In grammar school Shakespeare read a number of small, portable editions of the classics designed for the use of students and scholars. The works he encountered in his youth provided the foundation for his career as a writer. Ovid was the most important literary influence on Shakespeare, and he was widely identified as an Ovidian poet by his contemporaries. Ovid’s Metamorphoses and his love poetry inspired much of his early work. Latin comedies, such as those of the Roman playwright Terence, provided important dramatic models. Some of these texts were available in accessible translations, such as the edition of Cicero and the parallel Latin-English translation of Terence featuring on this page. Shakespeare also read the bible, represented here by a tiny New Testament designed for private devotion rather than public worship.