Living Poets

How to quote this translation

Siquis habes nostris similes in imagine uultus,
     deme meis hederas, Bacchica serta, comis.
ista decent laetos felicia signa poetas:
     temporibus non est apta corona meis.
hoc tibi dissimula, senti tamen, optime, dici,
     in digito qui me fersque refersque tuo,
effigiemque meam fuluo complexus in auro
     cara relegati, quae potes, ora uides.
quae quotiens spectas, subeat tibi dicere forsan
     "quam procul a nobis Naso sodalis abest!"
grata tua est pietas, sed carmina maior imago
     sunt mea, quae mando qualiacumque legas,
carmina mutatas hominum dicentia formas,
     infelix domini quod fuga rupit opus.

Whoever has a portrait of my face, remove the ivy, garland of Bacchus, from my hair. Such signs of fortune suit happy poets: a wreath is not fitting for my temples. Conceal – but know – that I say this to you, best friend, who carry me here and there on your finger, and who, clasping my image on the yellow gold, see the dear face, all that you can, of an exile. Whenever you look at it, perhaps you will be prompted to say, “How far away is our friend Ovid!” Your love is a comfort, but my verses are a better portrait, and I urge you to read them such as they are, verses that tell of human transformations, the work broken off by the unhappy flight of its author.

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