OVID: CURES FOR
LOVE
(REMEDIA AMORIS)
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
Part I: Words with Cupid, and The Task
Part II: Treat it Early: Fill Your Time with
War or Law
Part III: You Can Also Farm, Hunt, or Travel
Part IV: But Forget Witchcraft!
Part V: Contemplate her Defects
Part VII: Have More Than One Lover
Part IX: Or Sate Yourself With Her
Part X: Forget Her, and Don’t Be Alone
Part XI: Now, Keep Away From Her
Part XIII: Get Rid of all Reminders
Part XVI: The Doctor’s Last Advice
Love, having read the
name and title on this book,
said: ‘It’s war, you
declare against me, I see, it’s war’.
‘Cupid, don’t condemn
your poet for a crime, who has so often
raised the standard,
you trusted him with, under your command.
I’m not Diomede, by
whom your mother was wounded,
she, carried back to
the clear heavens on Mars’s steeds.
Other young men often
grow cool: I’ve always loved,
and if you ask me now,
too, what I do, I love.
Indeed I’ve taught, as
well, by what art you can be won,
and what was passion
before, is now reason.
Sweet Boy, I’ve not
betrayed you or my art,
and this new Muse
unravels no prior work.
Let him rejoice in
happiness, any eager man who loves
and delights in love:
let him sail with the wind.
But any man who
suffers badly from the power of a worthless girl,
shouldn’t die, if he
understands the help that’s in my art.
Why should any lover
hang from a high beam,
a sad weight, with a
knotted rope round his neck?
Why should anyone stab
himself with cold steel?
Lover of Peace, you
earn dislike for such hateful death.
Let him who’ll die of
wretched passion unless he quits it,
quit it: and you’ll be
the cause of no one’s funeral.
And you’re a boy:
you’re not fit for anything but play:
play then: a sweet
dominion suits your years.
For you might have
used naked arrows with which to war:
but your shafts are
free of deadly blood.
Your stepfather Mars
may fight with swords and sharp spears,
and as a victor stride
through the carnage:
you cultivate your
mother’s arts, which are safe to use,
through whose fault no
parent’s ever bereaved.
Make doors burst open
to nocturnal fights,
and the entrance be
buried in many fine garlands:
have young men and shy
girls meet secretly,
and cheat watchful
husbands by whatever art:
and now let the lover
who’s shut out, speak flatteringly,
and now curse the
rigid doorpost, and, weeping, sing.
You, be content with
these tears, with no guilt for death:
it’s not fitting for
your torch to plunge beneath greedy pyres.’
So I spoke: golden
Love moved his jewelled wings,
and said to me:
‘Finish the work you planned.’
Come to my teaching,
young men who’ve been deceived,
you whose love has
utterly betrayed you.
Learn how to be cured,
from him who taught you how to love:
the one hand brings
the wound and the relief.
The same earth
nurtures healing herbs as harmful,
and the nettle’s often
near to the rose:
Achilles’s spear that
once wounded Telephus, his enemy,
also brought the cure
for the wound.
But believe me, girls,
I tell to you whatever I tell the men:
I grant weapons to
either side:
and if any of it does
not apply to your needs,
it can still teach you
a great deal by example.
It’s a good idea to quench
fierce flames,
don’t let your heart
be slave to your failings.
Phyllis would have
lived, if she’d used me as her master,
and gone the way she
went, nine times, more often.
Dido, as she died,
would not have watched the Trojan ships,
from the summit of her
tower, as they set sail:
nor would pain have
armed Medea against her children,
taking vengeance on
her husband by harming his offspring.
By using my art,
Tereus, when Philomela charmed him,
would not have
deserved to become a bird for his crime.
Give Pasiphae to me,
then, surely, she’d lose her love for the bull:
Give me Phaedra:
Phaedra’s shameful love will vanish.
Trust Paris to me,
Menelaus would have Helen,
and Troy not conquered
to fall at the hands of Greeks.
If impious Scylla
could have read my books,
Nisus, the purple lock
would cling to your head.
With me as leader,
quench your ruinous sorrows:
let ship and crew sail
true, with me as leader.
You read your Ovid
then, when you learnt about love:
now the same Ovid’s to
be read by you.
The public champion, I
lighten hearts constrained
by their masters: each
of you, thank the rod that frees.
Phoebus, source of the
power of medicine and song,
may your laurel help
me, I beg of you, as I begin,
Yours is the nurturing
of doctor and poet alike:
the protection of both
falls to your care.
If you’ve regrets, and
moderate emotions touch your heart,
then halt your feet,
while you can, at the first threshold.
Crush the evil germs
of sudden illness while they’re young,
and prevent your
horse’s gallop at the start.
For time gives
strength, time ripens tender grapes,
and creates healthy
crops from what were shoots.
The tree that spreads
wide shadows for passers-by,
was only a slip at
first that had been planted:
then a hand could
pluck it from the topsoil:
now by its growth it
stands, in all its immense power.
Let your swift mind
encompass what it is that you love,
and withdraw your neck
from the collar that hurts you.
Halt its beginnings:
it’s too late for the doctor to be called,
when the illness has
grown stronger through delay.
But hurry, don’t put
it off to a later time:
who’s not ready today,
will be less so tomorrow:
all love deceives, and
gains nourishment by waiting:
every next day is the
best for freedom.
You see few rivers
flow from mighty fountains:
by many inflowing
waters they’re multiplied.
Myrrha, if you’d
realised sooner what sins you’d begun,
you’d not have hidden
your face with tree-bark.
I’ve seen a wound that
could at first be healed
suffer harm through
enduring long delays.
But since it charms us
to cull the fruits of Venus,
we always say: ‘the
same could happen tomorrow.’
Meanwhile the secret
flames creep into our heart,
and the baleful tree
drives its roots deeper.
If the moment for early help’s been lost,
however,
and ancient love’s
settled in the captive breast,
the greater the work
that remains: but because I’ve been called
to the illness later,
it won’t be abandoned by me.
That bit of
Philoctetes that was wounded
he should surely have
cut off long ago:
they say that, having
been healed, many years later
he dealt the last blow
of the Trojan war.
I who rushed to drive
off the nascent illness,
now calmly bring you
late relief.
Either you try, if you
can, to quench a fire at the start,
or when it dies down,
through its own violence:
while passion’s in
full flow, give way to the rush of passion:
all of us find
approaching its onrush difficult.
He’s a foolish
swimmer, who fights against the stream,
when he could descend
the current obliquely.
The impatient spirit,
that’s not yet tractable, rejects my art,
and is possessed by
hatred for my words of advice.
Better for me to
approach him now when he’ll let me touch
the wound, and is more
suited to words of truth.
Who’d stop a mother
weeping, unless he’s mad,
at her son’s grave?
That’s not the place to admonish her.
When tears are over,
and the sorrowful spirit’s done,
then grief can be
given expression in words.
Medicine requires the
art of timing: given at the right time
wine may help, at the
wrong time it may harm.
Indeed you may even
inflame and provoke the disease
by denying it, if it’s
not applied at the proper moment.
So when you’re ready
for my medical arts,
first ban idleness, on
my advice.
This encourages you to
love, and protects the love it encourages:
it’s the pleasurable
source, and the evil nourishment.
If you take away
idleness, Cupid’s bow’s unstrung,
his torch is dark and
held to scorn.
As plane trees like
wine, as poplar trees like water,
as muddy reeds like
the marshy ground,
so Venus loves
idleness: you who seek to end love,
love gives way to
business: be busy, you’ll be safe.
Languor and excess
sleep that go unchallenged,
and gambling, and time
lost to too much drink
take away all vigour,
without damaging the heart:
insidious Love enters
the unwary.
That Boy’s accustomed
to following idleness: he hates the busy:
give your vacant mind
work to occupy it.
There are the courts,
the laws, the friends you might defend:
make your way through
the splendid camp of city togas.
Or admire the youthful
service of blood-drenched Mars:
then you’ll turn your
back on your delights.
Behold, the fleeing
Parthian, fresh cause of a great triumph,
he sees Caesar’s
weapons now in his own country:
Conquer both the
arrows of Cupid and Parthia,
and bring back twin
trophies to your native gods.
As soon as Venus was
wounded by Diomede’s spear,
she ordered the war to
be fought by her lover.
You ask what made
Aegisthus an adulterer?
the reason’s obvious:
it was idleness.
Others fought the long
battles with Troy:
Greece had sent over
all her fighting men.
If he’d wanted acts of
war, there were none to be had:
if the courts of law,
Argos was free of quarrels.
He did what he could,
he loved: better than doing nothing.
So the Boy comes, and
so the Boy stays.
Country matters too
delight the spirit, and the study
of agriculture. Any
care will give way to those cares.
Order tame bulls to
bow beneath the collar,
to furrow the hard
soil with the curving blade:
sow the seed for your
harvest, in the earth you’ve ploughed,
seed that the field
will return to you with interest.
See the branches bowed
with the weight of apples,
so the tree hardly
bears the weight it carries.
See the flowing
streams with happy murmurs:
see the sheep grazing
on the fertile grass.
Behold, the goats seek
the rocks and steep boulders:
soon they’ll bring
back full udders for their kids:
The shepherd blows a
melody on his reed pipes,
no lack of dogs for
company, a watchful crowd.
Lowing sounds from
another part of the high wood,
and a mother complains
the loss of her calf.
Don’t the swarm fly,
when you smoke them out,
to take the honey from
the arching hive?
Autumn gives its
apples: summer is lovely with harvest:
spring offers flowers:
winter’s eased with fire.
The farmer picks ripe
grapes at the right time,
and the juice flows
under his bare feet.
At the right time he
binds the cut grasses,
and sweeps the stubble
soil with wide comb.
You yourself can plant
seedlings in your watered gardens,
you yourself can guide
gentle streams of water.
Grafting comes: make a
branch adopt a branch,
and the tree stands
there concealed by strange foliage.
When once the mind
begins to enjoy these pleasures,
Vain Love departs on
weakened wings.
Or you can cultivate
the art of hunting: often Venus
retreated in shame
from her conquering sister Phoebe.
Now hunt the headlong
hare with keen-scented dog,
now spread your nets
across the leafy hills,
or fright the
quivering deer with motley scares,
or the boar’s brought
down, stabbed by your hostile spear.
Sleep at night, not
desire for girls, welcomes the weary man,
and the limbs will be
restored by calm rest.
Easier work, but still
work, is capturing birds
following the humble
prize with net or lime,
or, what greedy fish
might swallow with eager jaws,
hiding a curved hook
under a little bait.
This pursuit or that,
till you forget your passion,
you’ve got to secretly
beguile yourself.
You only need to
journey far, though strong chains
hold you back, and
start to travel distant ways:
you’ll cry, and your
lost girl’s name will oppose it,
and your feet will
often stop you on the road:
but the less you wish
to go, the more you should go:
endure it, and force
unwilling feet to run.
Don’t hope for rain,
or a foreign Sabbath, to delay you,
nor the River Allia
noted for its losses.
Don’t ask how many
miles you’ve done, and how many
there are left: nor
feign delays so you can stay around:
Don’t count the hours,
or keep looking back at Rome,
but fly: the Parthian
flying from the enemy’s safe.
Some might call my
advice hard: it’s hard, I acknowledge:
but you have to endure
a lot of pain to be well.
Often when sick,
unwillingly, I’ve drunk bitter juices,
and denied all food to
my pleadings.
To save your body,
you’ll endure fire and steel,
won’t relieve your dry
thirsting mouth with water:
to heal your mind,
what would you not accept?
So that part is worth
more than the body.
Still, the entrance to
my art is very gloomy,
and the greatest
task’s to survive the first few hours.
You see how the collar
at first chafes new bullocks,
and a new girth
irritates a fast steed?
Perhaps you’ll be
sorry to leave your fathers’ home:
but all the same
you’ll leave: then want to return:
not your father’s home
but love for your little friend,
will call you back,
fine words excusing your crime.
When once you’ve gone,
the countryside, your comrades,
the long road, give
you a hundred solaces for your cares.
And don’t think it’s
enough just to leave: stay away a while,
till the ashes have
lost their power with their flame.
because unless, in
hurrying back, your mind is strong,
rebellious love will
fight you with cruel weapons.
And however long
you’re away, you’ll return hungry and thirsty,
and the interval will
have done you nothing but harm.
If anyone thinks he
can be helped by harmful herbs,
and magic arts, from
Thessalian lands, that’s his affair.
That’s the old way of
witchcraft: my Apollo
offers innocent aid
with sacred song.
With me in charge no
spirits will be ordered from their graves,
no witch, with wicked
spells, will split the ground:
no crops will skip
from one field to another,
nor Phoebus’s orb
suddenly grow pale.
As usual, Tiber’s
waters will run down to the sea:
as usual, the Moon
will ride on snow-white horses.
No pains will be charmed
away to ease the heart,
conquering love won’t
be put to flight by burning sulphur.
What use, Medea, to
you were herbs of Colchis,
when you desired to
stay in your father’s house?
Circe, what profit to
you were Perse’s magic plants
when his breeze took
Ulysses’s ships away?
You did everything
that your cunning guest might not go:
Love settled deep in
your unwilling heart.
You could change men
into a thousand shapes,
you could not change
the commands of your heart.
Indeed it’s said that
when he wished to leave
you stopped the lord
of Ithaca with these words:
‘I don’t pray now for
what I recall, that I used to hope for,
that you might wish to
be my husband:
and yet I might be
thought worthy of being your wife,
who am a goddess,
daughter of the mighty Sun.
I beg you not to
hurry: I ask a little time as a gift:
what less could I ask
for in my prayers?
And you see the waves
are high, and you ought to fear them:
later the wind will
better suit your sails.
What reason have you
for flight? No new Troy rises here,
no one calls their
allies to arms again.
Here are love and
peace, where I alone am badly wounded,
and the land will be
safe in future under your rule.’
While this was spoken,
Ulysses loosed his ships:
carrying away her
fruitless words on familiar sails.
Circe was inflamed,
and turned to her usual arts,
but love was still not
lessened by them.
So whoever you are who
call for help from my art,
put no faith in
witchcraft and incantations.
If some overriding
reason keeps you in the City,
(that mistress!),
accept my advice from the City.
He’s his own best
liberator who snaps the chains
that hurt his heart,
and ends the grief forever.
But the man who’s
brave as that, I marvel at it, and him,
and say: ‘He’ll not
act out my prophecies.’
It’s you, who love,
and can scarcely forget your loving,
that wish to, but
can’t, who must be taught by me.
Tell yourself often
what your wicked girl has done,
and before your eyes
place every hurt you’ve had.
‘She’s had this and
that, but she’s not satisfied with plunder:
the greedy girl’s
given the household gods notice to quit.
She swore to me, and,
having sworn so, deceived me,
lying stretched out so
often at her door!
She prizes others,
despises my love: ah,
a pedlar has nights
with her, she won’t give me!’
Let all this embitter
your every feeling:
recall it, look here
for the seeds of your dislike.
And I want you to be
fluent in them as well!
Suffer enough: you’ll
be eloquent yourself.
Recently my affections
clung to a certain girl:
she was not conducive
to my spirit:
sick, Podalirius was
cured by his own drugs,
and, I confess, I was
a shamefully sick doctor.
It helped to
continually dwell on my friend’s faults,
and it often was the
thing that made me better.
‘How ugly,’ I’d say
‘my girl’s legs are!’
and yet they weren’t,
if the truth be told.
‘How little are my
girl’s arms beautiful!’
and yet they were, if
the truth be told.
‘How small she is!’
she wasn’t: ‘How much she asks of a lover!’
That was the main cause of my dislike.
And the bad is neighbour
to the good: in that confusion
virtue often bears the
guilt for vice.
As much as you can,
disparage your girl’s attractions,
and let your judgement
fall a little short.
Let her be called
‘plump’ if she’s full-figured, ‘black’ if she’s dark:
in slenderness there’s
the charge of being ‘lean’.
And she can be called
‘pert’, who’s not naive,
and she can be called
‘naive’, if she’s too honest.
Then too, whatever
talents your woman lacks,
promote those, with
flattering words and prayers.
Demand the use of
song, if the girl’s bereft of voice:
make her dance if she
doesn’t know how to move her hands.
Her speech is
barbarous? Make her talk with you a lot:
she hasn’t learnt to
sweep the chords? Ask for the lyre.
She walks awkwardly?
Make her walk up and down:
Her chest’s all
breasts? Let no bindings hide the fault.
If her teeth are bad,
relate what she’ll laugh at:
Her eyes are
sensitive? Report what makes her cry.
And appear suddenly,
when she’s applied no make-up to herself,
having hastened your
steps to your lady in the dawn.
We’re carried away by
adornment: in gold and gems
all’s hidden: the
least part of it’s the girl herself.
You often ask where
what you love is amongst it all:
rich Love deceives the
eyes with all that armour.
Be there unexpectedly,
safe, you catch her defenceless:
the poor girl’s undone
by her faults.
But it’s still not
safe to trust in this rule too much:
since true beauty
without art beguiles many.
So approach your
lady’s presence (don’t let modesty deter you)
when she’s smearing
her cheeks with blended potions.
You’ll find little
pots and a thousand coloured things,
and dripping greases
flowing, over her warm breasts.
Those cosmetics smell
like your table, Phineus:
more than once they’ve
made my stomach sick.
Now I’ll speak openly,
about what I should offer, regarding
your sexual practice:
love must be wholly driven away.
There’s much of this
in fact that it’s shameful for me to say:
but with wit you’ll
understand more than my words.
For lately there’s
been a sort of slandering of my books,
of which the criticism
is my Muse is insolent.
While I please in my
way, while I’m sung throughout the world,
those few can attack
my work as much as they like.
Envy disparages the
genius of mighty Homer:
because of it Zoilus the
critic (who was he?) has a name.
And sacrilegious
tongues have savaged your poem, Virgil,
you who led the
conquered gods here, carried from Troy.
Envy seeks the
summits: wind blows across the heights:
the lightning seeks
the summits, flung from Jove’s right hand.
But you, whoever you
are, whom my licence offends,
if you’re wise,
consider everything in context.
Manly warfare rejoices
to be told in Homeric measure:
what place can there
be in that for our delights?
Tragedians sound
sublimely: rage suits the tragic heights:
from public life
comedy’s realised.
The frank iambic is
unsheathed against our enemies,
either as swift-paced
trimeter, or dragging its last foot.
Let smooth-tongued
Elegy sing Cupids with their quivers,
and play the gentle
mistress, as she decides.
Achilles is not spoken
of in Callimachus’s rhythms,
sweet Cydippe’s not
for your mouth Homer.
Who could stand
Andromache’s part performed by Thais?
Whoever acted
Andromache in Thais’s role would err.
Thais is in my art:
liberated playfulness is mine:
I’ve nothing to do
with wives: it’s Thais in my art.
If my Muse corresponds
to light-hearted matters, I’ve won,
and the case against
the defendant’s a false charge.
Gluttonous Envy,
burst: my name’s well known already:
it will be more so, if
only my feet travel the road they’ve started.
But you’re in too much
of a hurry: if I live you’ll be more than sorry:
many poems, in fact,
are forming in my mind.
Now I’m happy, and my
enthusiasm for fame grows with my esteem:
my stallion’s panting
for the start of the climb.
It’s acknowledged the elegy owes as much to me,
as the epic owes to
famous Virgil.
So far I’ve answered
Envy: tighten the reins
more resolutely, and
ride your course out, poet.
So when you’re headed
for bed and youthful labour,
and the time of night
she promised you is near,
lest your girl’s
charms, if you spend you whole self on her,
captivate you, I’d
like you to do it as much as you want to first.
Take as much as you
want, where your initial pleasure can end:
after the first the
next will be much more sluggish.
Sex postponed is most
welcome: sunlight’s delighted
by the cold, shade by
sun, water’s welcome in a drought.
I speak but I’m
ashamed: make love too in a position
that you think makes
love least likely, and becoming.
It’s not hard to do:
few truthful girls confess even to themselves
that there’s nothing
they think unbecoming to them.
Then too order all the
windows to be opened,
and note her worst
features in broad daylight.
As soon as pleasure’s
reached the finishing post,
and the spirit lies
there exhausted, and the whole body,
while you’re
repenting, and you’d rather never have touched
a girl, and you don’t
think you’re going to touch one for years,
then impress your mind
with whatever’s wrong with her body,
and keep your eyes
fixed all the time on those faults.
Perhaps someone might
call these things trivial (as they are too),
but what has no
benefit on its own, is useful in numbers.
And a little viper may
kill a vast bull with its bite:
the boar is often
gripped by a not very large hound.
You should only fight
in strength, and assemble
all my rules together:
from many one large heap will be made.
There are so many
methods, so many positions
there’s no need to
give them, all in my opinion.
The action that won’t
offend your feelings,
to another’s judgement
will seem a crime.
One man who saw the
sexual organs on a naked body,
brought his
lovemaking, that was in progress, to a halt:
one, on his girl’s
rising from Love’s affairs,
considered those
shameful tokens, in the stained bed.
O, you’re just playing
at it, if those things bother you:
your heart is being
breathed on by tepid flames.
Let that Boy draw the
straining bow more strongly:
you’ll look for
greater help for a mass of wounds.
What about the man who
hid secretly to observe a girl,
and saw indecent
things that custom forbids us seeing?
The gods forbid that I
advise anyone to do such things!
While they might help,
they just aren’t suitable.
I also urge you to
have two girls at once
(You’re very brave if
you could consider more):
When the heart’s
divided it goes in both directions,
and one love saps the
power of the other.
Vast rivers are
thinned out through many channels:
fierce flames die down
when the fuel’s removed.
One anchor’s not
enough to hold a well-waxed hull,
a single hook’s not
enough in clear water:
Who long ago arranged
a double solace for himself,
long ago was victor on
the highest summit.
But you, who were
foolishly trusting of one mistress,
at least now a fresh
love is to be contrived for you.
Minos quenched the
fires of Pasiphae in Procris:
Cleopatra, Phineus’s
first wife, left, conquered by Idaea.
Callirhoe made
Alcmaeon share her bed
lest he always love
Alphesiboea.
And Oenone would have
held Paris, to the end of time,
if she’d not been
harmed by Helen, her Spartan rival.
His wife Procne’s
beauty would have pleased Tereus:
but Philomela, her
imprisoned sister, was more beautiful.
Why dwell on more
examples, a crowd that tires me?
Every love’s defeated
by a fresh successor.
A mother loses one son
of many more resolutely,
than one in tears who
cries: ‘You were my only son.’
But don’t think I’m
writing new rules for you
(and I wish these
discoveries added to my glory!)
Agamemnon witnessed it
(what did he not see, in fact,
he who was in command
of all the Greeks?)
The conqueror loved
Chryseis, captured in the war:
but her old father
wept everywhere, foolishly.
Why weep, so
annoyingly, old man? They suit each other well:
you wound you
daughter, tactlessly, with your attentions.
When Calchas, later,
safe, under Achilles’s protection, ordered
she be returned, and
she was received by her father’s house,
Agamemnon said:
‘There’s one Briseis, close to her in beauty,
and, if you allow for
the first syllable, her name’s the same:
If he’s wise, Achilles
will hand her over to me, in lieu:
if he doesn’t, he’ll
experience my power.
If your actions show
mine to be at fault in this, you Greeks,
there’s something, a
powerful sceptre, grasped in my hand.
For if I’m king, and
no girl sleeps beside me, then it’s right
that impudent
Thersites take my kingship.’
He spoke, and had,
from her, much solace for the first girl,
and love was laid
aside, driven out by new love.
So, from Agamemnon’s
example, take up with new flames,
in order for your love
to be distracted, in twin directions.
You ask, where you can
find her? Read my works:
you’ll soon possess a
boatload of girls.
But if my suggestions
have value, if Apollo
through my mouth
teaches all to mortal men,
though, unhappy man,
you’re roasting in the midst of Etna,
make it seem to your
girl that you’re chillier than ice:
and if you’re grieving
deeply, look happy, lest she see it,
and laugh, when tears
come to you.
Not that I order you
to break off in mid-sorrow:
my commands aren’t as
cruel as that.
Pretend to what is
not, and that the passion’s over,
so you’ll become, in
truth, what you are studying to be.
I’ve often wished to
seem asleep, lest it seem I’ve been drinking,
while I seemed so, I
gave my conquered eyes to sleep:
I’ve laughed at one
caught, who pretended to himself he was in love,
hunting birds, but
fallen into his own net.
Love penetrates the
heart by habit, through habit it’s forgotten:
he who can imagine
he’s well, will be well.
She might ask you to
come: go on the night agreed:
you’ve come, and the
door is locked: well endure it.
Don’t speak fawning
words, or abuse the doorpost,
nor lay your body on
the hard threshold.
The new day will dawn:
lose your words of grievance,
and show no signs of
suffering in your face.
She’ll soon drop her
disdain, when she sees your indifference:
this too’s a gift
you’ll gather from my art.
Still, deceive
yourself as well, don’t let there be a plan
to stop loving: the
horse will often fight against the bit.
Conceal your
advantage: what’s not declared will be:
the bird avoids the
net that’s too apparent.
Don’t let her be too
pleased with herself, nor have the power
to despise you: be
brave, so she gives way to your bravery.
The door’s wide open?
Though you’re called to, pass by.
There’s a night
agreed? Hesitate to go on the given night.
To be able to endure
it’s easy, when, if patience fails,
it’s fine to take your
enjoyment with easy girls.
And who can call my
suggestions difficult?
Look, I even play the
matchmaker’s role.
For since hearts vary,
let me vary my arts:
there are a thousand
kinds of illness, a thousand kinds of health.
Some people are barely
relieved by sharp knives:
while herbs and juices
are a help to many.
You’re too weak,
unable to go, tenderly bound,
and cruel Love presses
your neck beneath his foot?
Stop struggling: let
your sails be brought before the wind,
where the tide calls,
let your oars travel too,
That thirst’s to be
quenched, by which you’re desperately parched:
I allow it: it’s fine
now to drink from mid-stream:
but drink even more
than your heart demands,
make your throat
overflow, full of the water you’ve taken.
Go, and enjoy your
girl, any time, nothing’s forbidden:
let her steal away
your nights and days.
Seek loathing for your
sickness: and let loathing end it.
Now, too, when you
believe you could be free, stay on,
till you’re quite
overwhelmed, and abundance destroys love,
and disgusted you’ve
no pleasure in her house.
Love’s also lasting
when mistrust feeds it:
if you seek to
relinquish it, relinquish fear.
He who fears lest
she’s not his, and someone’s taken her away,
he’ll scarcely be made
well with Machaon’s help.
Generally a mother
loves the one of her two sons best,
whose return she’s
fearful for, because he bears arms.
There’s an ancient
shrine by the Colline Gate:
Venus of high Eryx
gives her name to the shrine:
Lethean Love lives
there, who heals the heart,
and adds his torches
to the chilly water.
and it’s there the
young men pray they might forget,
and the girls
captivated by hard-hearted men.
He spoke to me in
these words (I’m not sure if it was Cupid
truly, or a dream: but
I think it was a dream):
‘O you who now incite
love, and now quell it,
add this one, Ovid, to
your maxims too.
He who calls to mind
his ills, kills love:
the god gives more or
less of those to all.
Let him who fears the
swift months, and the money-lenders,
torment himself with
the whole sum he’s borrowed:
who has a hard-hearted
father, though his other prayers prosper,
let him have that
hard-hearted father before his eyes:
This poor man living
with an ill-dowered wife,
let him believe his
wife has harmed his fate.
Have you, on a fine
estate, fertile vineyards,
full of vines? Fear,
lest the new-born grapes are scorched.
You have a ship
returning: think of ever-hostile seas
and the losses
littering the vile shore.
Let a soldier son,
you, and you, a marriageable daughter torment:
and who hasn’t reason
for a thousand sorrows?
So you could hate her,
Paris, you should have kept
your brothers’ deaths
before your eyes.’
Still speaking, the
boyish image departed
from my gentle sleep,
if sleep it was.
What to do? Palinurus
slips from the ship in mid-ocean:
I’m forced to sail on
unknown ways.
You who love, beware
lonely places, lonely places are harmful!
Why flee? You can be
safer in a crowd.
You don’t need secrecy
(secrecy nurtures passion):
in future it’s the
crowd that will assist you.
If you’re alone,
you’ll be sad, and the form of the girl you’ve left
will be there before
your eyes, so like herself.
Because of that,
night’s sadder than the daylight:
your crowd of friends
missing, who might ease the gloom.
Don’t shun
conversation, or let your door be closed,
don’t hide your
tearful face in the shadows.
Always have some
Pylades, to support Orestes:
here too the benefit
of friendship is not slight.
What but the lonely
woods caused harm to Phyllis?
The cause of her death
is certain: she had no friend.
She went as the
Thracian Bacchae go, marking the festival,
a savage troop of
women with streaming hair,
and now, wherever she
could, gazed at the distant sea,
now threw herself down
exhausted on sandy earth.
‘Faithless Demophoon!’
She cried to the dumb waves,
and her words were
spoken punctuated by sobs.
There was a narrow
path darkened by long shadows,
by which she often
took her way to the shore.
The poor girl
traversed it nine times: and said: ‘I’ll show him!’
and with pallid face
looked up at the branches, and gazed
down at her belt:
uncertain, shrinking from what she might dare,
and from fear, and
lifting her fingers to her neck.
Thracian girl, I wish
you’d not been so alone then: the trees
might not have wept
for Phyllis, by shedding their leaves.
Fear too much
seclusion, with Phyllis as your example,
men who’ve been hurt
by women, girls by men.
One young man
performed whatever my Muse
commanded: and his
life was nearly safe:
he relapsed, he’d come
among some passionate lovers,
and Love picked up the
weapons he’d laid down.
If you love, but don’t
wish to, avoid making contact:
it’s often accustomed
to harm cattle too.
When eyes look at
wounds they’re also wounded,
and many things harm
our bodies through infection.
Not infrequently into
an arid place with parched soil,
water permeates from a
stream flowing nearby:
Hidden love permeates,
if you don’t depart your lover:
and in this we’re all
an ingenious crowd.
Another man was
already cured: being near harmed him:
he couldn’t bear any
meeting with his mistress.
The wound, poorly
healed, reopened at the old scar,
and not one of my arts
had the least success.
Houses are barely
defended from a neighbouring fire:
it’s best to keep away
from places nearby.
Don’t take your walks
in the colonnade where she’s
accustomed to: and
don’t adorn the same functions.
What pleasure for a
tepid heart to be rekindled by memory?
If you can do, you
should find another sphere.
It’s not easy if
you’re hungry to hold back from a laid table,
and splashing water
rouses a huge thirst.
It’s not easy to
restrain the bull that’s seen the heifer,
the stallion always
whinnies strongly when he sees the mare.
When you’ve done all
that, for you still to reach dry land,
it’s not enough for
you to leave the girl.
Say goodbye to mother,
sister, and the nurse who’s in the know,
and whoever plays any
part in your girl’s life.
Don’t let her slave
come by, or her maid, with lying tears,
humbly saying:
‘Greetings!’ in their mistress’s name.
And if you want to
know what she’s doing, still, don’t ask:
endure! It will profit
you to hold your tongue.
You too, who relate
the reason why your love ended,
and make so many
complaints against your mistress,
beware of it: it’s
better to revenge yourself by silence,
so she’ll vanish from
your longing.
And I’d rather you
were silent than say that you’ve left off:
he who says: ‘I’m not
in love’, too often, is.
But put faith more in
love being extinguished slowly
than suddenly: slowly
abandon it, you’ll be safe.
The deluge may run
higher than the settled river:
but all the same it
won’t last, while the other’s permanent water.
Let love fail, and,
vanishing, dissolve into thin air,
and let it fade away
in gentle stages.
But it’s wrong to hate
the girl you loved, in any way:
tha