Ovid 9

Question 1

flete… casus… tristes tabellas…infelix… negat…ominas

Answer 1

weep… misfortunes… gloomy tablets… calamitious… cannot… omens

The tone is set very quickly that he has gotten bad news by placing these words at the start of each clause

Question 2

omina sunt aliquid; modo cum discedere vellet ad limen digitos restitit icta Nape

Answer 2

There is something in omens: when Nape was about to leave just now, she stubbed her toes against the step and was brought to a halt

In contrast to flattering Nape in poem 8 Ovid is now disappointed and quick to blame her this time. It was thought bad luck to stub your toe at the beginning of a journey

Question 3

missa foras iterum limen transire memento cautius atque alte sobria ferre pedem

Answer 3

Next time you are sent out remember to cross the step more carefully and to lift your foot high in sober fashion

he is scolding Nape and suggests that she had been drinking

Question 4

ite hinc

Answer 4

Away with you

Begins to blame the tablets for being back bad news

Question 5

difficiles tabellae

Answer 5

unhelpful tablets

Question 6

funebria ligna

Answer 6

funeral wood

Ovid suggests that the tablets provide fuel for a pyre for cremating the dead

Question 7

punto

Answer 7

I am sure

this suggests that he is not serious- ironic

Question 8

negaturis cerca referta notis

Answer 8

wax packed with marks which mean refusal

there is bad news written on the tablet, we now know she refused his offer to meet up

Question 9

quam, punto, de longae collectam flore cicutae melle sub infami Corsica misit apis

Answer 9

wax which I am sure a Corsican bee gathered from the flower of the long-stocked hemlock and sent here beneath its infamous honey

He suggests that the bees got the pollen from hemlock plant which poisoned the wax. He also suggests that it was Corsican bees who got the pollen and they were known for having bitter honey.

Question 10

at tamque mino penitus medicata rubebas: ille color vere sanguinolentus erat

Answer 10

Yet you were red in colour, as if deep dyed with cinnabar: that colour was really of blood

wax tablets were usually black but here it is red, from the expensive cinnabar, but here the red gives it a deadly colour, colour of blood

Question 11

proiectae triviis iaceatis, inutile lignum, vosque rotae frangat praetereuntis onus

Answer 11

lie throw out at the cross-roads useless firewood and let the weight of a passing wheel shatter you

crossroads were meant to be the haunt of witches and ghosts. Ovid also is being bitter here hoping for the tablets to get smashed

Question 12

vos… verit

Answer 12

converted you

personifying the tablet as if he is physically talking to it

Question 13

convincam puras non habuisse manus

Answer 13

I will prove that he did not have guiltless hands

Ovid is blaming the man who made the tablets and also makes refrence to the legal criminology profesion

Question 14

praebuit illa arbor misero suspendia collo carnifici diras praebuit illa cruces

Answer 14

That tree provided a gallows for an unhappy neck it provided grim crosses for hangman

He blames the tree that the wax came from and to do this he has said it was a tree from the gallows which was bad luck, Ovid creates an image of the poor character who met their death there

Question 15

turpes umbras

Answer 15

shameful shelter

the birds who lived on the tree the tablet came from were also bad luck

Question 16

raucis bubonibus

Answer 16

noisy owls

they were associated with spooky and haunted environments. This was one of the three birds in the tree an three in one tree was unlucky

Question 17

strigis

Answer 17

screech owls

they were associated with spooky and haunted environments. This was one of the three birds in the tree an three in one tree was unlucky

Question 18

vulturis

Answer 18

vultures

often associated with death. This was one of the three birds in the tree an three in one tree was unlucky

Question 19

ego commisi insanus

Answer 19

I did insanely entrust

He blames himself now for trusting the tablets

Question 20

vladimonia garrula

Answer 20

wordy recognizances

Ovid thinks that the tablet would of been better of for a different purpose other that love so takes a swipe at dull lawyers

Question 21

duro ore

Answer 21

stern tones

Ovid thinks that the tablet would of been better of for a different purpose other that love so takes a swipe at politicians

Question 22

in quibus absunptas fleret avarus opes

Answer 22

in which a miser wept for his lost wealth

Ovid thinks that the tablet would of been better of for a different purpose other that love so takes a swipe at greedy accountants

Question 23

quid precer iratus, nisi vos cariosa senectus rodat, et immundo cera sit alba situ?

Answer 23

What am I to pray on my anger, except that withering age may gnaw you and your wax grow white with ugly decay

the language in this line neatly mixes up the personification of the tablets with the reality. They have been eaten away suggests that they were old, so the idea of love not being for older people, so this is perhaps a mockery of himself

Question 23

duplex

Answer 23

two faced

This is a pun- Ovid describes the tablets as two faced because they have two sides/ pages but someone is described as being two faced if they cannot be trusted so Ovid finds the tablets to be untrustworthy