Ars Amatoria

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. Dryden, John; Congreve, William; translators. New York: Calvin Blanchard, 1855.

In Cupid's school[*](The poet here lays down the proposition of the work, which he comprehends in the two first verses: he then invokes the assistance of the gods and begins his narration.), whoe'er would take degree
Must learn his rudiments by reading me,[*](One must learn to love, and what to love: for love is so far from being forbidden, that there is nothing so commendable, provided the object is good.)
Seamen with sailing art their vessels move;
Art guides the chariot: art instructs to love.
Of ships and chariots others know the rule;
But I am master in Love's mighty school.
Cupid indeed is obstinate and wild,
A stubborn god[*](He speaks of love who is very seldom guided by reason.); but yet the god's a child:
Easy to govern in his tender age,
Like fierce Achilles in his pupilage:
That hero, born for conquest[*](This alludes to his killing Hector, as in the 22nd book of Homer's Iliads.), trembling stood
Before the centaur, and receiv'd the rod.
As Chiron mollified his cruel mind
With art; and taught his warlike hands to wind
The silver strings of his melodious lyre;[*](Achilles, when he was a lad, was put to this centaur to be educated.)
So love's fair goddess does my soul inspire
To teach her softer arts; to sooth the mind,
And smooth the rugged breasts of human kind.
Yet Cupid and Achilles, each with scorn
And rage were fill'd; and both were goddess-born.[*](Cupid was the son of Venus, and Achilles of Thetis. Both were children alike, and both hard to govern. For, indeed, the passions of love and glory are not easily overcome by reason, which ought always to be mistress.)
The bull reclaim'd and yolk'd, the burden draws:[*](This he says to show us that love may also be tamed by habit. Ovid is full of these sort of similes.)
The horse receives the bit within his jaws.
And stubborn love shall bend beneath my sway,
Tho' struggling oft he tries to disobey.
He shakes his torch, he wounds me with his darts;
But vain his force, and vainer are his arts.
The more he burns my soul, or wounds my sight,
The more he teaches to revenge the spite.
I boast no aid the Delphian god affords,
Nor auspice from the flight of chattering birds,[*](From whence the ancients drew their auguries. To which the poet here alludes.)
Nor Clio, nor her sisters, have I seen,
As Hesiod saw them on the shady green:[*](Ovid names Clio only, of all the nine, in this place. The fable tells us, she and her sisters were born of Jupiter's caresses of Mnemosyne, that is, memory.)
Experience makes my work a truth so tried,
You may believe; and Venus be my guide.[*](It has been before observed, that Ovid invokes the goddess of love to assist his song, as Lucretius does the same divinity for his world of nature, as being the mother of all generations, and all productions.)
Far hence ye vestals be, who bind your hair;[*](The author forewarns all virgins, and chaste persons, not to follow, in all things, the precepts of his book.)
And wives, who gowns below your ancles wear.
I sing the brothels loose and unconfin'd,
Th' unpunishable pleasures of the kind;
Which all alike for love or money find.

You, who in Cupid's roll inscribe your name,
First seek an object worthy of your flame;[*](The poet here gives his advice as to three things: to seek after an amiable object: to win it by respect and complacency, and not to lose it after once gotten.)
Then strive, with art, your lady's mind to gain;
And last, provide your love may long remain.
On these three precepts all my work shall move:
These are the rules and principles of love.
Before your youth with marriage is oppress't,[*](That is, while you are a freeman, unmarried, and not engaged to any other mistress. The truest meaning that can be given, is, that while you are young, and are not yet troubled with the infirmities of age (for an old man in love is ridiculous) choose where you please.)
Make choice of one who suits your humour best
And such a damsel drops not from the sky;
She must be sought for with a curious eye.
The wary angler, in the winding brook,
Knows what the fish, and where to bait his hook.
The fowler and the huntsman know by name
The certain haunts and harbour of their game.
So must the lover beat the likeliest grounds;
Th' Assemblies where his quarries most abound:
Nor shall my novice wander far astray;
These rules shall put him in the ready way.
Thou shalt not fail around the continent,
As far as Perseus or as Paris went:
For Rome alone affords thee such a store,
As all the world can hardly shew thee more.
The face of heav'n with fewer stars is crown'd,
Than beauties in the Roman sphere are found.
Whether thy love is bent on blooming youth,
On dawning sweetness, in unartful truth;
Or courts the juicy joys of riper growth;
Here may'st thou find thy full desires in both:
Or if autumnal beauties please thy sight
(An age that knows to give and take delight;)
Millions of matrons, of the graver sort,
In common prudence, will not balk the sport.
In summer's heats thou need'st but only go
To Pompey's cool and shady portico;[*](This was a shady walk which Pompey built for the people; and there were several in Rome of the same sort; but the most admirable one of all the porticos, was the Corinthian, near the Flaminian cirque, built by Cneius Octavius.)
Or Concord's fane; or that proud edifice
Whose turrets near the bawdy suburbs rise;
Or to that other portico, where stands
The cruel father urging his commands.
And fifty daughters wait the time of rest,
To plunge their poniards in the bridegroom's breast.
Or Venus' temple; where, on annual nights,
They mourn Adonis with Assyrian rites.[*](It was the custom among the Romans, to meet in the temples of Venus to mourn Adonis; of which the prophet Ezekiel speaks, (Ezek. viii. 14.); and infamous acts of lewdness were there committed, if we may believe Juvenal in his sixth satire.)
Nor shun the Jewish walk, where the foul drove
On sabbaths rest from everything but love.[*](There were great numbers of the Jews at Rome in Augustus's reign, who were allowed full liberty to exercise their ceremonies, according to the law of Moses. And the Roman ladies went often to see them out of curiosity, which gave occasion for assignations at their synagogues.)
Nor Isis' temple; for that sacred whore
Makes others, what to Jove she was before;[*](That is, many women were debauched by Isis's means, as she was by Jupiter under the name of Io.)
And if the hall itself be not belied,
E'en there the cause of love is often tried;
Near it at least, or in the palace yard,
From whence the noisy combatants are heard.
The crafty counsellors, in formal gown,[*](The following verses are a happy paraphrase of Ovid; in whose time we find the long robe dealt as much with the stola, etc., as it does in our own.)
There gain another's cause, but lose their own.
Their eloquence is nonpluss'd in the suit;
And lawyers, who had words at will, are mute.
Venus from her adjoining temple smiles
To see them caught in their litigious wiles;
Grave senators lead home the youthful dame,[*](We see these assemblies were composed of all sorts of persons; upon which our French author remarks thus: " This does not very well agree to the practice in our days; and I cannot comprehend how gallant women could frequent the courts of justice : where it is to be supposed, nobody came but such as had business and suits depending.")
Returning clients when they patrons came.
But above all, the Playhouse is the place;[*](It must be owned, the theatres, amphitheatres, cirques, hippodromes, and all places where the public feasts and rejoicings were kept, were very fatal to the chastity of the women of old.)
There's choice of quarry in that narrow chace:
There take thy stand, and sharply looking out,
Soon may'st thou find a mistress in the rout,
For length of time or for a single bout.
The Theatres are berries for the fair;
Like ants or mole-hills thither they repair;
Like bees to hives so numerously they throng,
It may be said they to that place belong:
Thither they swarm who have the public voice;
There choose, if plenty not distracts thy choice.
To see, and to be seen, in heaps they run;
Some to undo, and some to be undone.