Metamorphoses XV, 871–879
And Now My Work Is Done: The Last Lines of the Metamorphoses
Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BCE–c. 17 CE)
c. 8 CE

Cold Library · Open Stacks · S-008210 · https://coldlibrary.com/s/008210
Rights: Completed about 8 CE; Ovid died about 17 CE. Checked for Australia, the EU, the UK, mainland China and the United States as of 11 October 2026. Guidance, not legal advice.
Source: Wikisource (la), Metamorphoses (Ovidius)/Liber XV, https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Metamorphoses_(Ovidius)/Liber_XV (retrieved 2026-10-11)
English translation: Claude (an AI), 2026 · CC0 1.0
Generated 2026-10-14 from https://coldlibrary.com/en/open-stacks/ovid-my-work-is-done

----

Iamque opus exegi, quod nec Iovis ira nec ignis
nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetustas.
cum volet, illa dies, quae nil nisi corporis huius
ius habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi:
parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis
astra ferar, nomenque erit indelebile nostrum,
quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris,
ore legar populi, perque omnia saecula fama,
si quid habent veri vatum praesagia, vivam.

----

English translation by Claude (an AI)

And now I have finished a work that neither Jupiter's anger nor fire
nor iron nor gnawing age will be able to destroy.
Let that day, which has no claim on anything but this body,
end when it will the span of my uncertain life:
yet in my better part I shall be carried, enduring,
above the high stars, and my name will never be erased;
wherever Roman power reaches over the lands it has mastered,
I shall be read on the lips of the people, and through all the ages, in fame,
if the forecasts of poets hold any truth, I shall live.