Ovid wrote the poetry of “Ars Amatoria” in the 1st century BCE. He presented a captivating portrayal of the hedonistic and refined life of aristocracy in Roman culture in three books of “The Art of Love.” He guided Roman men and women from the upper class in their love affairs. He advised in his verses how to find, seduce, and keep a lover.

His astute love advice has become a classic in the art of love. His love poetry was passed down over centuries across generations and cultures. The early English translation of Ovid’s books, published in 1885, included a literal prose translation rather than the original poetry (Riley, 1885/2014). Their most recent translation and publication, in 2001, made available their poetic translation (Kline, 2001).

Modern men and women live in different cultural epochs than the Romans. Nevertheless, it is meaningful and beneficial to learn the art of love from the old wisdom of the past. Many of Ovid’s suggestions from long ago are still valid for modern love affairs. So, I believe even now, these books are still fascinating and interesting to read.

Because of this, I decided to post several wise quotes from Anthony Kline’s amazing translations of Ovid’s books in the articles on this love blog (Kline, 2001).

Men can learn a lot from the wonderful cantos of Book 1 that teach them “How to Find Her” (Part 2), “How to Win Her” (Part 9), “How to Make Promises of Love to Her” (Part 12), “How to Entice and Seduce a Woman” (Parts 13 and 14), “How to Make Promises and Deceive” (Part 16), “How Tears and Kisses Help in Love Affairs” (Part 17), “Psychology Love Tricks in the Art of Love” (Parts 18-19), and others.

The poems of Book II present other pieces of love advice to men. Parts V, VI, and VII explain men how beneficial in love (a) not to be faint-hearted, (b) win over the servants, and (c) give her little tasteful gifts.

In Book II, Ovid also explains how to Be Gentle and Good-Tempered in Love Relations (Part III), Let Her Miss You, but Not For Long (Part X), when men should Stir Her Jealousy in Their Art of Love (Part XIII).

Here is Part XIV of Ovid’s Book II, advising men to be wise and suffer in love. The art of love should be wise, yet love relationships can still cause suffering.

Be Wise and Suffer in Love, Part XIV of Book II:

“While I was writing this, Apollo suddenly appeared

plucking the strings of his lyre with his thumb.

Laurel was in his hand, laurel wreathing his hair:

he appears to poets looking like that.

‘Professor of Wanton Love,’ he said to me,

‘go lead your disciples to my temple,

it’s where the famous words, celebrated throughout the world,

command everyone to “Know Yourself”.

He alone will be wise, who’s well-known to himself,

and carries out each work that suits his powers.

Whom nature’s given beauty, let it be seen by her:

whose skin is lustrous, lie there often with bare shoulders:

who delights by talking, avoid taciturn silence:

who sings with art, then sing: who drinks with art, then drink.

but the eloquent should never declaim mid-speech

nor the crazy poet ever read his poems!’

So Phoebus warned: take note of Phoebus’s warning:

truth’s surely on the sacred lips of that god.

To bring us back to earth: who loves wisely wins,

and by my skill will bring off what he seeks.

It’s not often the furrow repays the loan with interest,

not often the winds aid the boat in trouble:

What delights a lover is little, what pains him more:

many sufferings declare themselves to his heart.

As many as hares on Athos, the bees that graze on Hybla,

as many as the olives the grey-green branches carry,

or the sea-shells on the shore, are the pains of love:

the thorns we suffer from are drenched in gall.

They’ll say she’s gone out: very likely she’s to be seen inside:

think that she has gone out, and your vision lied.

The door will be shut the night she promised you:

endure it, lay your body on the dusty ground.

And perhaps the lying maid with scornful face,

will say: ‘Why’s he hanging round our door?’

Still, a suppliant, coax the doorposts, and your harsh mistress,

and hang the roses, from your head, outside.

Come if she wishes: when she shuns you, go:

it’s unbecoming to a noble man to bore her.

Why let your lover say: ‘There’s no escaping him’?

Her feelings won’t always be against you.

Don’t think it a disgrace to suffer curses or blows from the girl, or plant kisses on her tender feet.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.

The three books of Ovid’s poems “Ars Amatoria” taught Roman men and women the art of love. Over the centuries, his clever love suggestions have been passed down through generations and across cultures. Ovid’s poetry educated Romans of affluent social classes on how to entertain love and seduce a lover.

The first two of Ovid’s books offer guidance to men on how to approach women, conduct themselves around them, and make love to them. His love poems are full of wise and interesting advice about how to find a lover, how to get them interested, and how to keep them. 

I think contemporary readers will still find these books fascinating and interesting to read, despite the obvious differences between their lives and those of the ancient Romans. It’s worthwhile to learn from the past when it comes to love. Many of the old maxims are applicable even today. So, I used a number of passages from Anthony Kline’s wonderful translations of Ovid’s works in the articles on this blog (Kline, 2001). 

The remarkable cantos of Book 1 teach men about

“What Is His Task” (Part 1),

“How to Find Her“ (Part 2),

“Search for Love While Walking“ (Part 3),

“Search for Love while at the Theatre“ (Part 4),

“Search for Love at the Races or Circus“ (Part 5),

“Triumphs that Are Good to Attract a Woman“ (Part 6),

“Search for Love around the Dinner-Table and on the Beach“(Parts 7 and 8),

“How to Win Her“ (Part 9),

“How to Know the Maid“ (Part 10),

“How to Be Attentive to Her“ (Part 11),

“How to Make Promises of Love to Her“ (Part 12),

“How to Woo and Seduce a Woman” (Parts 13 and 14),

“How to Captivate a Woman at Dinner” (Part 15),

“How to Make Promises and Deceive” (Part 16),

“How Tears, Kisses, Taking the Lead Can Help in Love Affairs” (Part 17),

“Psychology Love Tricks in the Art of Love” (Parts 18-19).

Stir Her Jealousy, Part XIII of Book II:

Here is Part XIII of Ovid’s Book II, advising men to “stir her jealousy,” thus entertaining their art of love.

“Wise Erato, why turn to magic arts?

My chariot’s scraping the inside post.

You who just hid your crimes on my advice,

change course, and on my advice reveal your secrets.

I’m not guilty of fickleness: the curved prow

is not always blown onwards by the same wind.

Now we run to a Thracian northerly, an easterly now,

sometimes a west wind fills our sails, sometimes a south.

Look how the charioteer now slacks the reins,

then skilfully restrains the galloping team.

There are those who don’t like being served with shy kindness:

while love fades if there’s no rival around.

Generally heads are swollen with success,

it’s not easy to be content with the good times.

As a fire with little power, gradually consumed,

hides itself, ashes whitening on its surface,

but the doused flames will flare with a pinch of sulphur,

and the brightness, that was there before, returns:

so when hearts are numbed by slack dullness and security,

love is aroused by some sharp stimulus.

Make her fearful for you: warm her tepid mind:

let her grow pale at evidence of your guilt:

O four times happy, times impossible to count,

is he for whom his wounded girl grieves.

That, when his sins reach her unwilling ears, she’s lost,

and voice and colour flee the unhappy girl.

Let me be him, whose hair the angry woman tears:

let me be him, whose tender cheeks nails seek,

him whom she sees with tears, turns on him tortured eyes,

whom though she can’t live without, she wishes she could.

If you ask how long you should let her lament her hurt,

keep it brief, lest a long delay kindles anger’s force:

Throw your arms straightaway around her snow-white neck,

and let the weeping girl fall on your chest.

Kiss her who weeps, make sweet love to her who weeps,

there’ll be peace: this is the one way anger’s dissolved.

When she’s truly raging, when she seems fixed on war,

then sue for peace in bed, she’ll be gentle.

There Harmony dwells with grounded arms:

there, trust me, is the place where grace is born.

Doves that once fought, now bill and coo,

whose murmur is of caressing words.

At first all things were confused mass without form,

heaven and earth and sea were created one:

soon sky was set above land, earth circled by water,

and random chaos split into its parts:

Forests allowed the creatures a home: air the birds:

fish took shelter in the running streams.

Then the human race wandered the empty wilds,

a thing of naked strength and brutish body:

woods were its home, grass its food, leaves its bed:

and for a long time no man knew another.

They say sweet delights softened savage spirits:

when man and woman rested in one place:

they had no teacher to show them what to do:

Venus did her work without sweet art.

Birds have mates to love: in the midst of waters

a fish will find another to share her joy:

hind follows stag, snake will bind with snake,

bitch clings entwined with some adulterous dog:

ewes delight in being covered: bulls delight in heifers, too,

the snub-nosed she-goat supports her rank mate:

Mares driven to frenzy follow their stallion,

through distant places beyond the branching river.

So act, and offer strong medicine to your angry one:

only this will bring peace to her unhappiness:

this medicine beats Machaon’s drugs: this will reinstate you when you’ve sinned.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.

The three books of “Ars Amatoria” by Roman poet Ovid taught men and women the art of love. His clever love suggestions have been passed down through generations and across cultures over the centuries. The poetry of Ovid taught Roman people of affluent social class how to entertain love and seduce a prospective lover.

The first two books advise men how to approach, interact with, and make love with women. Ovid’s love poems offer wise and entertaining guidance on how to find, seduce, and keep a lover.

Despite the fact that modern readers live in a different time and place than the ancient Romans, I believe they will find these books fascinating and interesting to read. Many ancient love ideas can still be useful for those learning how to love in the modern world. So, I quoted several passages from Anthony Kline’s magnificent translations of Ovid’s works in the articles on this blog (Kline, 2001).

The amazing verses of Book 1 teach men about

“What Is His Task” (Part 1),

“How to Find Her“ (Part 2),

“Search for Love While Walking“ (Part 3),

“Search for Love while at the Theatre“ (Part 4),

“Search for Love at the Races or Circus“ (Part 5),

“Triumphs that Are Good to Attract a Woman“ (Part 6),

“Search for Love around the Dinner-Table and on the Beach“(Parts 7 and 8),

“How to Win Her“ (Part 9),

“How to Know the Maid“ (Part 10),

“How to Be Attentive to Her“ (Part 11),

“How to Make Promises of Love to Her“ (Part 12),

“How to Woo and Seduce a Woman” (Parts 13 and 14),

“How to Captivate a Woman at Dinner” (Part 15),

“How to Make Promises and Deceive” (Part 16),

“How Tears, Kisses, Taking the Lead Can Help in Love Affairs” (Part 17),

“Psychology Love Tricks in the Art of Love” (Parts 18-19).

Have Other Friends, but Be Careful, Part XI of Book II:

Here is Part XI of Ovid’s Book II, advising men to “have other friends, but be careful.”

“But the red-haired boar is not so fierce in mid-anger.

when he turns and threatens the rabid pack,

or the lioness giving suck to un-weaned cubs,

or the tiny viper crushed by a careless foot,

as a woman when a rival’s caught in her lover’s bed:

she blazes, her face the colour of her heart.

She storms with fire and flame, all restraint forgot,

as if struck, as they say, by the horns of the Boeotian god.

Wronged by her husband, her marriage violated,

savage Medea avenged herself through her children.

Another fatal mother was that swallow, you see there:

look, her breast carries the stain of blood.

Well-founded and firm loves have been dissolved so:

these are crimes to make cautious men afraid.

Not that my censure condemns you to only one girl:

the gods forbid! A wife could hardly expect that.

Indulge, but secretly veil your sins, with restraint:

it’s no glory to you to be seeking out wrongdoing.

Don’t give gifts another girl could spot,

or have set times for your assignations.

And lest a girl catch you out in your favourite haunts

don’t meet all of them in one place.

And always look closely at your wax tablets, whenever you write:

lest much more is read there than you sent.

Wounded, Venus takes up just arms, and hurls her dart,

and makes you lament, as she is lamenting.

While Agamemnon was satisfied with one woman, Clytemnestra

was chaste: evil was done through the man’s fault.

She had heard how Chryses, with sacred head-bands,

and laurel in his hand, failed to win back his daughter:

she had heard of your sorrows, captive Briseis,

and how scandalous delays had prolonged the war.

She heard all this: She saw Cassandra for herself:

the victor the shameful prize of his own prize.

Then she took Thyestes to her heart and bed,

and wrongfully avenged the Atrides’s crime.

Even if the acts, you’ve well hidden, become known,

though they’re known, still always deny them.

Don’t be subdued, or more fond than usual:

those are the signs of many guilty thoughts.

But don’t forgo sex: all peace is in that one thing. The act it is that disproves a prior union.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.

Ovid’s three poetic books of “Ars Amatoria” taught Roman men and women how to master the art of love. In the centuries since, his astute love advice has been passed down through generations and across cultures. Ovid’s poetry taught both men and women how to seduce and love.

The first two books instruct men on how to approach, engage, and seduce women. Ovid’s love poems give sage and entertaining guidance on how to find and keep a lover.

I believe that modern readers will still find these books fascinating and interesting to read, despite the fact that they live in a different time and location than the ancient Romans did. Many ancient ideas about love can still be beneficial and useful for those who want to learn how to love in the modern world. Therefore, I quoted several pieces from Anthony Kline’s magnificent translations of Ovid’s works and posted them in the articles on this blog (Kline, 2001).

The wonderful poems of Book 1 teach us about

“What Is His Task” (Part 1),

“How to Find Her” (Part 2),

“Search for Love While Walking” (Part 3),

“Search for Love while at the Theatre” (Part 4),

“Search for Love at the Races or Circus” (Part 5),

“Triumphs that Are Good to Attract a Woman” (Part 6),

“Search for Love around the Dinner-Table and on the Beach” (Parts 7 and 8),

“How to Win Her” (Part 9),

“How to Know the Maid” (Part 10),

“How to Be Attentive to Her” (Part 11),

“How to Make Promises of Love to Her” (Part 12),

“How to Woo and Seduce a Woman” (Parts 13 and 14),

“How to Captivate a Woman at Dinner” (Part 15),

“How to Make Promises and Deceive” (Part 16),

“How Tears, Kisses, Taking the Lead Can Help in Love Affairs” (Part 17), “Psychology Love Tricks in the Art of Love” (Parts 18-19).

Let Her Miss You, but Not for Long, Part X of Book II:

Here is Part X of Ovid’s Book II, advising men “to let her miss you, but not for a long time.”

“But the winds that filled your sails and blew offshore,

are no use when you’re in the open sea.

While young love’s wandering, it gathers strength by use:

if you nourish it well, it will be strong in time.

The bull you fear’s the calf you used to stroke:

the tree you lie beneath was a sapling:

the river’s tiny when born, but gathers riches in its flow,

and collects the many waters that come to it.

Make her accustomed to you: nothing’s greater than habit:

while you’re captivating her, avoid no boredom.

Let her always be seeing you: always giving you ear:

show your face, at night and in the day.

When you’ve more confidence that you’ll be missed,

when your absence far away will cause her worry,

give her a rest: the fields when rested repay the loan,

and parched earth drinks the heavenly rain.

Phyllis burnt less for Demophoon in his presence:

she blazed more fiercely when he sailed away.

Penelope was tormented by the loss of cunning Ulysses:

you, Laodamia, by absent Protesilaus.

But brief delays are best: fondness fades with time,

love vanishes with absence, and new love appears.

When Menelaus left, Helen did not lie alone,

Paris, the guest, at night, was taken to her warm breast.

What craziness was that, Menelaus? You left

wife and guest alone under the same roof.

Madman, would you trust timid doves to a hawk?

Would you trust the full fold to a mountain wolf?

Helen did not sin: her lover committed none:

what you, what anyone would do, he did.

You forced adultery by giving time and place:

What did the girl employ but your counsel?

What should she do? Her man away, a cultivated guest,

and she afraid to sleep alone in an empty bed.

Let Atrides appear: I acquit Helen of crime: she took advantage of her husband’s courtesy.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.

The three poetic books of Ovid’s “Ars Amatoria” taught men and women of the Roman Empire how to master the art of love. His astute love advice has been passed down through the generations and across different cultures in the following centuries. Ovid’s poetry taught men and women the art of seduction and love.

The first two books teach men how to flirt with, converse with, and seduce women. Ovid’s love poetry offers wise and entertaining advice to men and women on how to find and keep a lover.

Even though people today live in a different time and place than the ancient Romans did, I think they will still find these books fascinating and interesting to read. Many old ideas about love are still useful and good for people who want to learn how to love in the present day. So, I used parts of these books from Anthony Kline’s translations of Ovid’s magnificent books and posted them in several articles on this blog (Kline, 2001).

The delightful poetries of Book 1 teach us about

“What Is His Task” (Part 1),

“How to Find Her” (Part 2),

“Search for Love While Walking” (Part 3),

“Search for Love while at the Theatre” (Part 4),

“Search for Love at the Races or Circus” (Part 5),

“Triumphs that Are Good to Attract a Woman” (Part 6),

“Search for Love around the Dinner-Table and on the Beach” (Parts 7 and 8),

“How to Win Her” (Part 9),

“How to Know the Maid” (Part 10),

“How to Be Attentive to Her” (Part 11),

“How to Make Promises of Love to Her” (Part 12),

“How to Woo and Seduce a Woman” (Parts 13 and 14),

“How to Captivate a Woman at Dinner” (Part 15),

“How to Make Promises and Deceive” (Part 16),

“How Tears, Kisses, Taking the Lead Can Help in Love Affairs” (Part 17),

“Psychology Love Tricks in the Art of Love” (Parts 18-19).

Here are Parts VIII and IX of Ovid’s Book II, teaching how giving her favor, compliment, and comfort in sickness are the important things in the art of love.

Favor Her and Compliment Her, Part VIII of Book II:

Here is Part VIII of Ovid’s Book II, teaching men how giving her favors and compliments can help win her love.

“Then what you’re about to do, and think is useful,

always get your lover to ask you to do it.

You promised liberty to one of your slaves:

still let him seek the fact of it from your girl:

if you stay a punishment, forgo the use of cruel chains,

let her be thankful to you, for what you did:

the advantage is yours: the title ‘giver’ is your lover’s:

you lose nothing, she plays the mistress’s part.

But whoever you are, who want to keep your girl,

she must think that you’re inspired by her beauty.

If she’s dressed in Tyrian robes, praise Tyrian:

if she’s in Coan silk, consider Coan fitting.

She’s in gold-thread? She’s more precious than gold:

She wears wool, approve the wool she’s wearing.

She leaves off her tunic, cry: ‘You set me on fire’,

but request her anxiously to beware of chills.

She’s parted her hair: praise the parting:

she waves her hair: be pleased with the waves.

Admire her limbs as she dances, her voice when she sings,

and when it finishes, grieve that it’s finished in words.

It’s fine if you tell her what delights, and what gives joy

about her lovemaking, her skill in bed.

Though she’s more violent than fierce Medusa,

she’ll be ‘kind and gentle’ to her lover.

But make sure of this: don’t let your expression

give your speech the lie, lest you seem a deceiver with words.

Art works when its hidden: discovery brings shame, and time destroys faith in everything of merit.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.

Comfort Her in Sickness, Part IX of Book II:

Here is Part IX of Ovid’s Book II, teaching men how giving her comfort in sickness can help win her love.

“Often in autumn, when the season’s loveliest,

and the ripe grape’s dyed with purple juice,

when now we’re frozen solid, now drenched with heat,

the body’s listless in the changing air.

Your girl’s well in fact: but if she’s lying sick,

feels ill because of the unhealthy weather,

then let love and devotion be obvious to your girl,

then sow what you’ll reap later with full sickle.

Don’t be put off by the fretfulness of the patient,

let yours be the hand that does what she allows.

And be seen weeping, and don’t shrink from kisses,

let her parched mouth drink from your tears.

Pray a lot, but all aloud: and, as often as she lets you,

tell her happy dreams that you remembered.

And let the old woman come who cleanses room and bed,

bringing sulphur and eggs in her trembling hands.

The signs of a welcome devotion are in all this:

by these means into wills many have made their way.

But don’t let dislike for your attentions rise from illness,

only be charming, in your earnestness:

don’t prohibit food, or hand her cups of bitter stuff:

let your rival mix all that for her.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.

The three poetic books of Ovid’s “Ars Amatoria” advised men and women of the Roman Empire on how to master the art of love. His witty love wisdom has been passed down through the ages. His poems taught both men and women how to seduce and have sexual encounters with each other through the art of love.

The first two books teach men how to flirt, talk, and make love to women. Ovid’s love poetry offers men and women wise and entertaining advice on how to find and keep a lover.

Even though modern people today live in a different time and place than the ancient Romans did, I think they will still find these books fascinating and interesting to read. This is why I chose to include parts of these books in a few articles I wrote. Many old ideas about love are still true and useful for people who love and study love today.

Therefore, I have taken a few of them from Anthony Kline’s translations of Ovid’s remarkable books and posted them on my blog (Kline, 2001).

The delightful verses of book 1 tell us about

“What Is His Task” (Part 1),

“How to Find Her” (Part 2),

“Search for Love While Walking” (Part 3),

“Search for Love while at the Theatre” (Part 4),

“Search for Love at the Races or Circus” (Part 5),

“Triumphs that Are Good to Attract a Woman” (Part 6),

“Search for Love around the Dinner-Table and on the Beach” (Parts 7 and 8),

“How to Win Her” (Part 9),

“How to Know the Maid” (Part 10),

“How to Be Attentive to Her” (Part 11),

“How to Make Promises of Love to Her” (Part 12),

“How to Woo and Seduce a Woman” (Parts 13 and 14),

“How to Captivate a Woman at Dinner” (Part 15),

“How to Make Promises and Deceive” (Part 16),

“How Tears, Kisses, Taking the Lead Can Help in Love Affairs” (Part 17), and

“Psychology Love Tricks in the Art of Love” (Parts 18-19).

Here it is Part IV of Ovid’s Book II, teaching why you need to be patient and comply in the art of love relationships.

You Need to Be Patient and Comply, Part IV of Book II:

“If she’s not charming or courteous enough, at your loving,

endure it and persist: she’ll soon be kinder.

You can get a curved branch to bend on the tree by patience:

you’ll break it, if you try out your full strength.

With patience you can cross the water: you’ll not

conquer the river by sailing against the flow.

Patience tames tigers and Numidian lions:

the farmer in time bows the ox to the plough.

Who was fiercer than Arcadian Atalanta?

Wild as she was she still surrendered to male kindness.

Often Milanion wept among the trees

at his plight and at the girl’s harsh acts:

often at her orders his shoulders carried the nets,

often he pierced wild boars with his deadly spear:

and he felt the pain of Hylaeus’s tense bow:

but that of another bow was still more familiar.

I don’t order you to climb in Maenalian woods,

holding a weapon, or carrying nets on your back:

I don’t order you to bare your chest to flying darts:

the tender commands of my arts are safe.

Yield to opposition: by yielding you’ll end as victor:

Only play the part she commands you to.

Condemn what she condemns: what she approves, approve:

say what she says: deny what she denies.

She laughs, you laugh: remember to cry, if she cries:

she’ll set the rules according to your expression.

If she plays, tossing the ivory dice in her hand,

throw them wrong, and concede on your bad throw:

If you play knucklebones, no prize if you win,

make out that often the ruinous low Dogs fell to you.

And if it’s draughts, the draughtsmen mercenaries,

let your champion be swept away by your glass foe.

Yourself, hold your girl’s sunshade outspread,

yourself, make a place for her in the crowd.

Quickly bring up a footstool to her elegant couch,

and slip the sandal on or off her sweet foot.

Often, even though you’re shivering yourself,

her hand must be warmed at your neglected breast.

Don’t think it shameful (though it’s shameful, you’ll like it),

to hold the mirror for her in your noble hands.

When his stepmother, Juno, was tired of sending him monsters,

Hercules, it’s said, who reached the heavens he’d shouldered,

held a basket, among the Lydian girls, and spun raw wool.

The hero of Tiryns complied with his girl’s orders:

go now, and endure the misgivings he endured.

Ordered to appear in town, make sure you arrive

before time, and don’t leave unless it’s late.

She tells you to be elsewhere: drop everything, run,

don’t let the crowd in the way stop you trying.

She’s returning home from another party at night:

when she calls for her slave you come too.

She’s in the country, says: ‘come’: Love hates a laggard:

if you’ve no wheels, travel the road on foot.

Don’t let bad weather, or parching Dog-days, stall you, or the roads whitened by falling snow.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.

The three poetic books of “Ars Amatoria” by the Roman poet Ovid advised men and women of the Roman Empire on how to master the art of love. His witty wisdom of love has been passed down through the centuries. His poems taught both men and women how to use the art of love to seduce and have sexual encounters with each other.

The first two books teach men how to talk to, flirt with, and make love to a woman. In his love poetry, Ovid gives both men and women wise and interesting advice on how to find and keep a lover.

I think modern readers will still find these books fascinating and interesting to read, despite the fact that they live in a different time and society than the ancient Romans did. This is the reason I decided to write a few articles that included passages from these books. Many concepts about love are still valid and useful for contemporary lovers and love researchers.

So, I’ve taken some of them from Anthony Kline’s translations of Ovid’s remarkable books and put them here on my blog (Kline, 2001).

The captivating poetries of book 1 tell us about

“What Is His Task” (Part 1),

“How to Find Her” (Part 2),

“Search for Love While Walking” (Part 3),

“Search for Love while at the Theatre” (Part 4),

“Search for Love at the Races or Circus” (Part 5),

“Triumphs that Are Good to Attract a Woman” (Part 6),

“Search for Love around the Dinner-Table and on the Beach” (Parts 7 and 8),

“How to Win Her” (Part 9),

“How to Know the Maid” (Part 10),

“How to Be Attentive to Her” (Part 11),

“How to Make Promises of Love to Her” (Part 12),

“How to Woo and Seduce a Woman” (Parts 13 and 14),

“How to Captivate a Woman at Dinner” (Part 15),

“How to Make Promises and Deceive” (Part 16),

“How Tears, Kisses, Taking the Lead Can Help in Love Affairs” (Part 17),

“Psychology Love Tricks in the Art of Love” (Parts 18-19).

Here it is Part III of Ovid’s Book II, teaching why you need to be gentle and good-tempered in the art of love relationships.

You Need to Be Gentle and Good Tempered, Part III of Book II:

“Gentleness especially impresses minds favourably:

harshness creates hatred and fierce wars.

We hate the hawk that lives its life in battle,

and the wolf whose custom is to raid the timid flocks.

But the swallow, for its gentleness, is free from human snares,

and Chaonian doves have dovecotes to live in.

Away with disputes and the battle of bitter tongues:

sweet love must feed on gentle words.

Let married men and married women be checked by rebuffs,

and think in turn things always are against them:

that’s proper for wives: quarrelling’s the marriage dowry:

but a mistress should always hear the longed-for cooing.

No law orders you to come together in one bed:

in your rules it’s love provides the entertainment.

Approach her with gentle flatteries and words to delight

her ear, so that your arrival makes her glad.

I don’t come as a teacher of love for the rich:

he who can give has no need of my art:

He has genius who can say: ‘Take this’ when he pleases:

I submit: he delights more than my inventions.

I’m the poor man’s poet, who was poor when I loved:

when I could give no gifts, I gave them words.

The poor must love warily: the poor fear to speak amiss,

and suffer much that the rich would not.

I remember mussing my lady’s hair in anger:

how many days that anger cost me!

I don’t think I tore her dress, I didn’t feel it: but she

said so, and my reward was to replace it.

But you, if you’re wise, avoid your teacher’s faults,

and fear the harm that came from my offence.

Make war with the Parthians, peace with a civilised friend, and laughter, and whatever engenders love.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.

Ovid’s advice on the art of love has been known for centuries due to his three poetic books of “Ars Amatoria.” He was a Roman poet from the time of the Roman Empire. The poems in his books taught men and women how to use the art of love to seduce and make love.

In a fascinating way, “Ars Amatoria” shows how the Roman aristocracy of the time lived a life of pleasure and sophistication. I believe people today can still learn something from Ovid’s advice.

In his first two books of “The Art of Love,” Ovid mostly advises men on how to find a woman and keep her. The beautiful verses of book 1 tell us about

“What Is His Task” (Part 1),

“How to Find Her” (Part 2),

“Search for Love While Walking” (Part 3),

“Search for Love while at the Theatre” (Part 4),

“Search for Love at the Races or Circus” (Part 5),

“Triumphs that Are Good to Attract a Woman” (Part 6),

“Search for Love around the Dinner-Table and on the Beach” (Parts 7 and 8),

“How to Win Her” (Part 9),

“How to Know the Maid” (Part 10),

“How to Be Attentive to Her” (Part 11),

“How to Make Promises of Love to Her” (Part 12),

“How to Woo and Seduce a Woman” (Parts 13 and 14),

“How to Captivate a Woman at Dinner” (Part 15),

“How to Make Promises and Deceive” (Part 16),

“How Tears, Kisses, Taking the Lead Can Help in Love Affairs” (Part 17),

“Psychology Love Tricks in the Art of Love” (Parts 18-19).

Here it is Part II of Ovid’s Book II, teaching a man why he needs gifts of mind in the art of love relationships.

You Need Gifts of Mind, Part II of Book II:

“Minos could not hold back those mortal wings:

I’m setting out to check the winged god himself.

He who has recourse to Thracian magic, fails,

to what the foal yields, torn from its new-born brow,

Medea’s herbs can’t keep love alive,

nor Marsian dirges mingled with magic chants.

If incantations only could enslave love, Ulysses

would have been tied to Circe, Jason to the Colchian.

It’s no use giving girls pale drugs:

drugs hurt the mind, have power to cause madness.

Away with such evils: to be loved be lovable:

something face and form alone won’t give you.

Though you’re Nireus loved by Homer of old,

or sweet Hylas ravished by the Naiades’ crime,

to keep your love, and not to find her leave you,

add gifts of mind to grace of body.

A sweet form is fragile, what’s added to its years

lessen it, and time itself eats it away.

Violets and open lilies do not flower forever,

and thorns are left stiffening on the blown rose.

And white hair will come to find you, lovely lad,

soon wrinkles will come, furrowing your skin.

Then nourish mind, which lasts, and adds to beauty:

it alone will stay till the funeral pyre.

Cultivate your thoughts with the noble arts,

more than a little, and learn two languages.

Ulysses wasn’t handsome, but he was eloquent,

and still racked the sea-goddesses with love.

How often Calypso mourned his haste,

and denied the waves were fit for oars!

She asked him again and again about the fall of Troy:

He grew used to retelling it often, differently.

They walked the beach: there, lovely Calypso too

demanded the gory tale of King Rhesus’s fate.

He, with a rod (a rod perhaps he already had)

illustrated what she asked in the thick sand.

‘This’ he said, ‘is Troy’ (drawing the walls in the sand):

‘This your Simois: imagine this is our camp.

This is the field,’ (he drew the field), ‘that was dyed

with Dolon’s blood, while he spied on Achilles’s horses.

here were the tents of Thracian Rhesus:

here am I riding back the captured horses at night.’

And he was drawing more, when suddenly a wave

washed away Troy, and Rhesus, and his camp.

Then the goddess said ‘Do you see what you place your trust in

for your voyage, waves that have destroyed such mighty names?’

So listen, whoever you are, fear to rely on treacherous beauty or own to something more than just the flesh.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.

Among love scholars, the Roman poet of the ancient Roman Empire is well-known for his “Ars Amatoria” (The Art of Love), a three-volume instructional series of poems describing what love is and how to make love using the arts of seduction and intrigue.

The first two books of Ovid’s poems, “The Art of Love,” are addressed to men. They cover the topics of how to make love: “letting her miss you-but not for too long,” “not forgetting her birthday,” and “not asking about her age.”

His poetic words offer witty love advice to men and women in their love relationships. Some of his advice, I believe, is still relevant today and would be interesting to read.

I presented the poetic excerpts of Ovid’s advice to men in my earlier articles on this blog. Those beautiful verses talk about “How to Find Her” (Part 2), “Search for Love While Walking” (Part 3), “Search for Love while at the Theatre” (Part 4), “Search for Love at the Races or Circus” (Part 5), “Triumphs that Are Good to Attract a Woman” (Part 6), “Search for Love around the Dinner-Table and on the Beach” (Parts 7 and 8), “How to Win Her” (Part 9), “How to Know the Maid” (Part 10), “How to Be Attentive to Her” (Part 11), “How to Make Promises of Love to Her” (Part 12), “How to Woo and Seduce a Woman” (Parts 13 and 14), “How to Captivate a Woman at Dinner” (Part 15), “How to Make Promises and Deceive” (Part 16), and “How Tears, Kisses, Taking the Lead Can Help in Love Affairs” (Part 17).

Here it is Part 1 of Ovid’s Book II, teaching a man what his task is in a love relationship with a woman.

His Task

“Sing out the Paean: sing out the Paean twice!

The prize I searched for falls into my net.

Delighted lovers grant my songs the palm,

I’m preferred to Hesiod and old Homer.

So Paris the stranger sailed, from hostile Amyclae’s shore,

under white sheets, with his ravished bride:

such was Pelops who brought you home Hippodamia,

borne on the foreign wheels of his conquering car.

What’s your hurry, young man? Your boat’s mid ocean,

and the harbour I search for is far away.

It’s not enough the girl’s come to you, through me, the poet:

she’s captured by my art, she’s to be kept by my art too.

There’s no less virtue in keeping than in finding.

There’s chance in the latter: the first’s a work of art.

Now aid me, your follower, Venus, and the Boy,

and Erato, Muse, now you have love’s name too.

Great my task as I try to tell what arts can make Love stay:

that boy who wanders so, through the vast world.

And he’s flighty, and has two wings on which he vanishes:

it’s a tricky job to pin him down.

Minos blocked every road of flight for his guest:

but Daedalus devised a bold winged path.

When he’d imprisoned the offspring of its mother’s sin,

the man half-bull, the bull who was half-man,

he said: ‘Minos, the Just, let my exile end:

let my native land receive my ashes.

And since I couldn’t live in my own country,

driven from it by cruel fate, still let me die there.

Give my boy freedom, if the father’s service was worthless:

or if power will not spare the child, let it spare the old.’

He spoke the words, but they, and so many others, were in vain:

his freedom was still denied him by the king.

When he realised this, he said: ‘Now, now, O Daedalus,

you have an object for your skilfulness.

Minos rules the earth and the waves:

neither land or sea is open for my flight.

The sky road still remains: we’ll try the heavens.

Jupiter, on high, favour my plan:

I don’t aspire to touch the starry spheres:

there is no way to flee the king but this.

I’d swim the Stygian waves, if Styx offered me a path:

through my nature new laws are mine.’

Trouble often sharpens the wits: who would think

any man could travel by the air-roads?

He lays out oar-like wings with lines of feathers,

and ties the fragile work with fastenings of string,

and glues the ends with beeswax melted in the flames,

and now the work of this new art’s complete.

Laughing, his son handled the wax and feathers

not knowing they were being readied for his own shoulders.

His father said of them: ‘This is the art that will take us home,

by this creation we’ll escape from Minos.

Minos bars all other ways but cannot close the skies:

as is fitting, my invention cleaves the air.

But don’t gaze at the Bear, that Arcadian girl,

or Bootes’s companion, Orion with his sword:

Fly behind me with the wings I give you: I’ll go in front:

your job’s to follow: you’ll be safe where I lead.

For if we go near the sun through the airy aether,

the wax will not endure the heat:

if our humble wings glide close to ocean,

the breaking salt waves will drench our feathers.

Fly between the two: and fear the breeze as well,

spread your wings and follow, as the winds allow.’

As he warns, he fits the wings to his child, shows

how they move, as a bird teaches her young nestlings.

Then he fastened the wings he’d fashioned to his own shoulders,

and poised his anxious body for the strange path.

Now, about to fly, he gave the small boy a kiss,

and the tears ran down the father’s cheeks.

A small hill, no mountain, higher than the level plain:

there their two bodies were given to the luckless flight.

And Daedalus moved his wings, and watched his son’s,

and all the time kept to his own course.

Now Icarus delights in the strange journey,

and, fear forgotten, he flies more swiftly, with daring art.

A man catching fish, with quivering rod, saw them,

and the task he’d started dropped from his hand.

Now Samos was to the left (Naxos was far behind

and Paros, and Delos beloved by Phoebus the god)

Lebinthos lay to the right, and shady-wooded Calymne,

and Astypalaea ringed by rich fishing grounds,

when the boy, too rash, with youth’s carelessness,

soared higher, and left his father far behind.

The knots give way, and the wax melts near the sun,

his flailing arms can’t clutch at thin air.

Fearful, from heaven’s heights he gazes at the deep:

terrified, darkness, born of fear, clouds his eyes.

The wax dissolves: he thrashes with naked arms,

and flutters there with nothing to support him.

He falls, and falling cries: ‘Father, O father, I’m lost!’

the salt-green sea closes over his open lips.

But now the unhappy father, his father, calls, ‘Icarus!

Where are you Icarus, where under the sky?

Calling ‘Icarus’, he saw the feathers on the waves. Earth holds his bones: the waters take his name.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.