Tag: Ars Amatoria
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book II Part IV: Be Patient and Comply
Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD If she’s not charming or courteous enough, at your loving, endure it and persist: she’ll soon be kinder. You can get a curved branch to bend on the tree by patience: you’ll break it, if you try out your full strength. With patience you can cross…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book II Part III: Be Gentle and Good Tempered
Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Gentleness especially impresses minds favourably: harshness creates hatred and fierce wars. We hate the hawk that lives its life in battle, and the wolf whose custom is to raid the timid flocks. But the swallow, for its gentleness, is free from human snares, and Chaonian doves…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book II Part II: You Need Gifts of Mind
Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Minos could not hold back those mortal wings: I’m setting out to check the winged god himself. He who has recourse to Thracian magic, fails, to what the foal yields, torn from its new-born brow, Medea’s herbs can’t keep love alive, nor Marsian dirges mingled with magic chants.…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book II Part I: His Task
Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Sing out the Paean: sing out the Paean twice! The prize I searched for falls into my net. Delighted lovers grant my songs the palm, I’m preferred to Hesiod and old Homer. So Paris the stranger sailed, from hostile Amyclae’s shore, under white sheets, with his…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part XIX: Be Flexible
Ilustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD I’ve done, but there’s diversity in women’s hearts: a thousand minds require a thousand methods. One soil doesn’t bear all crops: vines here are good, olives there: this teems with healthy wheat. There are as many manners of heart as kinds of…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part XVIII: Be Pale: Be Wary of Your Friends
Ilustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD A pale colour would shame a sailor on the ocean wave, who’s blackened by the rays of the sun: and shame the farmer who turns the soil with curved plough and heavy harrow, underneath the heavens. And you who seek the athlete’s…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part XVII: Tears, Kisses, and Take the Lead
lustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD And tears help: tears will move a stone: let her see your damp cheeks if you can. If tears (they don’t always come at the right time) fail you, touch your eyes with a wet hand. What wise man doesn’t mingle tears…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part XV: At Dinner Be Bold
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Ah, Bacchus calls to his poet: he helps lovers too, and supports the fire with which he is inflamed. The frantic Cretan girl wandered the unknown sands, that the waters of tiny sea-borne Dia showed. Just as she was, from sleep, veiled…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part XIV: Look Presentable
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Don’t delight in curling your hair with tongs, don’t smooth your legs with sharp pumice stone. Leave that to those who celebrate Cybele the Mother, howling wildly in the Phrygian manner. Male beauty’s better for neglect: Theseus carried off Ariadne, without a…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part XIII: Be Where She Is
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Meanwhile, if she’s being carried, reclining on her bed, secretly approach your lady’s litter, and to avoid offering your words to odious ears, hide what you can with skill and ambiguous gestures. If she’s wandering at leisure in the spacious Colonnade, you…
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