The three poetic books of Ovid’s “Ars Amatoria” provided guidance on how to master the art of love for the men and women of the Roman Empire. His clever love advice has been passed down from generation to generation. His poetry taught men and women the art of love and seduction.
The first two books instruct men on how to flirt, converse, and seduce women. Ovid’s love poetry gives men and women sage and entertaining advice on how to find and maintain a lover.
Even though contemporary people live in a different time and place than ancient Romans did, I believe they will still find these books fascinating and interesting to read. So, I included passages from these books in a few articles. Many old ideas about love continue to be suitable and valuable for those who love and study love today.
So, I took a few of them from Anthony Kline’s translations of Ovid’s magnificent books and posted them on my blog (Kline, 2001).
The charming 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).
Here are Parts V, VI, and VII of Ovid’s Book II, teaching men how beneficial it is for them (a) not to be faint-hearted, (b) win over the servants, and (c) give her little tasteful gifts. All these things are the important things in the art of love.
Don’t Be Faint-Hearted, Part V of Book II:
Here is Part V of Ovid’s Book II, teaching men how beneficial it is for them not to be faint-hearted.
“Love is a kind of warfare. Slackers, dismiss!
There are no cowards guarding this standard.
Night and winter, long roads and cruel sorrows,
and every kind of labour are found on love’s campaigns.
You’ll often endure rain pouring from heavenly clouds,
and frozen, lie there on the naked earth.
They say that Phoebus grazed Admetus’s cattle,
and found shelter in a humble hut.
Who can’t suit what suited Phoebus? Lose your pride,
you who’d have love’s sorrows tamed.
If you’re denied a safe and level road,
and the door barred with a bolt against you,
then drop down head-first through the open roof:
a high window too offers a secret way.
She’ll be glad, knowing the chase itself is risky for you:
that will be sure proof to the lady of your love.
You might often have been parted from your girl, Leander: you swam across so she could know your heart.”
Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.
Win Over the Servants, Part VI of Book II:
Here is Part VI of Ovid’s Book II, teaching men how beneficial it is for them to win over the servants.
“Nor is it shameful to you to cultivate her maids,
according to their grades, and the serving men.
Greet them by their names (it costs you nothing)
clasp humble hands with yours, in your ambition.
And even offer the servant, who asks, a little something
on Fortune’s Day (it’s little enough to pay):
and the maid, on that day when the hand of punishment fell
on the Gauls, they deluded by maids in mistress’s clothes.
Trust me, make the people yours: especially the gatekeeper,
and whoever lies in front of her bedroom doors.”
Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.
Give Her Little Tasteful Gifts, Part VII of Book II:
Here is Part VII of Ovid’s Book II, teaching men how beneficial it is for them to give little tasteful gifts.
“I don’t tell you to give your mistress expensive gifts:
give little but of that little, skilfully, give what’s fitting.
When the field is full of riches, when the branches bend
with the weight, let the boy bring a gift in a rustic basket.
You can say it was sent from your country villa,
even though it was bought on the Via Sacra.
Send grapes, or those nuts Amaryllis loved,
chestnuts, but she doesn’t love them now.
Why even thrushes are fine, and the gift of a dove,
to witness your remembrance of your mistress.
Shameful to send them hoping for the death of some childless
old man. Ah, perish those who make giving a crime!
Do I also teach that you send tender verses?
Ah me, poems are not honoured much.
Songs are praised, but its gifts they really want:
barbarians themselves are pleasing, so long as they’re rich.
Truly now it is the Age of Gold: the greatest honours
come with gold: love’s won by gold.
Even if you came, Homer, with the Muses as companions,
if you brought nothing with you, Homer, you’d be out.
Still there are cultured girls, the rarest set:
and another set who aren’t, but would like to be.
Praise either in song: and they’ll commend
the reader whatever his voice’s sweetness:
So sing your midnight song to one and the other, perhaps it will figure as a trifling gift.”
Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.