates" that befell various figures from myth and history, including laming, blinding,

cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well document ...

, and death by

pine cone A conifer cone, or in formal botanical usage a strobilus, : strobili, is a seed-bearing organ on gymnosperm plants, especially in conifers and cycads. They are usually woody and variously conic, cylindrical, ovoid, to globular, and have scal ...

. Ovid also declares in the poem's opening salvo that even if he dies in exile, his ghost will rise and rend Ibis's flesh. The basic structure of the poem is as follows: :I. Introduction ::1–66:

Proem __NOTOC__ A preface () or proem () is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a ''foreword'' and precedes an author's preface. The preface often closes ...

which lays out Ibis' crime and declares war ::67–126: Prayers to the gods to inflict on Ibis

poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...

, hunger, and exile ::127–208: The eternity of Ibis' torment, which will outlast both Ovid's death and Ibis' own ::209–250: A biography of Ibis' infancy and a divine mandate given to Ovid to curse him :II. Catalogue ::251–638: Catalogue of mythological and historical torments which Ibis should suffer :III. Coda ::639–644: Promise of an iambic followup should Ibis not cease and desist

Afterlife

The ''Ibis'' attracted a large number of

scholia Scholia (: scholium or scholion, from , "comment", "interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of the manuscript of ancient a ...

and was widely disseminated and referenced in Renaissance literature. In his annotated translation (1577), Thomas Underdowne found in ''Ibis'' a reference guide to "all manner of vices punished, all offenses corrected, and all misdeeds revenged." An English translator noted that "a full reference to each of the

allusion Allusion, or alluding, is a figure of speech that makes a reference to someone or something by name (a person, object, location, etc.) without explaining how it relates to the given context, so that the audience must realize the connection in the ...

s to be found in this poem would suffice to fill a small volume." Henry T. Riley, "The Invective Against the Ibis," in ''The Fasti, Tristia, Pontic Epistles, Ibis, and Halieuticon of Ovid, Literally Translated into English Prose'' (London 1885), pp. 475ff.

Online texts and translations

The ''

editio princeps In Textual scholarship, textual and classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts. These had to be copied by han ...

'' of Ovid's complete works, including the ''Ibis'', was published in Italy in 1471. Full-text versions of the following Latin editions and English translations of the ''Ibis'' are available online.

Latin

* R. Ellis, ''P. Ovidii Nasonis Ibis'', Oxford Classical Text
1881.
* A. Riese, ''P. Ovidii Nasonis Carmina'', vol. 3
1899.

English translations

Henry Thomas Riley Henry Thomas Riley (June 1816 – 14 April 1878) was an English translator, lexicographer, and antiquary. Life Born in June 1816, he was only son of Henry Riley of Southwark, an ironmonger. He was educated at Chatham House, Ramsgate, and at Cha ...

, "The Invective Against the Ibis," prose
1885.
* A. S. Kline, "Ovid - Ibis," ''Poetry in Translation''

References

{{Authority control Poetry by Ovid Curses