Vita Romanorum

How Ovid Wrote Poetry

at mihi iam puero caelestia sacra placebant,

inque suum furtim Musa trahebat opus.

saepe pater dixit “studium quid inutile temptas?

Maeonides nullas ipse reliquit opes”.

motus eram dictis, totoque Helicone relicto

scribere temptabam verba soluta modis.

sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos,

et quod temptabam scribere versus erat.

Ovid, Tristia 4.10.19-26

in carminibus ... non ignoravit vitia sua sed amavit. manifestum potest esse ex eo, quod rogatus aliquando ab amicis suis, ut tolleret tres versus, invicem petit, ut ipse tres exciperet, in quos nihil illis liceret. aequa lex visa est: scripserunt illi quos tolli vellent secreto, hic quos tutos esse vellet. in utrisque codicillis idem versus erant, ex quibus primum fuisse narrabat Albinovanus Pedo, qui inter arbitros fuit: semibovemque virum semivirumque bovem, secundum et gelidum Borean egelidumque Notum. ex quo apparet summi ingenii viro non iudicium defuisse ad compescendam licentiam carminum suorum sed animum. aiebat interim decentiorem faciem esse, in qua aliquis naevus fuisset.

Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 2.2.12

Vergil’s poetry is extremely complex, and its artistic richness is often attributed to his painstaking method of composition. On the other hand, Ovid’s repeated boasting of his great facility in writing poetry used to be contrasted adversely with Vergil’s slow output. This unfavorable assessment of Ovid is now a thing of the past. Quite apart from Shakespeare’s never blotting a line and the general admiration for Mozart’s ability to compose rapidly, it is not actually clear that Ovid did write his poetry at speed. If we assume that he was uniformly productive throughout his adult life, from 26 BC till AD 17, then he had a rate of composition rather slower than Vergil’s, some 34,000 lines in approximately 15,700 days, hardly more than two per day, not to be compared with Lucilius’ frequent production of 200 lines in an hour stans pede in uno.