I Don’t Owe You Grandchildren
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Name: Ovid Date: 43 BCE – 17 CE Region: Sulmo [modern Italy] Citation: Metamorphoses 1.481
– 487 |
In his mythology-based epic poem The Metamorphoses, the poet
Ovid uses the myth of Daphne and Apollo to explore the expectations of Roman
women to marry and have children using the nymph Daphne as a foil to those
expectations:
Often
her father said, “Daughter, you owe me a son-in-law. Daughter, you owe me
grandchildren!”
But Daphne, despising romance, would blush, embrace her father and reply, “Let me enjoy my virginity forever,dearest father! The goddess Diana's father let her do so; let me be free, too!”
I Don’t Owe You Grandchildren
Saepe pater dixit: “Generum mihi,
filia, debes,”
Saepe pater dixit: “Debes mihi, nata,
nepotes;”
illa velut crimen taedas exosa iugales
pulchra verecundo suffuderat ora
rubore
inque patris blandis haerens cervice
lacertis
“Da mihi perpetua, genitor carissime,”
dixit
“virginitate frui! Dedit hoc pater
ante Dianae.”
Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BCE – 17 CE, modern Italy] was
one of the most famous love poets of Rome’s Golden Age. His most famous work,
the Metamorphoses, provides a history of the world through a series of
interwoven myths. Most of his poetry is erotic in nature; for this reason, he
fell into trouble during the conservative social reforms under the reign of the
emperor Augustus. In 8 CE he was banished to Bithynia [modern Turkey], where he
spent the remainder of his life pining for his native homeland.
