Tag: Poetry
-
Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part X – First Secure the Maid
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD First Secure the Maid But to get to know your desired-one’s maid is your first care: she’ll smooth your way. See if she’s close to her mistress’s thoughts, and has plenty of true knowledge of her secret jests. Corrupt her with promises,…
-
Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part IX: How To Win Her
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD So far, riding her unequal wheels, the Muse has taught you where you might choose your love, where to set your nets. Now I’ll undertake to tell you what pleases her, by what arts she’s caught, itself a work of highest art.…
-
Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part VIII: And Finally There’s the Beach
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Why enumerate every female meeting place fit for the hunter? The grains of sand give way before the number. Why speak of Baiae, its shore splendid with sails, where the waters steam with sulphurous heat? Here one returning, his heart wounded, said:…
-
Andromeda
Unknown Artist, c.1800, National Trust for Scotland, Brodick Castle, Garden & Country Park Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, Cepheus being the King of the Ethiopians. When Cassiopeia boasted of her beauty being greater than that of the Nereids (the 50 daughters of the ‘Old Man of the Sea’ Nereus and the Oceanid…
-
Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part VII: There’s always the Dinner-Table
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD The table laid for a feast also gives you an opening: There’s something more than wine you can look for there. Often rosy Love has clasped Bacchus’s horns, drawing him to his gentle arms, as he lay there. And when wine has…
-
Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part VI: Triumphs are good too!
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Behold, now Caesar’s planning to add to our rule what’s left of earth: now the far East will be ours. Parthia , we’ll have vengeance: Crassus’s bust will cheer, and those standards wickedly laid low by barbarians. The avenger’s here, the leader, proclaimed,…
-
Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part V- Or at the Races, or the Circus
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Don’t forget the races, those noble stallions: the Circus holds room for a vast obliging crowd. No need here for fingers to give secret messages, nor a nod of the head to tell you she accepts: You can sit by your lady:…
-
Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part IV- Or at the Theatre
Illustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD But hunt for them, especially, at the tiered theatre: that place is the most fruitful for your needs. There you’ll find one to love, or one you can play with, one to be with just once, or one you might wish to…
-
Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) – Book I Part III – Search while you’re out Walking
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Just walk slowly under Pompey’s shady colonnade, when the sun’s in Leo, on the back of Hercules’s lion: or where Octavia added to her dead son Marcellus’s gifts, with those rich works of foreign marble. Don’t miss the Portico that takes its…
-
Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part II: How to Find Her
Illustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD While you’re still free, and can roam on a loose rein, pick one to whom you could say: ‘You alone please me.’ She won’t come falling for you out of thin air: the right girl has to be searched for: use your…
everythinglatin.co.uk 