Ovid s Other Metamorphoses part 1
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Ovid's Other Metamorphoses (part 7) free porn video
A Towering Wave
"Merciful Caesar, let my skill soften your anger.
It is justified indeed; I don't deny that I deserve it." --Tristia 4.10
Our encounter with the curiously well-informed Praetorian was indeed a
close call, and it was not difficult to convince Cornelius Quadratus
that I could no longer play the part of his wife. Our security was in
jeopardy. The cohort knew my name, and they had reason to suspect my
role in the recent alterations to the rites of the Bacchanalia. I could
not long hide as a woman, under the name Ovidia, without discovery.
Instead, I must play the part of the Iunia Pulchra: little June, the
beautiful.
It was not I who convinced Cornelius, of course. I could not defy him.
Had he asked my opinion, I would have agreed entirely with his. My
reaction, my obedience to his will, was automatic. It was Iunius, wiser
than I, older, and more elevated in rank, who possessed the decorum and
diplomacy and force of character to exact my freedom.
"I'm sorry, Ovidia," Cornelius said to me consolingly, as his slaves
gathered my accumulated things from his insula. "We have been friends
for years. I hoped I could be a better husband to you."
"I know that you did, Quadratus," I said to him. I sat nearby on a
stool, resting my exhausted legs and strained back. All this extra
weight of my pregnancy had not been easy to bear, and although I dreaded
the coming day of labor, I would be relieved to see it behind me, and to
have a baby at my breast. Strangely, I found I was looking forward in
great anticipation to rearing a child. I had even chosen rooms in
Iunius's domicile where a nursery might be installed. I possessed this
odd urgency to create a habitat for my child.
"It's just so strange to see you this, way," Cornelius went on. "I
hoped I would get used to it in time, but I haven't. You aren't
yourself. You rarely write, and you never squabble with me."
"No, I don't," I agreed placidly. "I never argue with you, my love."
"These past months I have spent less and less time at home," he said in
miserable tones. "I felt ashamed at what I had done to you, keeping all
the nectar for myself and sentencing you to this life. I kept hoping
that by abandoning you, leaving you alone, you would divorce me. But
you never did."
There wasn't much I could add to that.
"Things will be better when I marry Alexia," Cornelius said. "She is an
escaped Caesarin slave and has no home. She is more than happy to stay
here with me as my wife. And she speaks with such a delightful Greek
accent."
"She does," I smiled at him. I wanted to remind my now-ex-husband that
Alexia, too, was a transformed male, and equally under Cornelius's
spell, but he seemed so happy, I chose -- or I believe I chose -- to say
nothing. Even if Alexia were to become a man again, she would be a
runaway slave. She would find herself out of favor with the First
Citizen. Anything could happen. This, perhaps, was a more humane fate.
"She is a lovely woman, Cornelius. You will be happy together."
"When you go, Ovidia," he said, forgetting for the moment that my name
was now Iunia, "you must take the manhood elixirs with you. Take them
to Iunius's domicile. The cohorts haven't abandoned their search for
you on our streets. We don't wish them to find our evidence."
And with that, I was entrusted to the house of Iunius. He was a wealthy
equestrian widow, and his husband had left him enough of an estate that
there was no shame for a woman to manage it. Now he was a man, and his
slaves had accepted him as their new master. I was brought in,
ostensibly as the daughter, but that was a fiction destined not to last.
Within weeks I was married to Iunius, although this time of my own free
will.
I was free of the spell of the Bacchic Fiasco, and had slaves enough to
run the household. With little to occupy my name, and no way to return
to my old position as a pentumviri, I returned to my writing.
The first verses I turned to was the promised sequel to Ars Amatoria. I
penned a chapter of advice written for a woman, showing her how to spurn
the wily advances of men, and how to select a good husband of her own
choosing. But as the winter nights of January began to lengthen again,
and the kicking of my baby become more than occasional, I began to write
another poem: a love poem.
These verses I showed to no one, save only my husband. I wrote
longingly of Julia Caesari, the woman who was the father of my child,
the woman I could never have.
My husband was an adoring man, very sensible and sage, and he did not
begrudge me these few lines. To be writing again, listening to my own
Muse and not that of Cornelius, was a great comfort.
And yet I did not finish these verses, not at this time. My days and
nights were otherwise occupied with a most joyful burden.
In the middle of January, I bore a baby son. The midwives came to our
domicile as I -- sweating and struggling, cursing in agony -- did
everything I could to obey their instructions. They exhorted me in
voices both kindly and condescending to breathe regularly, to push hard,
and to curse my husband's name if it calmed me. They put hibiscus
petals into basins of boiled water to freshen the air. I called wearily
for cushions, or for cushions to be taken away, as Chronos dragged his
wheel by, making hours seem like weeks.
Then suddenly there was a squalling child, and it had come from my birth
canal. I had created this little life, this lumpy misshapen red-faced
boy who was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I wept when I
first saw him, as I cradled him to my breast, and he slept against my
flesh, oblivious.
Over the course of a week, the midwives gradually accepted I was not
wholly incompetent as a mother and left me with a vexing array of
instructions. Some of the midwives offered their congratulations to
Iunius, thinking him the father -- understandable, as he certainly
behaved as proudly as if it had been his mentula which had filled me
with child. Other midwives accepted my husband with a stern silence, as
one might regard a dog: periodically useful, often disobedient, and to
be kept out of the room as often as possible. My poor perplexed husband
had been barred from my birthing room; a man's help had been unnecessary
at that stage.
For weeks I was too preoccupied with marvel at the tiny face at my
breast, his minuscule fingers, pink scalp, the angelic smell of milk
that surrounded him, his vacuous blue eyes and his tiny open mouth
searching for a teat. I could not consider miracles of Love my Muse,
when I had one of my own to cradle. As I supported this little cherub,
Iunius in his turn supported me.
I passed six happy weeks in this way as January passed through February
and into March, feeding my son from the milk of my very own body, and
feeding my Muse with lines from my pen. With one arm cradled around
tiny Publius as he suckled my breast, and the other arm poised over the
page, I felt contented and complete. It was not to last.
The first signs of spring began on the extra day in February that was
granted during the annus bissextillis. For the first time since
November it was possible to go out of doors without a traveling cloak.
Apollo deigned to warm our marble streets.
I was anxious to get out; since the Saturnalia I had been too devoted to
little Publius to consider venturing forth from the home. There had
been little time for myself, for washing in any but the most cursory
way, or for attending to my hair or asking the cosmeta slaves to affix
my makeup. I was desperate for a visit to the baths. My hair was oily,
and despite the assurances of Iunius that he smelled nothing, I was sure
I stank.
The body of a woman, a pregnant belly, my son Publius, and husband's
house had been my world for the winter. It was now almost spring, and I
craved the outdoors.
I left little Publius in the care of a Greek nurse whom Iunius had
procured, and vowed to take a moment to refresh myself with a hot bath.
One hour, perhaps, or no more than two.
The nearest baths were those fed by the Aqua Virgo, and I left for there
in the company of my husband's capsarius, who would protect me and guard
my belongings while I bathed. I entered the women's partition and
disrobed, acutely conscious that the stretch marks on my belly signified
me as a mother. To my faint surprise, none of the ladies in the bath
took the least notice of me as I entered, nor observed that I was out of
place. They were as eager as I, on this first pleasant day of the new
year, to dip their bodies into the steaming waters of the caldarium as
I.
Many ladies lounged about nude, some in the scalding water, and others
on the benches at the margins. Some actively washed themselves, or each
other, with bath oils. There were sober matrons, thick-bodied and with
dye in their hair to battle the onset of years; there were ladies as
young as I, as firm of figure but with pert, virginal breasts. I joined
them in the bath, drawing not a single glance. I was as female as they,
as unremarkable in this place as anyone could be. I was as a sister to
them.
To one bather, I was very nearly a sister -- a sister by marriage. In
the person of a plump, attractive woman with full lips, aquiline
features and narrow-set eyes, I almost failed to recognize her. It was
Sophia, the wife of my brother Gaius Ovidius, the judge's wife who had
known more about the Bacchanalia than she had let on.
With a shock, I realized she was impishly beckoning me in her direction.
I drew near to Sophia Ovidia, who greeted me with a sororal embrace.
"Ovidia Quadrati?" she asked, a bemused smile playing across her lips.
"I haven't heard your brother mention your name in months. Are you
still well? I see you have had a baby."
"Publius Ovidius," I agreed quietly. My son was not old enough yet for
a cognomen, and would not be for years to come. For the moment, defying
the convention that he should be named after his supposed father, I had
named him after me, his biological mother. "May he bear those names
with more fortune than I had."
"I'm astonished you are still . . . as you are," she whispered. "Are
you unable to reverse the magic of the Fiasco?"
"Not until Publius is weaned," I said. "Within the year, I hope." For
a few blissful moments, we spoke of my son, and of motherhood; Sophia
and Gaius were hoping to have children of their own, but Gaius had been
preoccupied with his work in the courts. I learned all the latest
gossip, whether I wanted it or not, and after Sophia introduced me to
some of her friends bathing nearby, I soon had the opportunity to pass
along some of my own.
"Horatia Minicia and I were just speaking of the poetry of Ovid," Sophia
said casually to me, gesturing at a dark-haired woman of middle years,
just going gray. "Perhaps you know the Ars Amatoria?"
Curious where Sophia was leading the conversation, I allowed that I had
heard the verses before.
"Ovid's verses on Love have become very popular since December," Horatia
confided to me in a devilishly gleeful whisper. "Caesar has sent the
cohorts after him . . . or so I am told. Doubtless there is something
about his loving, romantic verses that the First Citizen finds in bad
taste."
"I wish him good fortune in suppressing them," said a mousy woman with
her hair gathered into a knot at her neck. She had fine breasts, which
to my extreme interest I noticed only in passing. I found myself more
drawn to the rouge of her lips. It was the oddest thing to find myself
so casually surrounded by naked women, and to be so uninterested in
taking advantage of it. "There is nothing like disapproval from the
patricians. What they disparage, we seek out in delight."
Horatia leaned even closer into the cluster of whispering women, her
eyes twinkling. "Too true, Titinia. It was Ovid's verses that saved my
marriage. My husband is a tiresome bore; I was arranged to wed him.
And yet the Ars Amatoria says even a married woman finds it difficult to
keep a vow. Never make a parade of your good fortune, writes wise Ovid:
the gods forbid that you should only love but one!" Her grin became
positively wicked.
"Horatia!" Sophia said, bringing her hand to her mouth to suppress
either a laugh or a gasp of horror, or quite possibly both at once.
"Adultery? To sleep with a married man that is not your husband is . .
."
". . . delightful," Horatia finished. "But discretion is called for,
especially in this day and age. We are not as free as once we were, are
we not, Ovidia?"
My poems had seen an increase in popularity since my near-fatal
encounter with the cohort? That interested me, and this is when I
decided to dispense my own gossip.
"I hear that Publius Ovidius is working on a brand new set of verses," I
confessed to the ladies. "And this time, he is writing advice for us.
A verse to advice the ladies of Rome how to find lovers that satisfy
them."
Their reactions, shock and joy and vicarious thrill blended into one,
were very satisfying.
Visiting the baths became a regular routine from then on, and I met
several Roman ladies there on a regular basis. They pleaded with me to
share what I had heard from "that wise poet, Ovid" about his upcoming
verses, and occasionally I related to them the latest lines I had been
considering. The ladies accepted without question that I, Ovidia, a
woman with a Sulmontini name, might have learned about verses yet to be
published. Perhaps they guessed that I was Ovid; or perhaps they
assumed that I might be married to or related to someone within the
poet's family.
I would feed little Publius at mid-day, then leave him at home with the
Greek nurse for a few hours for my bath. I always knew when it was time
to return, for my breasts would become full again with milk, swelling
and aching uncomfortably until I was simply perishing to let him drink
from me. Sometimes I wondered if I fed little Publius to ease his pangs
of hunger, or to ease the pain of my own tender, milk-filled breasts.
I now know that it was an error to have revealed the new verses of Ars
Amatoria. I should never have divulged the new lines to the ladies at
the baths of Aqua Virgo. Nevertheless, the damage was done, and the
catastrophe that descended was from an entirely unexpected source.
The disaster fell on that one rare occasion when I had brought little
Publius to the baths with me. The other ladies had long been eager to
see him, as eager as I was to show off my nine months' handiwork.
But as I walked along the Aqua Virgo toward the baths, accompanied by my
husband's capsarius, I discovered there was a familiar face waiting for
me at the bathhouse. It was Gaius, and he was scowling. His demeanor
didn't improve when he saw I was carrying an infant.
"So, Publius," he said darkly, as I approached. "Or is it Publia now?
Ovidia? Or have you wisely accepted the name of your husband, so not to
pollute our father's good name?"
"I go by Iunia Pulchra now, Gaius," I informed him.
"Oh, you do have a husband, then," he said in an acerbic tone of relief.
"How novel. Was this the same husband who gave you this bastard child,
or a different one? Did you condescend to asking his name?"
"Gaius, I did not seek this body deliberately," I said. "This body is
not a malicious device to insult or degrade you."
"It is purest accident, then, that you have done both?" Gaius asked
snidely. "How fortunate. I will tell the centumviri that my brother
has foresworn his civic duty because only by purest chance did he attend
a Bacchanalia, discover a blasphemy against nature, abandon his manhood,
flout the laws of the City, and corrode the moral cohesion of the
public. It was all simply an accident."
"The Bacchic Fiasco can only have been created by the gods themselves,
Gaius," I said to him in low tones. He was becoming too disturbed to
moderate his volume. To discuss this subject loudly and in public could
invite repercussions. "How can something created by the gods be a
blasphemy? How can an artifact of Bacchus himself be subject to
Caesar's laws?"
"Who brought peace to Rome, after five decades of rebellion and civil
strife?" Gaius demanded, his voice grating and level. "Who instituted
the pax romanus? To whom are hymns being sung even now in the temples?
Caesar. It is Caesar's laws that we must be bound to protect, you and I
-- or at least I, who have not forgotten that I am a judge."
"I have not forgotten that I am a poet," I retorted. "It is the gods to
whom we all must answer -- all of us, even Caesar."
"Caesar brings harmony and peace; Bacchus brings drunkenness and
discord."
"Bacchus brings joy and pleasure to the people," I said. "Caesar brings
rules and obedience."
Gaius made a noise of disgust in his throat. "You are not fond of
either, brother, nor have you ever been. Well I remember that you
disobeyed our father. Always you received special exemptions from the
rules. But it is rules, Publis, which elevate Rome above the level of
barbarians. Our codes, our laws, our traditions make us the superior
people. Why cast away your loyalty to Caesar? Do you wish to be no
better than the savages?"
"I am loyal, Gaius," I told my brother wearily. "I have always been.
One day I hope you will see that."
"One day," he said instantly, "I hope you will demonstrate it. But as
you persist in being my sister, rather than the brother you were born to
be, then you are the property of our family. If you have not been
honorably married, his will rules you. And in the absence of our
paterfamilias, it falls to me to see you disciplined."
"Will you hit me, Gaius?"
"Hit you?" he asked, hesitated, and asked again. "Hit you? No. But I
will no longer allow your crimes to sit upon my conscience. I will no
longer conceal your perfidy from the courts or the cohort. It is to
them that you shall answer for your crime."
In mere days, he made good on his threat, and his retribution took a
shape I could not have anticipated.
During two anxious days I rarely left my husband's domicile. From
within, entrapped with my infant son, I startled at the sound of any
guard's heavy footsteps in the street. I expected at any moment that a
Praetorian would arrive at the portal and announce my incipient arrest.
In great dread, I ventured to the baths on the third day in hopes of
warning my bathing companions that I was under great scrutiny. It would
be better that they disassociated from me, for their own safety.
When I arrived at the baths of Aqua Virgo, the ladies were not there.
Instead of the customary capsarii attending to the bathhouse and
collecting fees, there were leather-clad soldiers of the cohort. It was
too late to run, for a chillingly familiar Praetorian apprehended me.
Gently but irresistibly, he escorted me as far as the apodyterium.
"Undress," he commanded me. "You have a new bathing companion today."
Without much choice in the matter, I removed my clothing and stepped
into the caldarium. There was a lone woman there.
It was Livia Drusilla.
"Ovidia, how delightful," she said to me, beckoning me over with one
slender arm. She was nude, hip-deep in the bath. In other
circumstances, nudity might have robbed her of her regal authority.
Here, alone with the wife of the First Citizen, I realized that this
woman of thirty-five years, with her equine features, sturdy arms and
stretched, matronly belly could be a mortal threat if she chose. She
had evacuated the bath in the height of the afternoon for her own
personal use . . . and mine.
"I am given to understand by my stepdaughter Julia that you had become
very interested in a certain ceremony of the Bacchae," she said, as I
stepped gingerly into the steaming water. "I now see that your
researches have been wildly successful. You have gone from poet to
Maenad. And from Maenad to mother, yes?" she asked, stretching out one
languid arm to touch the stretch marks on my flank.
"Yes, I have," I responded. There was no sense denying it. "I have
learned more than I anticipated, I assure you."
"I'm quite confident you did not follow this path deliberately," Livia
said with a preternaturally calming smile. "No, do not take alarm. I
am not my husband. I care nothing for the moral probity of Rome. I am
not the one who seeks to expiate my guilt for my own infidelities by
punishing the populace. The citizens will play, of course, and drink
and celebrate in their own minor ways. It is best to be tolerant. So
your secret is safe with me. At least," she said, turning toward the
edge of the pool, "at least for the moment."
She pulled her way gracefully through the water with her arms, and came
to a sunken bench near where the water was less deep. "Come, Ovidia,
sit by me."
I could not refuse her, and came to sit alongside. For one of the few
times in my life, words failed me. I knew not what to say.
"You have done marvelously, you know," Livia commended me pleasantly.
"You have hunted for and obtained an artifact of the gods. Julia tells
me you pursued tales of the Fiasco from Athens to Sicily. And for such
dedication, the gods rewarded you with a rich husband and a baby boy.
What woman could hope for more?
"Of course, I have heard of the Fiasco before now. I have traveled to
Corinth, you know, where they still tell tales of it. Perhaps you have
heard them. I was not as clever as you, to have tracked the Fiasco to
its location. And you, of course, could insinuate yourself into the
ranks of the Bacchae without drawing attention to yourself, where I
could never do so. Imagine Octavian's disappointment should I have been
apprehended in pursuit of the Fiasco. No, you have done very well to
obtain what I could not, and to divine its secrets."
"And now you wish for me to turn it over to the First Citizen?" I asked,
with a tremor in my voice.
"Not to him, no. To me."
"To you?"
"Of course. Caesar Augustus should not trouble himself with such a
thing. His mind is on matters of engineering and state, on politics and
strategy. He doesn't give any consideration to . . . other matters."
"Such as?" I asked. I didn't like where this was going.
"To the future," the First Lady of Rome said simply, examining her hands
as if they had suddenly become fascinating. "To his heir."
"Surely his heir is Marcus Claudius Marcellus," I said. "Has he not
made that clear, by Julia's marriage to him?"
At the mention of Marcellus, a brief flicker crossed her face, as if a
foul scent had passed. "Marcellus is descended of greatness, without
acquiring greatness of his own," she said pointedly. "Caesar is forced
to prod him in the direction of mediocrity. We despair of his ever
becoming a Senator. Have you seen the theater being built in his name?
It is a mockery of stagecraft to attach the name of Marcellus to it. He
has insufficient interest in the arts, or in anything beyond serving the
legions. I would make a better First Citizen than he."
Her words echoed around the empty caldarium. I began to see the shape
of her thoughts. "You are unable to serve the Republic in this way," I
said politely. "I have not been a woman long, but it has been drilled
into me that my duty -- and yours, if I might suggest it -- is to remain
home. Did not Euripides write that Clytemnestra would yield up the
worlds of war and politics unto her husband, and keep for herself the
command of the spheres of home and hearth?"
Livia's rejoinder was immediate and bitter. "And what did reward did
that duty bring to her? Her husband needed a sacrifice for Artemis, so
he might have favorable winds for his warships. Brave king Agamemnon
ordered his wife's baby murdered. So much for duty, Ovidia."
"It was the will of the gods," I protested. "Their power is greater
than ours."
"Yes," she said slowly. "Yes, it is. And that is why you must turn
over this Bacchic Fiasco to me."
I stared at the First Citizen's wife in stunned silence. "What do you
intend?"
"I will not sit idly by and watch Caesar sacrifice my son," she said
angrily. "Tiberius is a worthy heir. He is my son, not Caesar's, but
he is a fine young man, and he can rule Rome when Augustus is no more.
Marcellus is nothing, he does not compare; to adopt him into the Julian
family and to make him the heir would be unacceptable."
"What is this talk of heirs?" I asked timorously. "Consuls of Rome are
elected. Their titles are not inherited--"
"There are no consuls in Rome, none. The last consul was Octavian's
great-uncle, who was murdered on the Senate floor." Livia's voice shook
with fury. "A pair of consuls cannot be trusted; the Triumvirates fall
to pieces. Rule by committee cannot ever succeed in Rome again. The
struggle for supremacy, one consul over another, is the source of all
evil and strife. We must henceforth have a First Citizen, and the
lineage of succession must be absolute."
"We cannot go back to the days of kings," I exclaimed. "It has been
five centuries. The last king was a lecher, a villain who launched wars
versus any and all nations in the Middle Sea, whose son raped Lucretia.
Kings--"
"My son is an honorable man," Livia hissed at me. "He must rule.
Therefore, Marcellus must be put out of contention."
"Murdered?" I asked, horror creeping into my eyes.
"Not murdered," she said with an evil sweetness. "Just ... set aside. As
you have been. Neutralized. No, darling, do not worry. Once we have
emasculated Marcellus and married her off to some virile general of good
family, she can concern herself with matters more within her
capabilities. She could give her husband a few babies, perhaps. That
would keep Marcellus occupied for several years."
"You would do this to Caesar's own son-in-law?"
"If I must," she admitted. "And if my intransigent husband stands in
the way, perhaps he must be set aside as well. Give me the Bacchic
Fiasco -- if I were a man, I could run Rome as well as he. Do not
question my dedication, poetess, for I would do anything for Rome."
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