Remedia amoris

Ovid

Ovid. Ovid's Art of Love (in three Books), the Remedy of Love, the Art of Beauty, the Court of Love, the History of Love, and Amours. Tate, Nahum, translator. New York: Calvin Blanchard, 1855.

  1. Now is the time your artifice to try,
  2. Act not so much the lover as the spy;
  3. For vanity makes all the fair presume
  4. There's nothing which their charms can misbecome.
  5. Take this occasion her defects to find,
  6. When you can fix them deeply in your mind;
  7. In the dull minute of your discontents,
  8. (The pensive mood when sated love repents,)
  9. To your sick thoughts her blemishes display,
  10. And, for aversion, by those means make way.
  11. These helps, you'll say, are trivial; I confess,
  12. Singly they are, but join'd will have success.
  13. By one small viper's bite an ox is killed;[*](This is a little malicious on the sex, and shows that the least vice of a mistress is fatal to a lover.)
  14. The forest-boar by a less dog is held.
  15. Unite my precepts if apart they fail,
  16. And by resistless number you'll prevail.
  17. But different minds for different methods call,
  18. Nor what cures most will have effect on all;
  19. E'en that which makes another's flame expire,
  20. Perhaps may prove but fuel to your fire.
  21. For one disgusted with the nymph's undress,
  22. Grows cold and weary of her warm caress,
  23. Another from his wanton mistress flies,
  24. When he his rival's recent raptures spies,
  25. Like warm desire; and he but little loves,
  26. Whom ev'ry trifle shocks, and nothing moves.
  27. To those I write, for my advice they need,
  28. Whose hardy passion can unbalk'd proceed.
  29. What think you of that lover who could lie
  30. Concealed, to see what custom must deny?
  31. I to no such indecent means direct,
  32. Not to be practis'd tho' of sure effect.