M/M: A Love Among the Stars: Ampelus, Ovid, Fasti 3.409ff

The Transformation of Ampelus

Name:   Ovid Date:     43 BCE – 17 CE Region:    Sulmo [modern Italy] Citation: Fasti 3.409 - 414

It is said that in the Thracian mountains,

Bacchus loved the shaggy-haired Ampelus

(the son of a satyr and a nymph).

Bacchus created a vine for him

That hung on the branches of an elm.

That vine now holds his boyfriend’s name.

But while Ampelus was plucking grapes from a branch

Being careless, he fell;

And Bacchus, in grief, turned him into a constellation.

The Transformation of Ampelus

Ampelon intonsum satyro nymphaque creatum
fertur in Ismariis Bacchus amasse iugis.
Tradidit huic vitem pendentem frondibus ulmi,
quae nunc de pueri nomine nomen habet.
Dum legit in ramo pictas temerarius uvas,
decidit: amissum Liber in astra tulit.  

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.