Salvete Ovid Lovers!
Ovid Daily is excited to announce our next endeavor: Ovid’s Fastorum Libri Sex delivered right to your inbox! AKA Ovid’s Fasti, this work contains six books of elegiac couplets dedicated to the gods, holidays, and notable events found in the first six months of the Roman calendar. The Fasti are narrated by Ovid himself, acting as a vates (a soothsayer-oracle-poet), and are a joy to read, even in translation. Unfortunately, the Fasti are cut short to just six months out of the usual twelve, and the work was likely never completed due to Ovid’s exile in 8 CE.
This newsletter will run from 31 December 2022, beginning with January’s Introduction, to 30 June 2023, which is the last entry in the epic poem. We will be using the 1931 Loeb edition of J. G. Frazer’s translation of the Fasti, as well as his divisions for each of the days of the months (as the poem itself is continuous, and contains no labels for the specific days Ovid writes about). Each entry will correspond to the appropriate day, and will contain the original Latin and Frazer’s translation, as well as his footnotes. Helpful links will also be included in the footer of each email, including a link to a PDF of the Loeb edition, as well as other resources.
We are so excited to share this incredible, and lesser read, work of Ovid’s with all of you, and are looking forward to its start this New Year!
Valete laetaque evolvens!
M