OVID: THE ART OF
LOVE
(ARS AMATORIA)
Translated by A. S.
Kline ã2001 All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely
reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any
non-commercial purpose.
Contents
Book I Part II: How to Find Her
Book I Part III: Search while you’re out
Walking
Book I Part IV: Or at the Theatre
Book I Part V: Or at the Races, or the Circus
Book I Part VI: Triumphs are Good too!
Book I Part VII: There’s always the
Dinner-Table
Book I Part VIII: And Finally There’s the
Beach
Book I Part IX: How To Win Her
Book I Part X: First Secure the Maid
Book I Part XI: Don’t Forget Her Birthday!
Book I Part XII: Write and Make Promises
Book I Part XIII: Be Where She Is
Book I Part XIV: Look Presentable
Book I Part XV: At Dinner Be Bold
Book I Part XVI: Promise and Deceive
Book I Part XVII: Tears, Kisses, and Take the
Lead
Book I Part XVIII: Be Pale: Be Wary of Your
Friends
Book I
Should anyone here not
know the art of love,
read this, and learn
by reading how to love.
By art the boat’s set
gliding, with oar and sail,
by art the chariot’s
swift: love’s ruled by art.
Automedon was skilled
with Achilles’s chariot reins,
Tiphys in Thessaly was
steersman of the Argo,
Venus appointed me as
guide to gentle Love:
I’ll be known as
Love’s Tiphys, and Automedon.
It’s true Love’s wild,
and one who often flouts me:
but he’s a child of
tender years, fit to be ruled.
Chiron made the young
Achilles perfect at the lyre,
and tempered his wild
spirits through peaceful art.
He, who so terrified
his enemies and friends,
they say he greatly
feared the aged Centaur.
That hand that Hector
was destined to know,
was held out, at his
master’s orders, to be flogged.
I am Love’s teacher as
Chiron was Achilles’s,
both wild boys, both
children of a goddess.
Yet the bullock’s neck
is bowed beneath the yoke,
and the spirited
horse’s teeth worn by the bit.
And Love will yield to
me, though with his bow
he wounds my heart,
shakes at me his burning torch.
The more he pierces
me, the more violently he burns me,
so much the fitter am
I to avenge the wounds.
Nor will I falsely say
you gave me the art, Apollo,
no voice from a
heavenly bird gives me advice,
I never caught sight
of Clio or Clio’s sisters
while herding the
flocks, Ascra, in your valleys:
Experience prompts
this work: listen to the expert poet:
I sing true: Venus,
help my venture!
Far away from here,
you badges of modesty,
the thin headband, the
ankle-covering dress.
I sing of safe love,
permissible intrigue,
and there’ll be
nothing sinful in my song.
Now the first task for you who come as a raw
recruit
is to find out who you might wish to love.
The next task is to
make sure that she likes you:
the third, to see to it that the love will
last.
That’s my aim, that’s the ground my chariot
will cover:
that’s the post my thundering wheels will
scrape.
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 eyes.
The hunter knows where
to spread nets for the stag,
he knows what valleys
hide the angry boar:
the wild-fowler knows
the woods: the fisherman
knows the waters where
the most fish spawn:
You too, who search
for the essence of lasting love,
must be taught the
places that the girls frequent.
I don’t demand you set
your sails, and search,
or wear out some long
road to discover them.
Perseus brought
Andromeda from darkest India,
and Trojan Paris
snatched his girl from Greece,
Rome will grant you
lots of such lovely girls,
you’ll say: ‘Here’s
everything the world has had.’
Your Rome’s as many
girls as Gargara’s sheaves,
as Methymna’s grapes,
as fishes in the sea,
as birds in the hidden
branches, stars in the sky:
Venus, Aeneas’s
mother, haunts his city.
If you’d catch them
very young and not yet grown,
real child-brides will
come before your eyes:
if it’s young girls
you want, thousands will please you.
You’ll be forced to be
unsure of your desires:
if you delight greatly
in older wiser years,
here too, believe me,
there’s an even greater crowd.
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 name
from Livia its
creator, full of old masters:
or where the daring
Danaids prepare to murder their poor husbands,
and their fierce
father stands, with out-stretched sword.
And don’t forget the
shrine of Adonis, Venus wept for,
and the sacred Sabbath
rites of the Syrian Jews.
Don’t skip the Memphite
temple of the linen-clad heifer:
she makes many a girl
what she herself was to Jove.
And the law-courts
(who’d believe it?) they suit love:
a flame is often found
in the noisy courts:
where the Appian
waters pulse into the air,
from under Venus’s
temple, made of marble,
there the lawyer’s
often caught by love,
and he who guides
others, fails to guide himself:
in that place of
eloquence often his words desert him,
and a new case starts,
his own cause is the brief.
There Venus, from her
neighbouring temples, laughs:
he, who was once the
counsel, now wants to be the client.
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 keep.
As ants return home
often in long processions,
carrying their
favourite food in their mouths,
or as the bees buzz
through the flowers and thyme,
among their pastures
and fragrant chosen meadows,
so our fashionable
ladies crowd to the famous shows:
my choice is often
constrained by such richness.
They come to see, they
come to be seen as well:
the place is fatal to
chaste modesty.
These shows were first
made troublesome by Romulus,
when the raped Sabines
delighted unmarried men.
Then no awnings hung
from the marble theatre,
the stage wasn’t
stained with saffron perfumes:
Then what the shady
Palatine provided, leaves
simply placed, was all
the artless scene:
The audience sat on
tiers made from turf,
and covered their
shaggy hair, as best they could, with leaves.
They watched, and each
with his eye observed the girl
he wanted, and
trembled greatly in his silent heart.
While, to the measure
of the homely Etruscan flute,
the dancer, with
triple beat, struck the levelled earth,
amongst the applause
(applause that was never artful then)
the king gave the
watched-for signal for the rape.
They sprang up
straightaway, showing their intent by shouting,
and eagerly took
possession of the women.
As doves flee the
eagle, in a frightened crowd,
as the new-born lamb
runs from the hostile wolf:
so they fled in panic
from the lawless men,
and not one showed the
colour she had before.
Now they all fear as
one, but not with one face of fear:
Some tear their hair:
some sit there, all will lost:
one mourns silently,
another cries for her mother in vain:
one moans, one faints:
one stays, while that one runs:
the captive girls were
led away, a joyful prize,
and many made even
fear itself look fitting.
Whoever showed too
much fight, and denied her lover,
he held her clasped
high to his loving heart,
and said to her: ‘Why
mar your tender cheeks with tears?
as your father to your
mother, I’ll be to you.’
Romulus, alone, knew
what was fitting for soldiers:
I’ll be a soldier, if
you give me what suits me.
From that I suppose
came the theatres’ usual customs:
now too they remain a
snare for the beautiful.
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: nothing’s forbidden,
press your thigh to
hers, as you can do, all the time:
and it’s good the rows
force you close, even if you don’t like it,
since the girl is
touched through the rules of the place.
Now find your reason
for friendly conversation,
and first of all
engage in casual talk.
Make earnest enquiry
whose those horses are:
and rush to back her
favourite, whatever it is.
When the crowded
procession of ivory gods goes by,
you clap fervently for
Lady Venus:
if by chance a speck
of dust falls in the girl’s lap,
as it may, let it be
flicked away by your fingers:
and if there’s
nothing, flick away the nothing:
let anything be a
reason for you to serve her.
If her skirt is
trailing too near the ground,
lift it, and raise it
carefully from the dusty earth:
Straightaway, the
prize for service, if she allows it,
is that your eyes
catch a glimpse of her legs.
Don’t forget to look
at who’s sitting behind you,
that he doesn’t press
her sweet back with his knee.
Small things please
light minds: it’s very helpful
to puff up her cushion
with a dextrous touch.
And it’s good to raise
a breeze with a light fan,
and set a hollow stool
beneath her tender feet.
And the Circus brings
assistance to new love,
and the scattered sand
of the gladiator’s ring.
Venus’ boy often
fights in that sand,
and who see wounds,
themselves receive a wound.
While talking,
touching hands, checking the programme,
and asking, having
bet, which one will win,
wounded he groans, and
feels the winged dart,
and himself becomes a
part of the show he sees.
When, lately, Caesar,
in mock naval battle,
exhibited the Greek
and Persian fleets,
surely young men and
girls came from either coast,
and all the peoples of
the world were in the City?
Who did not find one
he might love in that crowd?
Ah, how many were
tortured by an alien love!
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, of tender years,
and a boy wages war’s
un-boy-like agenda.
Cowards, don’t count
the birthdays of the gods:
a Caesar’s courage
flowers before its time.
Divine genius grows
faster than its years,
and suffers as harmful
evils the cowardly delays.
Hercules was a child
when he crushed two serpents
in both his hands,
already worthy of Jupiter in his cradle.
How old were you,
Bacchus, who are still a boy,
when conquered India
trembled to your rod?
Your father’s years
and powers arm you, boy,
and with your father’s
powers and years you’ll win:
though your first
beginnings must be in debt to such a name,
now prince of the
young, but one day prince of the old:
Your brothers are with
you, avenge your brothers’ wounds:
your father is with
you, keep your father’s laws.
Your and your
country’s father endowed you with arms:
the enemy stole his
kingship from an unwilling parent:
You hold a pious
shaft, he a wicked arrow:
Justice and piety
stick to your standard.
Let Parthia’s cause be
lost: and their armies:
let my leader add
Eastern wealth to Latium.
Both your fathers,
Mars and Caesar, grant you power:
Through you one is a
god, and one will be.
See, I augur your
triumph: I’ll reply with a votive song,
and you’ll be greatly
celebrated on my lips.
You’ll stand and
exhort your troops with my words:
O let my words not lack
your courage!
I’ll speak of Parthian
backs and Roman fronts,
and shafts the enemy
hurl from flying horses.
If you flee, to win,
Parthia, what’s left for you in defeat?
Mars already has your
evil eye.
So the day will be,
when you, beautiful one,
golden, will go by,
drawn by four snowy horses.
The generals will go
before you, necks weighed down with chains,
lest they flee to
safety as they did before.
The happy crowd of
youths and girls will watch,
that day will gladden
every heart.
And if she, among them,
asks the name of a king,
what place, what
mountains, and what stream’s displayed,
you can reply to all,
and more if she asks:
and what you don’t
know, reply as memory prompts.
That’s Euphrates, his
brow crowned with reeds:
that’ll be Tigris with
the long green hair.
I make those
Armenians, that’s Persia’s Danaan crown:
that was a town in the
hills of Achaemenia.
Him and him, they’re
generals: and say what names they have,
if you can, the true
ones, if not the most fitting.
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
soaked Cupid’s drunken wings,
he’s stayed, weighed
down, a captive of the place.
It’s true he quickly
shakes out his damp feathers:
though still the heart
that’s sprinkled by love is hurt.
Wine rouses courage
and is fit for passion:
care flies, and deep drinking dilutes it.
Then laughter comes,
the poor man dons the horns,
then pain and sorrow
leave, and wrinkled brows.
Then what’s rarest in
our age appears to our minds,
Simplicity: all art
dispelled by the god.
Often at that time
girls captivated men’s wits,
and Venus was in the
vine, flame in the fire.
Don’t trust the
treacherous lamplight overmuch:
night and wine can
harm your view of beauty.
Paris saw the
goddesses in the light, a cloudless heaven,
when he said to Venus:
‘Venus, you win, over them both.’
Faults are hidden at
night: every blemish is forgiven,
and the hour makes
whichever girl you like beautiful.
Judge jewellery, and
fabric stained with purple,
judge a face, or a
figure, in the light.
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:
‘That water’s not as
healthy as they claim.’
Behold the suburban
woodland temple of Diana,
and the kingdom murder
rules with guilty hand.
She, who is virgin,
who hates Cupid’s darts,
gives people many
wounds, has many to give.
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.
Whoever you are,
lovers everywhere, attend, with humble minds,
and you, masses, show
you support me: use your thumbs.
First let faith enter
into your mind: every one of them
can be won: you’ll win
her, if you only set your snares.
Birds will sooner be
silent in the Spring, cicadas in summer,
an Arcadian hound turn
his back on a hare,
than a woman refuse a
young man’s flattering words:
Even she you might
think dislikes it, will like it.
Secret love’s just as
pleasing to women as men.
Men pretend badly: she
hides her desire.
If it was proper for
men not to be the first to ask,
woman’s role would be
to take the part of the asker.
The cow lows to the
bull in gentle pastures:
the mare whinnies to
the hoofed stallion.
Desire in us is milder
and less frantic:
the male fire has its
lawful limits.
Remember Byblis, who
burned with incestuous love,
for her brother, and
bravely punished herself with the noose?
Myrrha loved her
father, but not as a daughter should,
and then was hidden by
the covering bark:
oozing those tears,
that pour from the tree as fragrance,
and whose droplets
take their name from the girl.
Once, in the shady
valleys of wooded Ida
there was a white
bull, glory of the herd,
one small black mark
set between his horns:
it the sole blemish,
the rest was milky-white.
The heifers of Cnossos
and Cydon longed
to have him mount up
on their backs.
Pasiphae joyed in
adultery with the bull:
she hated the handsome
heifers with jealousy.
I sing what is
well-known: not even Crete, the hundred-citied,
can deny it, however
much Cretans lie.
They say that, with
unpractised hands, she plucked
fresh leaves and
tenderest grasses for the bull.
She went as one of the
herd, unhindered by any care
for that husband of
hers: Minos was ousted by a bull.
Why put on your finest
clothes, Pasiphae?
Your lover can
appreciate none of your wealth.
Why have a mirror with
you, when you seek highland cattle?
Why continually smooth
your hair, you foolish woman?
But believe the mirror
that denies you’re a heifer.
How you wish that brow
of yours could bear horns!
If you’d please Minos,
don’t seek out adulterers:
If you want to cheat
your husband, cheat with a man!
The queen left her
marriage bed for woods and fields,
like a Maenad roused
by the Boeotian god, they say.
Ah, how often, with
angry face, she spied a cow,
and said: ‘Now, how
can she please my lord?
Look, how she frisks
before him in the tender grass:
doubtless the foolish
thing thinks that she’s lovely.’
She spoke, and
straightaway had her led from the vast herd,
the innocent thing
dragged under the arching yoke,
or felled before the
altar, forced to be a false sacrifice,
and, delighted, held
her rival’s entrails in her hand.
The number of times
she killed rivals to please the gods,
and said, holding the
entrails: ‘Go, and please him for me!’
Now she claims to be
Io, and now Europa,
one who’s a heifer,
the other borne by the bull.
Yet he filled her, the
king of the herd, deceived
by a wooden cow, and
their offspring betrayed its breeding.
If Cretan Aerope had
spurned Thyestes’s love
(and isn’t it hard to
forego even one man?),
the Sun would not have
veered from his course mid-way,
and turned back his
chariot and horses towards Dawn.
The daughter who
savaged Nisus’s purple lock
presses rabid dogs
down with her thighs and groin.
Agamemnon who escaped
Mars on land, Neptune at sea,
became the victim of
his murderous wife.
Who would not weep at
Corinthian Creusa’s flames,
and that mother
bloodstained by her children’s murder?
Phoenix, Amyntor’s son
wept out of sightless eyes:
Hippolytus was torn by
his fear-maddened horses.
Phineus, why blind
your innocent sons?
That punishment will
return on your own head.
All these things were
driven by woman’s lust:
it’s more fierce than
ours, and more frenzied.
So, on, and never
hesitate in hoping for any woman:
there’s hardly one
among them who’ll deny you.
Whether they give or
not, they’re delighted to be asked:
And even if you fail,
you’ll escape unharmed.
But why fail, when
there’s pleasure in new delights
and the more foreign
the more they capture the heart?
The seed’s often more
fertile in foreign fields,
and a neighbour’s herd
always has richer milk.
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, and with prayers:
you’ll easily get what
you want, if she wishes.
She’ll tell the time
(the doctors would know it too)
when her mistress’s
mind is receptive, fit for love.
Her mind will be fit
for love when she luxuriates
in fertility, like the
crop on some rich soil.
When hearts are glad,
and nothing sad constrains them,
they’re open: Venus
steals in then with seductive art.
So Troy was defended
with sorrowful conflict:
in joy, the Horse,
pregnant with soldiers, was received.
She’s also to be tried
when she’s wounded, pained by a rival:
make it your task then
to see that she’s avenged.
The maid can rouse
her, when she combs her hair in the morning,
and add her oar to the
work of your sails,
and, sighing to
herself in a low murmur, say:
‘But I doubt that
you’ll be able to make her pay.’
Then she should speak
of you, and add persuasive words,
and swear you’re
dying, crazed with love.
But hurry, lest the
sails fall and the breeze dies:
anger melts away, with
time, like fragile ice.
You ask perhaps if one
should take the maid herself?
Such a plan brings the
greatest risk with it.
In one case, fresh
from bed, she’ll get busy, in another be tardy,
in one case you’re a
prize for her mistress, in the other herself.
There’s chance in it:
even if it favours the idea,
my advice nevertheless
is to abstain.
I don’t pick my way
over sharp peaks and precipices,
no youth will be
caught out being lead by me.
Still, while she’s
giving and taking messages,
if her body pleases
you as much as her zeal,
make the lady your
first priority, her companion the next:
Love should never be
begun with a servant.
I warn you of this, if
art’s skill is to be believed,
and don’t let the wind
blow my words out to sea:
follow the thing
through or don’t attempt it:
she’ll endure the
whispers once she’s guilty herself.
It’s no help if the
bird escapes when its wings are limed:
it’s no good if the
boar gets free from a loosened net.
Hold fast to the
stricken fish you’ve caught on the hook:
press home the attempt,
don’t leave off till you’ve won.
She’ll not give you
away, sharing the guilt for the crime,
and you’ll know
whatever your lady’s done, and said.
But hide it well: if
the informer’s well hidden,
you’ll always secretly
know your mistress’s mind.
It’s a mistake to
think that only farmers working the fields,
and sailors, need to
keep an eye on the season:
Seed can’t always be
trusted to the furrow,
or a hollow ship to
the wine-dark sea,
It’s not always safe
to capture tender girls:
often the time itself
makes for success.
If her birthday’s
here, or the April Kalends,
that delight in
joining months, Venus’s to Mars,
or if the Circus is
decorated, not as before
with clay figurines
but with the wealth of kings,
delay the thing: then
winter’s harsh, the Pleiades are here,
then the tender Kid is
merged with the ocean wave:
it’s best to hold off
then: then he who trusts the deep,
can scarcely save the
wreckage of his mangled boat.
It’s fine to start on
that day of tears when the Allia
flowed with the blood
poured from Roman wounds,
or when the Sabbath
day returns, the holy day
of the Syrian Jews,
less suitable for buying things.
Let your mistress’s
birthday be one of great terror to you:
that’s a black day
when anything has to be given.
However much you avoid
it, she’ll still win: it’s
a woman’s skill, to
strip wealth from an ardent lover.
A loose-robed pedlar
comes to your lady: she likes to buy:
and explains his
prices while you’re sitting there.
She’ll ask you to look,
because you know what to look for:
then kiss you: then
ask you to buy her something there.
She swears that she’ll
be happy with it, for years,
but she needs it now,
now the price is right.
If you say you haven’t
the money in the house, she’ll ask
for a note of hand –
and you’re sorry you learnt to write.
Why - she asks doesn’t
she for money as if it’s her birthday,
just for the cake, and
how often it is her birthday, if she’s in need?
Why - she weeps
doesn’t she, mournfully, for a sham loss,
that imaginary gem
that fell from her pierced ear?
They many times ask
for gifts, they never give in return:
you lose, and you’ll
get no thanks for your loss.
And ten mouths with as
many tongues wouldn’t be enough
for me to describe the
wicked tricks of whores.
Try wax to pave the
way, pour it out on scraped tablets:
let wax be your mind’s
true confidante.
Bring her your
flattering words and play the lover:
and, whoever you are,
add a humble prayer.
Achilles was moved by
prayer to grant Hector’s body to Priam:
a god’s anger’s
deflected by the voice of prayer.
Make promises: what
harm can a promise do?
Anyone can be rich in
promises.
Hope lasts, if she’s
once believed in,
a useful, though
deceptive, goddess.
If you’ve given, you can
quite reasonably be forgotten:
she carried it off,
and now she’s nothing to lose.
But if you don’t give,
always appear about to:
like barren fields
that always cheat the farmer,
like the gambler who
goes on losing, lest he’s finally lost,
and calls the dice
back endlessly into his eager hand.
This is the work, the
labour, to have her without giving first:
and she’ll go on
giving, lest she lose what she’s freely given.
So go on, and send
your letter’s flattering words,
try her intention,
test the road out first.
Cydippe was deceived
by the message the apple brought,
and unaware the girl
by her own words was caught.
I warn you, youths of
Rome, learn the noble arts,
not just to defend
some trembling client:
like the crowd, the
grave judge, the elected senate,
a woman will give her
hand, won by eloquence.
But let your powers be
hidden, don’t display your eloquence:
let irksome words
vanish from your speech.
Who, but a mindless
fool, declaims to his sweet friend?
A strong letter often
causes her displeasure.
Let your speech be
credible, use ordinary words,
flattering though,
speak as if you were present.
If she won’t receive
the letter, returns it un-read,
stick to your plan,
and hope she’ll read it later.
In time stubborn oxen
come to the plough,
in time the horse
learns to suffer the bridle:
constant use wears
away an iron ring,
the curved plough’s
lost to the endless furrow.
What’s harder than
stone, softer than water?
Yet soft water carves
the hardest stone.
Once steadfast you’ll
conquer Penelope herself in time:
you’ll see Troy
captive, though it’s captured late.
She reads and won’t
reply? Don’t press her:
just let her keep on
reading your flattery.
If she wants to read,
she’ll want to answer what she’s read:
such things proceed by
number and by measure.
Perhaps at first a
cool letter comes to you,
asking: would you
please not trouble her.
What she asks, she
fears: what she doesn’t ask, she wants,
that you go on: do it,
and you’ll soon get what you wish.
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 join here there also,
lingering, as a friend:
now make as if to lead
the way, now drop behind,
now go on quickly, and
now take it slow:
don’t be ashamed to
slip amongst the columns,
a while, then move
along side by side:
don’t let her sit all
beautiful in the theatre row without you:
what you’ll look at is
the way she holds her arms.
Gaze at her, to admire
her is fine:
and to speak with
gestures and with glances.
And applaud, the man
who dances the girl’s part:
and favour anyone who
plays a lover.
When she rises, rise:
while she’s sitting, sit:
pass the time at your
lady’s whim.
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 single pin in his hair.
Phaedra loved
Hippolytus: he was unsophisticated:
Adonis was dear to the
goddess, and fit for the woods.
Neatness pleases, a
body tanned from exercise:
a well fitting and
spotless toga’s good:
no stiff shoe-thongs,
your buckles free of rust,
no sloppy feet for
you, swimming in loose hide:
don’t mar your neat
hair with an evil haircut:
let an expert hand
trim your head and beard.
And no long nails, and
make sure they’re dirt-free:
and no hairs please,
sprouting from your nostrils.
No bad breath exhaled
from unwholesome mouth:
don’t offend the nose
like a herdsman or his flock.
Leave the rest for
impudent women to do,
or whoever’s the sort
of man who needs a man.
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 by her loose robe,
barefoot, with her
yellow hair unbound,
she called, for cruel
Theseus, to the unhearing waves,
her gentle cheeks wet
with tears of shame.
She called, and wept
as well, but both became her,
she was made no less
beautiful by her tears.
Now striking her sweet
breast with her hands, again and again,
she cried: ‘That
faithless man’s gone: what of me, now?
What will happen to
me?’ she cried: and the whole shore
echoed to the sound of
cymbals and frenzied drums.
She fainted in terror,
her next words were stifled:
no sign of blood in
her almost lifeless body.
Behold! The Bacchantes
with loose streaming hair:
Behold! The wanton
Satyrs, a crowd before the god:
Behold! Old Silenus,
barely astride his swaybacked mule,
clutching tightly to
its mane in front.
While he pursues the
Bacchae, the Bacchae flee and return,
as the rascal urges
the mount on with his staff.
He slips from his
long-eared mule and falls headfirst:
the Satyrs cry: ‘Rise
again, father, rise,’
Now the God in his
chariot, wreathed with vines,
curbing his team of
tigers, with golden reins:
the girl’s voice and
colour and Theseus all lost:
three times she tried
to run, three times fear held her back.
She shook, like a
slender stalk of wheat stirred by the wind,
and trembled like a
light reed in a marshy pool.
To whom the god said:
‘See, I come, more faithful in love:
have no fear: Cretan,
you’ll be bride to Bacchus.
Take the heavens for
dowry: be seen as heavenly stars:
and guide the anxious
sailor often to your Cretan Crown.’
He spoke, and leapt
from the chariot, lest she feared
his tigers: the sand
yielded under his feet:
clasped in his arms
(she had no power to struggle),
he carried her away:
all’s easily possible to a god.
Some sing ‘O
Hymenaeus’, some ‘Bacchus, euhoe!’
So on the sacred bed
the god and his bride meet.
When Bacchus’s gifts
are set before you then,
and you find a girl
sharing your couch,
pray to the father of
feasts and nocturnal rites
to command the wine to
bring your head no harm.
It’s alright here to
speak many secret things,
with hidden words
she’ll feel were spoken for her alone:
and write sweet
nothings in the film of wine,
so your girl can read
them herself on the table:
and gaze in her eyes
with eyes confessing fire:
you should often have
silent words and speaking face.
Be the first to snatch
the cup that touched her lips,
and where she drank
from, that is where you drink:
and whatever food her
fingers touch, take that,
and as you take it,
touch hers with your hand.
Let it be your wish
besides to please the girl’s husband:
it’ll be more useful
to you to make friends.
If you cast lots for
drinking, give him the better draw:
give him the garland
you were crowned with.
Though he’s below you
or beside you, let him always be served first:
don’t hesitate to
second whatever he says.
It’s a safe
well-trodden path to deceive in a friend’s name,
though it’s a safe
well-trodden path, it’s a crime.
That way the procurer
procures far too much,
and reckons to see to
more than he was charged with.
You’ll be given sure
limits for drinking by me:
so pay attention to
your mind and feet.
Most of all beware of
starting a drunken squabble,
and fists far too
ready for a rough fight.
Eurytion the Centaur
died, made foolish by the wine:
food and drink are
fitter for sweet jests.
If you’ve a voice,
sing: if your limbs are supple, dance:
and please, with
whatever you do that’s pleasing.
And though drunkenness
is harmful, it’s useful to pretend:
make your sly tongue
stammer with lisping sounds,
then, whatever you say
or do that seems too forward,
it will be thought
excessive wine’s to blame.
And speak well of your
lady, speak well of the one she sleeps with:
but silently in your
thoughts wish the man ill.
Then when the table’s
cleared, the guests are free,
the throng will give
you access to her and room.
Join the crowd, and
softly approach her,
let fingers brush her
thigh, and foot touch foot.
Now’s the time to
speak to her: boorish modesty
fly far from here:
Chance and Venus help the daring.
Not from my rules your
eloquence will come:
desire her enough,
you’ll be fluent yourself.
Your’s to play the
lover, imitate wounds with words:
use whatever skill you
have to win her belief.
Don’t think it’s hard:
each think’s herself desired:
the very worst take’s
pleasure in her looks.
Yet often the imitator
begins to love in truth,
often, what was once
imagined comes to be.
O, be kinder to the
ones who feign it, girls:
true love will come,
out of what was false.
Now secretly surprise
her mind with flatteries,
as clear water
undermines the hanging bank.
Never weary of
praising her face, her hair,
her elegant fingers,
and her slender feet.