Ovid on Gozo? Metamorphoses as a source for the Tristia ex Melitogaudo

Abstract

The recent publication in 2010 of a fine full edition of the so-called Tristia ex Melitogaudo, the Greek poem of more than four thousand iambic lines written by a Greek-Sicilian scholar of the twelfth century in exile on Gozo,67 may lead to some reassessment of the reception history of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. An important preliminary study has already shown that the poet of the Tristia made use of a wide range of classical mythological stıories, including some found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (H.C.R.Vella, ‘The classical sources in the Tristia ex Melitogaudo: lament in Greek verse of a 12th-century exile on Gozo’ in I.Volt and J. Päll (eds.), Quattuor Lustra: papers celebrating the 20th anniversary of the re-establishment of classical studies at the University of Tartu, Tartu, 2012, 209-244). This paper takes the argument a stage further, suggesting direct use of Ovid’s Metamorphoses by the author of the Tristia.