Poem of the Day: ‘What helpes it Woman to be free from warre?’

In Book II of “Amores,” a series of Latin elegies appearing about 16 B.C., Ovid sets a pair of poetic arguments against abortion. One never knows with Ovid (43 B.C.–18 A.D.). There are certain writers whose irony is so deep that every attempt to peel it back discovers only another layer of irony. Jonathan Swift is an example. Benjamin Franklin, too: One should never say “Franklin thought…,” but only “Franklin once wrote…,” because we never get down far enough to be sure what the man truly believed. And so with Ovid. Still, the existence of these elegies in his work marks an interesting moment, for Ovid sets in his elegant elegiac couplets two arguments against the era’s dangerous attempts at herbal abortifacients — arguments that seem disturbing to the sensibility of our more prissy age. In the first, Elegy 2.13, he uses ironically the neoplatonic metaphysical principle that perfection overflows. By aborting their child (and making herself dangerously ill), his mistress is trying to deny the truth of their love, which, being perfect, ought to have overflowed into a child. In the second, Elegy 2.14, Ovid puts the deeper suggestion that if women stop risking their lives in childbirth, men will stop protecting them in war. In today’s Poem of the Day, the Sun offers Marlowe’s translation of Elegy 2.14, the pentameter couplets begging the gods’ forgiveness for his mistress.In amicam, quod abortivum ipsa fecerit (Amores 2.14)by Ovid, translated by Christopher MarloweWhat helpes it Woman to be free from warre?Nor being arm’d fierce troupes to follow farre?If without battell selfe-wrought wounds annoy them,And their owne privie weapon’d hands destroy them.Who unborne infants first to slay invented,Deserv’d thereby with death to be tormented.Because thy belly should rough wrinckles lacke,Wilt thou thy wombe-inclosed off-spring wracke?Had ancient Mothers this vile custome cherisht,All humaine kinde by their default had perisht.Or stones, our stockes originall, should be hurld,Againe by some in this unpeopled world.Who should have Priams wealthy substance wonne,If watry Thetis had her childe fordone?In swelling wombe her twinnes had Ilia kilde?He had not beene that conquering Rome did build.Had Venus spoilde her bellies Troyane fruite,The earth of Caesars had beene destitute.Thou also, that wert borne faire, hadst decayed,If such a worke thy mother had assayed.My selfe that better dye with loving mayHad seene, my mother killing me, no day.Why takest increasing grapes from Vine-trees full?With cruell hand why doest greene Apples pull?Fruites ripe will fall, let springing things increase,Life is no light price of a small surcease.Why with hid irons are your bowels tome?And why dire poison give you babes unborne?At Cholcis stain’d with childrens bloud men raile,And mother-murtherd Itis they bewaile,Both unkinde parents, but for causes sad,Their wedlocks pledges veng’d their husbands bad.What Tereus, what Jason you provokes,To plague your bodies with such harmeflill strokes?Armenian Tygers never did so ill,Nor dares the Lyonesse her young whelpes kill.But tender Damsels do it, though with paine,Oft dyes she that her paunch-wrapt child hath slaine.Shee dyes, and with loose haires to grave is sent,And who ere see her, worthily lament.But in the ayre let these words come to nought,And my presages of no weight be thought.Forgive her gratious Gods this one delict,And on the next fault punishment inflict.___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘What helpes it Woman to be free from warre?’

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