Genap Under Nihthelm

"Ovidii Medea videtur mihi ostendere quantum ille vir praestare potuerit si ingenio suo temperare quam induglere maluisset." -Quintilian, X.I.XCVIII

("To me Ovid's Medea seems to show what that man could accomplish when he preferred to discipline his genius rather than indulge it.")

It is certainly regretful that works like Ovid's tragedy are lost to us, but this pain is often tempered by the fact that we know almost nothing of the character of what we have lost. How sudden, then, is the redoubling of the smart when we come upon a line such as this, wrapped though it is in the haughty judgment of a refined critic, that gives some glimpse of the quality of what has been taken from us. I cannot say I am the greatest partisan of Ovid's, but he is a supremely enjoyable poet even when he does coddle his fancy, and a very fine one in his better moments; to have lost the judged exemplar of his maturity is a loss indeed. All we can offer are the words of an anonymous Anglo-Saxon: genap under nihthelm, swa heo no waere "They are clouded under the hood of night as though they never were."