Fasti
Fasti sunt carmen elegiacum quod Ovidius de Romano anni calendario composuit. Poeta, per singulos menses progrediens, festos dies, sacra, caerimonias et antiquos ritus enarrat, causasque eorum quaerit et explicat. Origines a Iano incipiens, Musas deosque ipsos interrogat, qui ei rerum rationes aperiunt. Fabulas etiam mythologicas, et Romanas et Graecas, intertexit, atque siderum ortus occasusque pro temporum ratione describit. Sex tantum libri supersunt, a Ianuario usque ad Iunium pertinentes; ceteros menses, exsilio fortasse interrupto, poeta numquam absolvit.
In hoc opere antiquitas Romana, religio, mores institutaque maiorum mirabili eruditione servantur, ita ut nullum aliud carmen ad veterem Romam cognoscendam utilius habeatur. Ovidius non solum doctrinam sed etiam gratiam poeticam praebet, dum sacra patriae cum amore et lepore celebrat. Hinc Fasti et eruditis et discipulis per saecula cari fuerunt, tamquam thesaurus memoriae Romanae, quo populi pietas et historia in perpetuum conservantur.
How it begins
No one, I should think, who has even done nothing more than look into Ovid's Fasti, will refuse his assent to the following words of Hercules Ciofanus, one of the earliest editors of this poem: Ex omnibus , says he, veterum poetarum monumentis nullum hodierno die exstat opus, quod, aut eruditione aut rebus quae ad Romanam antiquitatem cognoscendam pertineant, hos Ovidii Fastorum libros antecellat . In effect we have here ancient Roman history, religion, mythology, manners and customs, and moreover much Grecian mythology, and that portion of the ancient astronomy which regards the rising and setting of the different constellations. These altogether form a wide field of knowledge; and in my opinion there is not, in the whole compass of classical literature, a work better calculated to be put into the hands of students. Accordingly the Fasti are read at some of our great public schools and at several of the private ones, and I have lately had the gratification of seeing this very edition adopted at one of the most eminent of the great schools. The name of the master of that school, did I feel myself at liberty to mention it, would be a warrant for the goodness, at least the relative goodness, of the present edition.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain.