Ovid's Other Metamorphoses
Permissible Intrigue
“Far away from here, you badges of modesty,
The thin headband, the ankle-covering dress.” Tristia 4.10
I woke the following day slightly before lunch, draped in an uncomfortable reclining position on a lectus beside the dining table. The light of Apollo through the window was blinding, my headache was unbearable, and the previous night seemed like a dream. But I was myself.
“It is good to see you awake,” said my wife Flavia with a distant, unsympathetic air. She sat in her chair opposite me, sipping at a cup she held in both hands. “I presume you enjoyed your evening with your poet friends.”
It took both hands to push myself upright. “Yes. Poet friends,” I repeated, twisting around to sit on the recliner. “What is the time?”
“Lunchtime,” Flavia said archly, without a glance at the horologium. “Half the day is gone, my husband.” There was point in talking with her, it seemed; she probably assumed I had been out violating the vows of our marriage. I didn’t recall doing so, but there would be no convincing her of that.
“You are fortunate that your name was not drawn for centumviri duty this morning,” she said. Her voice was one of annoyed calm. “But your friend, Cornelius, called just after sunrise. You are to meet him at the baths after lunch. Are you ill? Would you care for something to drink? I can fetch you some water.”
I nodded, but she made no move to stand. Shakily, I ascended to my feet, clinging to the table, and saw the Bacchic Fiasco in the center of the table.
“Cornelius said that belonged to you,” Flavia went on. “I do not recall seeing it in our house, my husband. Is it a gift from the Greek woman who writes to you?”
“No,” I answered brusquely. “It’s not a gift from her.”
She raised her eyebrow, but said nothing.
I met Cornelius Quadratus at the baths fed by the Aqua Virgo as soon as I was able. He insisted we sit in the frigidarium, which I assumed was for his amusement. I sat in the chilly water, shivering and blue, while he explained our next move.
“C-can’t we move to the caldarium? It’s bitterly cold here,” I said with chattering teeth.
“Absolutely not,” Cornelius said heartlessly, lounging against the wall of the pool. He rubbed his bare feet over the mosaic tiles below the water, a depiction of nymphs frolicking amid the vineyards. “Cold water is the best thing for a hangover, believe me. And here it is more private.”
“Hardly private,” I said. “Everything in here echoes.”
“That’s in your head, Ovidius. Listen to me: I have spoken to . . . my friend. She has been making arrangements. We are to come to dinner together in two days’ time.”
“We?”
“Yes, Big-Nose, you and I will attend together. She will want proof that we have acquired it.”
“Are you suggesting we bring a relic of — to the house of —”
“No!” The echoes chased each other into the marble colonnades of the frigidarium, and Cornelius lowered his voice. “I’m not,” he went on, quietly. “That would be suicide. Her father would never approve of such a thing, if he knew what it was. We’re not even sure he approves of you, Ovid. Those poems of yours are a bit lusty for his taste. You should stick to subjects a bit more regal and uplifting, like my work on the Iliad.”
“Men going to war for their gods?” I asked sardonically, despite my throbbing head. “Minerva driving the Greeks across the sea into glorious bloody battle over the injured vanity of a sister goddess?”
Cornelius appraised me carefully. “I’m surprised at you. You have been touched by the gods themselves, and their magic. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself, but I was there. It gives meaning to my poetry in a way that nothing else has ever done.”
I was silent, for Cornelius had scored a valid point.
“In two days’ time, five days before Market,” he said. “You will have to come to my place in the afternoon. They will send slaves for us, when it is time for dinner. We will send your dress on ahead—”
My teeth began to chatter. “My dress?”
“Yes,” Cornelius said with a devious smile. “Your poems aren’t very popular on Palatine, Ovidius, so you aren’t going to be invited. The invitation will be for me . . . and my wife. You, dear friend, will be our lady Julia’s proof.”
To make the plan of Cornelius work, I secured another bottle of the fig wine from the same seller where I had purchased it before. The merchant was a clean-faced young man with rosy cheeks and a supple smile, who sold his wares from a donkey cart in a forum on the east side of Rome. The side of the cart was painted with images of fruit: grapes, figs, apricots.
“Did you enjoy your bottle, my friend?” he said jovially.
“It was . . . most unexpectedly good,” I conceded. “I am still feeling faint from its effects.”
His laugh was friendly and easy. “Yours was the fig, yes? I am sure my father will be pleased to hear how you enjoyed it. He is proud of the wine we make. We have been making caricarum for centuries up in the hills, you know.”
“Indeed?” I asked, and reached for my purse. “Then I hope you take it as a compliment that I wish to purchase another bottle.”
“Excellent,” said the youth. “That’s ten sold today. Since last night, it has been selling very well.”
He handed me the carafe of wine, the familiar white ceramic with the sculpture of a fig baked into the side, and I passed him my denarii. “Drink it slowly,” he suggested. “It’s the last drop of fig wine I have in Rome. I shall have to return to the winery with my wagon for another load.”
I did drink it slowly.
Over the following two days, hoping to minimize its inebriating effects, I sipped at the bottle of fig wine. I stayed at the insula of Cornelius, telling Flavia I would be away. Cornelius and I observed the slow effects of the elixir, while we discussed everything: poetry, history, the Republic, and especially the gods. Here in my hand was an authentic magical artifact, a device that could have been crafted by no engineer known to Rome or Athens or Cairo. A simple brew poured into the Bacchic Fiasco became a powerful elixir.
And, as I drank from the carafe, I could feel it once again tugging away my male essence, absorbing my manly habits, stealing every ounce of flesh that could have belonged only to a man. Cornelius’s slaves must have suspected something amiss when presented with the slow transmutation of my voice and appearance, but they were loyal enough to their master to say nothing. He treated them as well as any Roman might, and better.
At the end of the first day, I was entirely female in body and, to my confusion, in mind also. The Bacchic Fiasco didn’t simply strip away my male flesh, but my male thoughts and behaviors. I felt it grow more difficult to interrupt Cornelius, or to contradict his pronouncements; I increasingly desired to allow him to have his way, in order to make peace and promote harmony between us. I disputed less; I conceded more. I became attuned to his attitudes, rising from the table when he rose, laughing when he laughed. Was I losing my independence? Was I becoming enthralled to him? Was the magic of Bacchus making me passive like a woman: conciliatory, subordinate, obedient, and demure? I could not discern what had changed about my mind, but I knew it had changed. I was not the same as I was.
Cornelius noticed it.
“I must admit, Ovidius,” he said to me, admiring the delicate way I reclined on the lectus, my thighs pressed together, my ankles crossed, “you are learning very quickly how to impersonate a woman. I’m sure your performance tomorrow at dinner will be indistinguishable from the real thing. Those clothes aren’t very becoming, of course, but we shall fix that tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” I said meekly.
“One thing, though,” he said critically, tapping his cheek with one finger. “You really should be sitting on the chair across from me, not reclining on the lectus.”
I immediately got to my feet, embarrassed that I had been so indecorous. Had this been a more formal affair I might seriously have embarrassed us both. I had entirely forgotten that it was my place to seat myself opposite to him. “I apologize, Cornelius,” I said. “I will remember tomorrow.”
He laughed wryly. “You don’t have to keep up the act with me, Ovidius,” he said, and hesitated. “What are we going to call you? I can’t exactly introduce you to the First Citizen as the poet Publius Ovidius Naso.”
“If I had been born a woman,” I suggested helpfully, “I would have been named for my father, Gaius Ovidius Corvus.”
“You would have been Ovidia Corva, then,” Cornelius grunted. “And as my wife, you would be Ovidia Corva Quadrati. Only people from Sulmo are named Ovidius, because that’s where all the shepherds are, but the Caesar can hardly suspect it’s you in there. I don’t, and I watched it happen.”
I stayed with Cornelius Quadratus that evening, quite unable to return home in this condition without alarming Flavia unduly. He introduced me to his slaves and showed me the shrines and customs of his household god, and I did my best to perfect my performance as his dutiful, demure bride. To my disquiet, I discovered it wasn’t difficult at all to subordinate myself to his wishes.
On the afternoon of the second day of my change, Cornelius sent his slaves out to the forum markets to procure what I would need: a fitting tunica, petite sandals, perfume, cosmetics, and a slave educated in the art of applying them. He had no wife, of course, and I had never observed my wife applying her own in the privacy of the pulchra cella. I would need the help of a cosmeta to manage my rouge, skin, and hair.
The astonishing transformation that I had undergone prompted a wide-ranging discussion between us on the nature of the gods. While I stood with my arms outstretched, as his slave Kallypso fitted my tunica, Cornelius idled nearby eating walnuts. “You know it’s funny, Ovidius,” he mused, looking over the altered curves of my form. “I never—”
Kallypso, his Greek slave, interrupted him kindly. “Ovidia, master.”
“Yes. Yes, Ovidia. How foolish of me. It’s funny, Ovidia,” he amended himself, “I never gave the gods much consideration. Our family’s house has always had a shrine to our household god, of course. I give him wine; I throw scraps of food into the hearth. But these are just habits. I do them automatically. Occasionally I have good fortune, occasionally bad, but I do not perceive a connection between my fortunes and my sacrifices to the Lares of the house. Some in Rome feel the same way I do, but some still believe. And yet here,” he said, gesturing at my altered body, “here is evidence of the existence of true magic. How is it possible that one can be so devoted to his family’s protective spirits and see no results, while magic like this is known to exist?”
“In times of war and strife, it is natural to question the gods,” I suggested politely. I felt absurdly proud that Cornelius had asked my opinion, and knew I was ridiculous to feel so flattered. “When Calchas the Oracle told King Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter to launch the Greek fleet,” I said, “the King of Argos was doubtful. He summoned Iphigenia to Aulis, then changed his mind and tried to send her away, but it was too late.”
“So wrote Euripides,” said Cornelius dismissively. “But war and strife: yes, I see that. We have had turmoil of our own in Rome, have we not? The Civil War hasn’t been long concluded. Caesar Augustus only became princeps three years ago. Prior to that, our troubles have lasted a century, all the way back to the last war against Carthage. Sulla marching the legions into the City. Caesar assassinated before the very eyes of the Senate. Anthony and Octavian fighting for dominion. How many sacrifices did we make to the gods during that century, Ovidia? How many prayers did we offer? How many Romans died? The household gods didn’t protect us then, did they? Where was Jupiter, where was Minerva, when innocents were being executed and citizens were begging for mercy?”
I had no adequate answer for this, but said, “When the gods desire war, the gods get war.”
“No doubt,” he said bitterly. “And when the gods desire peace, what do we get?”
“Peace?” I asked politely.
“No, we get Octavian,” Cornelius sighed. “Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus. We get moral reforms, we get restrictions upon our liberty. Peace in Rome — at a price, yes, but peace. People are beginning worship him, you know. And why not?” he asked with a barking, sardonic laugh. “Of all the gods they could choose to worship, at least Caesar Augustus gets results.”
“The people of Rome must believe in something,” I said. “If not in the Caesar, then in some other.” Kallypso reached around me, adjusting my breasts to better hang in the tunic. Cornelius watched with considered interest.
“I suppose you’re right, Big-Nose,” he said at last. “After a hundred years of fighting and blood in the streets, it has been difficult to believe. Perhaps that’s why Augustus has been forcing morality and probity down our throats. We have lost our faith.”
I had a private thought that I could not bring myself to speak aloud. As a woman it was no longer my place to contradict my man, and despite the fact that I was not truly a woman, all masculine behaviors had been so thoroughly drained from me that I held my tongue. Perhaps, I judged, it had been the other way around. Perhaps the disbelief had come before the strife, and the strife followed after as penance.
If that were so, I thought, then could these new moral laws of Caesar Augustus, these constraints upon the freedoms of women: could they be right after all?
On the fifth day before Market, the palace slaves came for us. In the hours following the afternoon baths I had been in the pulchra cella while Kallypso attended to my skin and Cornelius’s new cosmeta slave, Stratonika, curled and braided my hair. The process was tedious and uncomfortable, but necessary if I were to successfully infiltrate the palace of the First Citizen posing as the wife of Cornelius. Kallypso had stripped the hair from my legs and arms with a resin paste, and applied a fine powder to make my skin pale and perfect; Stratonika put my hair into plaits which she tucked in carefully. I was pampered, plucked, perfumed, and painted; my cheeks were lightly rouged; my lips and nipples were treated with a waxy gloss to make them shine; my fingernails were trimmed and dyed red. Last, I was dressed by the two slaves, who tugged and tucked at my strange female anatomy to put everything in proper shape. This sleeveless tunica would not be what I wore to dinner with the First Citizen, but something to wear until I arrived. My formal tunica had been sent ahead, and I would don it at the palace.
The First Citizen had arranged for us to travel in style, and had sent a litter to bear us to the palace on the shoulders of slaves. Cornelius and I reclined together on a plush cushion while four husky Germans carried us through the streets toward Palatine Hill. Our proximity was very close, at once comfortable and awkward. There was room to spare for both of us, but Cornelius kept his left arm around behind my back.
“For the look of the thing, Ovidia,” he said softly in my ear. He spoke Greek, so the slaves would not understand. “Remember, I am your husband. One dinner with the First Citizen, and this will be over.”
“I understand,” I said quietly, staying close to him. Pedestrians in the narrow streets observed our stately passage, and I felt uniquely exposed. I desired to draw the curtains, but Cornelius wished them open.
He spoke into my ear again. “You smell divine. The cosmeta did wonders with you.”
I blushed, for some reason I cannot explain. I could not compliment him in return without embarrassment, though I desired to.
We were presented at the palace of the First Citizen, a modestly rich dwelling on Palatine that overlooked the Circus Maximus. After declining for himself any official title of consul, dictator, or emperor, Caesar Augustus had instead claimed the unofficial role he held today. He was a man of a noble family, with excellent lineage and great personal wealth. His power was merely to advise the Senate where its interests lay. Wisely, the Senate did not oppose his suggestions.
His home was spacious and comfortable, decorated in bold colors and intricate patterns. Frescoes covered every interior wall: striking slabs of mustard and damask, overlaid with white trim and illuminated with paintings of cranes, birds, imps, winged goddesses, and mythical beings. It had multiple guest chambers to accommodate his large family, his many guests, and any Senators whose favor he courted — and those whom he intimidated.
Caesar Augustus himself was a taciturn man, short of stature and crowned with golden curls just turning to a distinguished gray. His features were solemn, his nose straight, and his jaw lean; in his predatory countenance there was always decision, never doubt. Augustus wore robes of finest purple, richer than any I had ever seen, but unadorned with gold or jewelry as was so often the custom of the wealthy; he held his power so firmly that no display of ostentation was needed. Instead, frugality and modesty ruled.
This parsimony echoed in the attire of his wife Livia, who appeared ever the dutiful and regal companion. She slightly taller than Augustus, but not overbearingly so, and radiated an impenetrable poise. Her stola, the sober dress of the honorable matron, was of fine magenta silk; her palla shawl was threaded subtly with gold.
Both the First Citizen and his wife gave us careful scrutiny, interviewing us as we walked along together through the atrium, into the inner courtyard, and beyond to the house itself. Augustus himself focused upon Cornelius, Livia silently upon me; soon it became apparent why.
“You yourself are a poet of good equestrian standing,” the First Citizen said to Cornelius. “And married, I gather. For very long?”
“Not very, Augustus,” Cornelius admitted truthfully. “I met Ovidia through my poetry. She is a particular fan of Virgil, of course.”
“Who isn’t?” Augustus asked rhetorically. “His Aeneid only increases the glory of Rome. Today’s poets would be wise to follow his example, rather than compose verses of filth and degradation.”
“I entirely agree,” Cornelius said obsequiously.
The ruler of Rome fixed his gaze upon my friend Quadratus and noted, “My wayward daughter Julia speaks of your poetry. It was at her request, of course, that I have extended you this invitation. I do adore her, but I must act cautiously with her when it comes to men. I always verify the character of any man who calls upon her.”
“A sensible precaution,” Cornelius assured Augustus. “It may be that her issue shall one day follow in your esteemed footsteps.”
At this, the queen’s eyes narrowed, and her gaze shifted to take in the enthusiasm of Cornelius. All the while I desperately desired to interject, but I could not; Roman women were not to defy their husbands in a public place. Had I permission to speak, I would have reminded my foolish friend that Caesar Augustus had married Livia because she had a likely heir: Tiberius, Julia’s stepbrother.
Cornelius seemed pleased with his conversation; the affront of the queen was obviously imperceptible to him.
Augustus, it seemed to me, affected not to notice the impolitic remark. “And what sort of verse do you compose, friend poet?”
“You may possibly have heard my own stanzas that serve to elaborate upon the beginning of the Trojan War. Battle and glory,” Cornelius beamed with such conviction that I half believed him, “are the proper subjects for the true poet.”
Again I opened my mouth, but could not speak to contradict him. Cornelius Quadratus, cynic in private, the foremost doubter of the First Citizen and his moral codes, certainly knew how to ply Augustus with flattery in person.
This time, Livia observed my attempt to interrupt; a mere flicker of her eye in my direction caused me to abort my unseemly interruption. Even as that look passed between us, her eye glanced at Augustus, then back to me. The gaze of Caesar Augustus was upon me, and beyond me; he stared distractedly in the direction of my throat, his eyes without focus, as Cornelius exhorted him on the subject of Venus’s pride. The queen had a look of reserve, of caution, of burgeoning jealousy. Just as Caesar Augustus feared for his daughter’s virtue and shielded her from the attentions of unknown or unmarried men, Livia was custodian of her wayward husband. I knew that Cornelius had been invited at Julia’s request, but Livia feared that I — in the shape of a strange young woman, now a feminine creature with an excellent and enviable figure — had been invited to please Augustus. The First Citizen, it seemed, imposed his moral codes upon Rome to compensate for his own personal infidelity.
Thus approved by the master and mistress of the house, Cornelius and I were dismissed separately: he to the courtyard to bask in the spring warmth, and I to the guest chambers to don my formal tunica. There I was helped by Caesaris slave women, who stripped me of my other tunica and made minute, fussing adjustments to my hair and cosmetics, clucking their tongues all the while at the atrocious work performed by my own cosmetae. Once my makeup was completed for the second time that day — this a more modest, less colorful presentation more aligned with the Caesar’s personal preferences — I was bundled into the fresh tunica.
As I was being pushed and tugged into the close-fitting fabric, a familiar voice sounded behind me.
“Well, well, well — if my eyes do not deceive me, this must be Ovidia Corva Quadrati,” said the woman’s voice, effusing with ironic humor. “Married already, I see, to Cornelius Quadratus the poet. My father always says it’s important for a woman to be married.”
The sound of the voice passed behind to my left, and soon an apparition entered my field of vision. The desirable curves of Julia Caesari appeared before me, formally attired as I now was, with every curl in place, every dash of rouge the equal to my own. Her full, shining lips played into an amused smirk. “How wonderful it is to see you,” said the daughter of the First Citizen. She allowed her tongue to lightly moisten her lips as she cast her eye down the length of my figure, then continued, “how delectable it is to see you like this. I’m sure you are simply perishing to tell me all about your recent adventures. I want to hear everything.
“But first,” Julia Caesari said with a wicked smile, taking my upper arm firmly in her hand, “my father and your husband are waiting for us.” Without waiting for my consent, she steered me firmly from the dressing chamber and in the direction of dinner.
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