The fact that the Portuguese culture was often historically constrained by ecclesiastical, royal, moral or civil censorship did not prevent it from taking an interest in other cultures, especially those that enjoyed greater international prestige. To understand the stakes more fully, it might be useful to look back on the 18th century, a period which witnessed an increase both in the number of translations produced and in the translation strategies undertaken by translators at that time (word for word translation, imitation, paraphrasing or conversion). A case particularly representative of this issue is the first complete Portuguese translation of Ovid’s Heroides by Miguel do Couto Guerreiro in 1778: “Ovid’s Letters-Epistulae Heroidum, Purged of all obscenity and translated in regular rhyme (…)”. Bearing in mind the suggestive title of the translation, this paper aims to discuss the socio-political manipulative tendencies of Couto Guerreiro’s text, as understood in modern-day Translation Studies. In the course of this undertaking the following steps will be taken: Analysis of the context in which the translation was produced; Interpretation of the messages on translation and censorship contained in paratextual elements; Interconnection of these principles with the translation, taking into special consideration the comparison of linguistic puns between the original text and the translated text; Consideration of the poetic creativity of literary “imitation”; Discussion of how the translated text was received in the target culture and literary system.