The history of Ovid translations is also complicated, because the Ovidian tradition was
deeply enmeshed in vernacular literature. The Ars amatoria was readily assimilated into
courtly convention, where it had a contemporary analogue in Andreas Capellanus’s De
amore. From the early 13th to the late 14th century, there were no less than five
independent translations or adaptations of the Ars amatoria, four in verse and one in
prose. Chrétien de Troyes claimed (Cligés, ll. 1–3) to have translated the Ars amatoria, as
well as a work called the Commandemenz Ovide, perhaps the Remedia amoris. Chrétien’s
translations are not extant. Four of the surviving translations, which are in verse, date
from the 13th century. The earliest, the “Maistre Elie” version, was composed probably
early in the 13th century; its unique 14th-century manuscript covers only the first two
books of the Ars amatoria, and its method is both to amplify and to abbreviate its source.
It also substitutes contemporary French cultural and geographical references for Ovid’s
Roman culture and locales, medievalizing the text in a way that was conventional in
vernacular literary imitations of ancient sources, especially the Romances of Antiquity.
The Art d’amors of Jakes d’Amiens, also of the early 13th century, extant in five
manuscripts and an incunabulum, uses Andreas Capellanus’s De amore as a literary
model for the translation of Ovid’s text. The other two verse translations, the Clef
d’amors (written possibly 1280; one manuscript) and the version by Guiart (one
manuscript), similarly medievalize Ovid’s text: the Clef d’amors presents a framework of
a dream narrative in which the God of Love appears to the poet; and the adaptation by
Guiart combines Ovid’s Ars amatoria with elements from the Remedia amoris and
medieval religious motifs.
A prose translation of the Ars amatoria from the late 14th century (conserved in four
15th-c. manuscripts) offers a fairly literal translation of Ovid’s text, with extensive
glosses and a prologue to the text based on Latin academic models (accessus ad
auctores). Some of the glosses contain proverbs and quotations from French lyrics. In
three of the manuscripts, the translation covers only Books 1 and 2 of the Ars amatoria;
Book 3 appears only in one manuscript and seems to have been a later addition to the
French text. This translation is interesting for its synthesis of vernacular literary materials
and academic exegetical conventions.
There are also French translations of the Remedia amoris, Metamorphoses, and
Heroides. Three translations of the Remedia amoris are extant: one from the 13th
century, attributed to Jakes d’Amiens in two manuscripts that also contain his version of
the Ars amatoria, and two from the 14th century. The tradition of the Metamorphoses is
best considered with reference to the Ovide moralisé, which translates the entire
Metamorphoses, incorporating earlier translations of individual tales and which also
formed the basis of at least two 15th-century prose redactions (1466 and the Colard
Mansion edition of 1484). Finally, a number of versions of the Heroides have come down
to us. Two of these date from the 15th century: one is by Octavien de Saint-Gelays
(1496), extant in fifteen manuscripts and an incunabulum; the other, anonymous, is extant
in only one manuscript. But there is also a prose adaptation of the Heroides, probably
from the 13th century, of which only parts are now extant: some parts of this translation
survive embedded in the second redaction of the Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César (1364–
80), and other parts survive separately under the title Epistles que les dames de Grece
envoierent a leur maris qui estoient devant Troies et les responses d’icelles.
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