TRISTIA
Ovid
c. 8-17 CE

Ovid's Tristia, or Sorrows / Lamentations, were written during his exile from Rome after 8 CE. The poems described his sadness at his exile and his love for his wife. In Book III, elegy 9, Ovid relates Medea's murder of Absyrtus at Tomis (modern Constanta) on the Romanian sea coast, where Ovid was exiled and would die in 17 CE. The name Tomis derives from the Greek Τομή, meaning "cut piece" or "section." One myth had the city founded by Aeetes after the death of Absyrtus, while another ascribed the foundation to the Getae. Both myths are mentioned herein.

BOOK III
Elegy IX

Are here some cities (who can it believe)

From the Greeks did first their Name receive?

While Husbandmen even from Miletus came

And ’mongst the Getes did Grecian did houses frame,

Yet this same Place doth anciently retain,

Still from Absyrtus Murder this same Name:

For in that Ship which Pallas Name did bear,

And in those unknown Seas her Course did steer,

While fierce Medea from her father Fled,

Unto these Shores her fatal Sails she spread.

Which from a Hill one viewing on the Land,

Cries out, Medea’s Sails do hither stand.

The Minyae trembled, and without Delay,

Unto their Ropes, and all their Anchors weigh:

While that Medea struck her guilty breast

With that same Hand which had in Blood been drest.

And though her former Courage did remain,

Yet still her Blood in Paleness went and came.

But when she saw the Sails, we are betray’d,

Quoth she, my Father’s Course must be delayed,

By some New Art; while thus she doth devise,

By fatal Chance her Brother she espies;

And having spy’d him, now, quoth she, ’tis done,

For from his Death my Safety now shall come;

And with a Sword she ran him through the Side,

Who little thought by her Hand to have dy’d;

Then tears his Limbs in pieces, and on the Ground

She scatters them, that so they may be found

In many Places: And that her Father may

Not pass by it, she places in the Way

His bleeding Head, and both his pale cold Hands,

Which set upon a Rock before him stands:

And while that horrid Sight did stop her Father,

He stay’d his Course those scattered Limbs to gather;

Whence Tomis got that Name, because that here

Medea first her Brother’s Limbs did tear.



Source: Ovid, Ovid's Tristia Newly Translated into English by T. P. (London: 1713). (Spelling slightly adapted.)

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