There are many mediocre translations of Ovid. Not surprisingly with a poet of so many voices and moods (and who is so poorly appreciated by many in our unsubtle world, one translator does not always seem the best, when two passages are compared. Since the question was not, which translation is worst, I won't comment on Gregory, Slavitt, Humphreys, etc. At the risk of sounding recherch'e, however, I will assert that Golding translation, on a line by line basis, can beat nearly any competitor. Maybe it is Elizabethan compatibility, but it makes me smile more often than most.

-- donald lateiner (dglatein), September 08, 1997