OVID: THE ART OF
LOVE
(ARS AMATORIA)
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
Book III Part I: It’s Time to Teach You Girls
Book III Part II: Take Care with How You Look
Book III Part III: Taste and Elegance in Hair
and Dress
Book III Part IV: Make-Up, but in Private
Book III Part V: Conceal Your Defects
Book III Part VI: Be Modest in Laughter and
Movement
Book III Part VII: Learn Music and Read the
Poets
Book III Part VIII: Learn Dancing, Games
Book III Part IX: Be Seen Around
Book III Part X: Beware of False Lovers
Book III Part XI: Take Care with Letters
Book III Part XII: Avoid the Vices, Favour
the Poets
Book III Part XIII: Try Young and Older
Lovers
Book III Part XIV: Use Jealousy and Fear
Book III Part XV: Play Cloak and Dagger
Book III Part XVI: Make Him Believe He’s
Loved
Book III Part XVII: Watch How You Eat and
Drink
Book III Part XVIII: And So To Bed
Book III
I’ve given the Greeks
arms, against Amazons: arms remain,
to give to you
Penthesilea, and your Amazon troop.
Go equal to the fight:
let them win, those who are favoured
by Venus, and her Boy,
who flies through all the world.
It’s not fair for
armed men to battle with naked girls:
that would be
shameful, men, even if you win.
Someone will say: ‘Why
add venom to the snake,
and betray the
sheepfold to the rabid she-wolf?’
Beware of loading the
crime of the many onto the few:
let the merits of each
separate girl be seen.
Though Menelaus has
Helen, and Agamemnon
has Clytemnestra, her
sister, to charge with crime,
though Amphiarus, and
his horses too, came living to the Styx,
through the wickedness
of Eriphyle,
Penelope was faithful
to her husband for all ten years
of his waging war, and
his ten years wandering.
Think of Protesilaus,
and Laodameia who they say
followed her marriage
partner, died before her time.
Alcestis, his wife,
redeemed Admetus’s life with her own:
the wife, for the man,
was borne to the husband’s funeral.
‘Capaneus, receive me!
Let us mingle our ashes,’
Evadne cried, and
leapt into the flames.
Virtue herself is
named and worshipped as a woman too:
it’s no wonder that
she delights her followers.
Yet their aims are not
required for my art,
smaller sails are
suited to my boat,
Only playful passions
will be learnt from me:
I’ll teach girls the
ways of being loved.
Women don’t brandish
flames or cruel bows:
I rarely see men
harmed by their weapons.
Men often cheat: it’s seldom
tender girls,
and, if you check,
they’re rarely accused of fraud.
Falsely, Jason left
Medea, already a mother:
he took another bride
to himself.
As far as you knew,
Theseus, the sea birds fed on Ariadne,
left all by herself on
an unknown island!
Ask why one road’s
called Nine-Times and hear
how the woods,
weeping, shed their leaves for Phyllis.
Though he might be
famed for piety, Aeneas, your guest,
supplied the sword,
Dido, and the reason for your death.
What destroyed you
all, I ask? Not knowing how to love:
your art was lacking:
love lasts long through art.
You still might lack
it now: but, before my eyes,
stood Venus herself,
and ordered me to teach you.
She said to me. then:
‘What have the poor girls done,
an unarmed crowd
betrayed to well-armed men?
Two books of their
tricks have been composed:
let this lot too be
instructed by your warnings.
Stesichorus who spoke
against Helen’s un-chastity,
soon sang her praises
in a happier key.
If I know you well
(don’t harm the cultured girls now!)
this favour will
always be asked of you while you live.’
She spoke, and she
gave me a leaf, and a few myrtle
berries (since her
hair was crowned with myrtle):
I felt received power
too: purer air
glowed, and a whole
weight lifted from my spirit.
While wit works, seek
your orders here girls,
those that modesty,
principles and your rules allow.
Be mindful first that
old age will come to you:
so don’t be timid and
waste any of your time.
Have fun while it’s
allowed, while your years are in their prime:
the years go by like
flowing waters:
The wave that’s past
can’t be recalled again,
the hour that’s past
never can return.
Life’s to be used:
life slips by on swift feet,
what was good at
first, nothing as good will follow.
Those stalks that
wither I saw as violets:
from that thorn-bush
to me a dear garland was given.
There’ll be a time
when you, who now shut out your lover,
will lie alone, and
aged, in the cold of night,
nor find your entrance
damaged by some nocturnal quarrel,
nor your threshold
sprinkled with roses at dawn.
How quickly (ah me!)
the sagging flesh wrinkles,
and the colour, there,
is lost from the bright cheek.
And hairs that you’ll
swear were grey from your girlhood
will spring up all
over your head overnight.
Snakes shed their old
age with their fragile skin,
antlers that are cast
make the stag seem young:
un-aided our beauties
flee: pluck the flower,
which, if not plucked,
will of itself, shamefully, fall.
Add that the time of
youth is shortened by childbirth:
the field’s exhausted
by continual harvest.
Endymion causes you no
blushes, on Latmos, Moon,
nor is Cephalus the
rosy goddess of Dawn’s shameful prize.
Though Adonis was
given to Venus, whom she mourns to this day,
where did she get
Aeneas, and Harmonia, from?
O mortal girls go to
the goddesses for your examples,
and don’t deny your
delights to loving men.
Even if you’re
deceived, what do you lose? It’s all intact:
though a thousand use
it, nothing’s destroyed that way.
Iron crumbles, stone’s
worn away with use:
that part’s
sufficient, and escapes all fear of harm.
Who objects to taking
light from a light nearby?
Who hoards the vast
waters of the hollow deep?
So why should any
woman say: ‘Not now’? Tell me,
why waste the water if
you’re not going to use it?
Nor does my voice say
sell it, just don’t be afraid
of casual loss: your
gifts are freed from loss.
But I’m blown about by
greater gusts of wind,
while we’re in
harbour, may you ride the gentle breeze.
I’ll start with how
you look: good wine comes from vines
that are looked after,
tall crops stand in cultivated soil.
Beauty’s a gift of the
gods: how many can boast it?
The larger number
among you lack such gifts.
Taking pains brings
beauty: beauty neglected dies,
even though it’s like
that of Venus, the Idalian goddess.
If girls of old didn’t
cultivate their bodies in that way,
well they had no
cultivated men in those days:
if Andromache was
dressed in healthy clothes,
what wonder? Her
husband was a rough soldier?
Do you suppose Ajax’s
wife would come to him all smart,
when his outer layer
was seven hides of an ox?
There was crude
simplicity before: now Rome is golden,
and owns the vast
wealth of the conquered world.
Look what the Capitol
is now, and what it was:
you’d say it belonged
to a different Jove.
The Senate-House, now
worthy of such debates,
was made of wattle
when Tatius held the kingship.
Where the Palatine now
gleams with Apollo and our leaders,
what was that but
pasture for ploughmen’s oxen?
Others may delight in
ancient times: I congratulate myself
on having been born
just now: this age suits my nature.
Not because stubborn
gold’s mined now from the earth,
or choice shells come
to us from farthest shores:
nor because mountains
shrink as marble’s quarried,
or because blue waters
retreat from the piers:
but because
civilisation’s here, and no crudity remains,
in our age, that
survives from our ancient ancestors.
You too shouldn’t
weight your ears with costly stones,
that dusky India
gathers in its green waters,
nor show yourself in
stiff clothes sewn with gold,
wealth which you court
us with, often makes us flee.
We’re captivated by
elegance: don’t ignore your hair:
beauty’s granted or
denied by a hand’s touch.
There isn’t only one
style: choose what suits each one,
and consult your
mirror in advance.
An oval-shaped head
suggests a plain parting:
that’s how Laodamia
arranged her hair.
A round face asks for
a small knot on the top,
leaving the forehead
free, showing the ears.
One girl should throw
her hair over both shoulders:
like Phoebus when he
takes up the lyre to sing.
Another tied up
behind, in Diana’s usual style,
when, skirts tucked
up, she seeks the frightened quarry.
Blown tresses suit
this girl, loosely scattered:
that one’s encircled
by tight-bound hair.
This one delights in
being adorned by tortoiseshell from Cyllene:
that one presents a
likeness to the curves of a wave.
But you’ll no more
number the acorns on oak branches,
or bees on Hybla, wild
beasts on Alpine mountains,
than I can possibly
count so many fashions:
every new day adds
another new style.
And tangled hair suits
many girls: often you’d think
it’s been hanging
loose since yesterday: it’s just combed.
Art imitates chance:
when Hercules, in captured Oechalia,
saw Iole like that, he
said: ‘I love that girl.’
So you Bacchus, lifted
forsaken Ariadne,
into your chariot,
while the Satyrs gave their cries.
O how kind nature is
to your beauty,
how many ways you have
to repair the damage!
We’re sadly exposed,
and our hair, snatched at by time,
falls like the leaves
stripped by the north wind.
A woman dyes the grey
with German herbs,
and seeks a better
colour by their art:
a woman shows herself
in dense bought curls,
instead of her own,
pays cash for another’s.
No blushes shown: you
can see them coming, openly,
before the eyes of
Hercules and the Virgin Muses Choir.
What to say about
dress? Don’t ask for brocade,
or wools dyed purple
with Tyrian murex.
With so many cheaper
colours having appeared,
it’s crazy to bear
your fortune on your back!
See, the sky’s colour,
when the sky’s without a cloud,
no warm south-westerly
threatening heavy rain.
See, what to you,
you’ll say, looks similar to that fleece,
on which Phrixus and
Helle once escaped fierce Ino:
this resembles the
waves, and also takes its name from the waves:
I might have thought
the sea-nymphs clothed with this veil.
That’s like
saffron-flowers: dressed in saffron robes,
the dew-wet goddess
yokes her shining horses:
this, Paphian myrtle:
this, purple amethyst,
dawn roses, and the
Thracian crane’s grey.
Your chestnuts are not
lacking, Amaryllis, and almonds:
and wax gives its name
to various wools.
As many as the flowers
the new world, in warm spring, bears
when vine-buds wake,
and dark winter vanishes,
as many or more dyes
the wool drinks: choose, decisively:
since all are not
suitable for everyone.
dark-grey suits
snow-white skin: dark-grey suited Briseis:
when she was carried
off, then she also wore dark-grey.
White suits the dark:
you looked pleasing, Andromeda, in white:
so dressed, the island
of Seriphos was ruled by you.
How near I was to
warning you, no rankness of the wild goat
under your armpits, no
legs bristling with harsh hair!
But I’m not teaching
girls from the Caucasian hills,
or those who drink
your waters, Mysian Caicus.
So why remind you not
to let your teeth get blackened,
be being lazy, and to
wash your face each morning in water?
You know how to
acquire whiteness with a layer of powder:
she who doesn’t blush
by blood, indeed, blushes by art.
You make good the
naked edges of your eyebrows,
and hide your natural
cheeks with little patches.
It’s no shame to
highlight your eyes with thinned ashes,
or saffron grown by
your banks, bright Cydnus.
It’s I who spoke of
facial treatments for your beauty,
a little book, but one
whose labour took great care.
There too you can find
protection against faded looks:
my art’s no idle thing
in your behalf.
Still, don’t let your
lover find cosmetic bottles
on your dressing
table: art delights in its hidden face.
Who’s not offended by
cream smeared all over your face,
when it runs in fallen
drops to your warm breast?
Don’t those ointments
smell? Even if they are sent from Athens,
they’re oils extracted
from the unwashed fleece of a sheep.
Don’t apply
preparations of deer marrow openly,
and I don’t approve of
openly cleaning your teeth:
it makes for beauty,
but it’s not beautiful to watch:
many things that
please when done, are ugly in the doing:
What now carries the
signature of busy Myron
was once dumb mass,
hard stone:
to make a ring, first
crush the golden ore:
the dress you wear,
was greasy wool:
That was rough marble,
now it forms a famous statue,
naked Venus squeezing
water from her wet hair.
We’ll think you too
are sleeping while you do your face:
fit to be seen after
the final touches.
Why should I know the
source of the brightness in your looks?
Close your bedroom
door! Why betray unfinished work?
There are many things
it’s right men shouldn’t know:
most things offend if
you don’t keep them secret.
The golden figures
shining from the ornate theatre,
examine them, you’ll
despise them: gilding hiding wood:
but the crowd’s not
allowed to approach them till they’re done,
and till your beauty’s
ready banish men.
But I don’t forbid
your hair being freely combed,
so that it falls,
loosely spread, across your shoulders.
Beware especially lest
you’re irritable then,
or are always
loosening your failed hairstyle again.
Leave your maid alone:
I hate those who scratch her face
with their nails, or
prick the arm they’ve snatched at with a pin.
She’ll curse her
mistress’s head at every touch,
as she weeps,
bleeding, on the hateful tresses.
If you’re hair’s
appalling, set a guard at your threshold,
or always have it done
at Bona Dea’s fertile temple.
I was once suddenly
announced arriving at some girl’s:
in her confusion she
put her hair on wrong way round.
May such cause of
cruel shame come to my enemies,
and that disgrace be
reserved for Parthian girls.
Hornless cows are
ugly, fields are ugly without grass,
and bushes without
leaves, and a head without its hair.
I’ve not come to teach
Semele or Leda, or Sidon’s Europa,
carried through the
waves by that deceptive bull,
or Helen, whom
Menelaus, being no fool, reclaimed,
and you, Paris, her
Trojan captor, also no fool, withheld.
The crowd come to be
taught, girls pretty and plain:
and always the greater
part are not-so-good.
The beautiful ones
don’t seek art and instruction:
they have their dowry,
beauty potent without art:
the sailor rests
secure when the sea’s calm:
when it’s swollen, he
uses every aid.
Still, faultless forms
are rare: conceal your faults,
and hide your body’s
defects as best you may.
If you’re short sit
down, lest, standing, you seem to sit:
and commit your
smallness to your couch:
there also, so your
measure can’t be taken,
let a shawl drop over
your feet to hide them.
If you’re very
slender, wear a full dress, and walk about
in clothes that hang
loosely from your shoulders.
A pale girl scatters bright
stripes across her body,
the darker then have
recourse to linen from Alexandria.
Let an ugly foot be
hidden in snow-white leather:
and don’t loose the
bands from skinny legs.
Thin padding suits
those with high shoulder blades:
a good brassiere goes with
a meagre chest.
Those with thick
fingers and bitten nails,
make sparing use of
gestures whenever you speak.
Those with strong
breath don’t talk when you’re fasting.
and always keep your
mouth a distance from your lover.
If you’re teeth are
blackened, large, or not in line
from birth, laughing
would be a fatal error.
Who’d believe it?
Girls must even learn to laugh,
they seek to acquire
beauty also in this way.
Laugh modestly, a
small dimple either side,
the teeth mostly
concealed by the lips.
Don’t strain your
lungs with continual laughter,
but let something soft
and feminine ring out.
One girl will distort
her face perversely by guffawing:
another shakes with
laughter, you’d think she’s crying.
That one laughs
stridently in a hateful manner,
like a mangy ass
braying at the shameful mill.
Where does art not
penetrate? They’re taught to cry,
with propriety, they
weep when and how they wish.
Why! Aren’t true words
cheated by the voice,
and tongues forced to
make lisping sounds to order?
Charm’s in a defect: they try to speak badly:
they’re taught, when they can speak, to speak
less.
Weigh all this with care, since it’s for you:
learn to carry yourself in a feminine way.
And not the least part of charm is in walking:
it attracts men you don’t know, or sends them
running.
One moves her hips
with art, catches the breeze
with flowing robes,
and points her toes daintily:
another walks like the
wife of a red-faced Umbrian,
feet wide apart, and
with huge paces.
But there’s measure
here as in most things: both the rustic’s stride,
and the more affected
step should be foregone.
Still, let the parts
of your lower shoulder and upper arm
on the left side, be
naked, to be admired.
That suits you
pale-skinned girls especially: when I see it,
I want to kiss your
shoulder, as far as it’s shown.
The Sirens were
sea-monsters, who, with singing voice,
could restrain a
ship’s course as they wished.
Ulysses, your body
nearly melted hearing them,
while the wax filled
your companions’ ears.
Song is a thing of
grace: girls, learn to sing:
for many your voice is
a better procuress than your looks.
And repeat what you
just heard in the marble theatre,
and the latest songs
played in the Egyptian style.
No woman taught under
my control should fail to know
how to hold her lyre
with the left hand, the plectrum with her right.
Thracian Orpheus, with
his lute, moved animals and stones,
and Tartarus’s lake
and Cerberus, the triple-headed hound.
At your song, Amphion,
just avenger of your mother,
the stones obligingly
made Thebes’s new walls.
Though dumb, a
Dolphin’s thought to have responded
to a human voice, as
the tale of Arion’s lyre noted.
And learn to sweep
both hands across the genial harp
that too is suitable
for our sweet fun.
Let Callimachus, be
known to you, Coan Philetas
and the Teian Muse of
old drunken Anacreon:
And let Sappho be
yours (well what’s more wanton?),
Menander, whose
master’s gulled by his Thracian slaves’ cunning.
and be able to recite
tender Propertius’s song,
or some of yours
Gallus or Tibullus:
and the high-flown
speech of Varro’s fleece
of golden wool,
Phrixus, your sister Helle’s lament:
and Aeneas the
wanderer, the beginnings of mighty Rome,
than which there is no
better known work in Latin.
And perhaps my name
will be mingled with those,
my works not all given
to Lethe’s streams:
and someone will say:
‘Read our master’s cultured song,
in which he teaches both
the sexes: or choose
from the three books
stamped with the title Amores,
that you recite softly
with sweetly-teachable lips:
or let your voice sing
those letters he composed, the Heroides:
he invented that form
unknown to others.’
O grant it so,
Phoebus! And, you, sacred powers of poetry,
great horned Bacchus,
and the Nine goddesses!
Who doubts I’d wish a
girl to know how to dance,
and move her limbs as
decreed when the wine goes round?
The body’s artistes,
the theatre’s spectacle, are loved:
so great’s the gracefulness
of their agility.
A few things shameful
to mention, she must know how to call
the throws at
knucklebones, and your values, you rolled dice:
sometimes throwing
three, sometimes thinking, closely,
how to advance
craftily, how to challenge.
She should play the
chess match warily not rashly,
where one piece can be
lost to two opponents,
and a warrior wars
without his companion who’s been taken,
and a rival often has
to retrace the journey he began.
Light spills should be
poured from the open bag,
nor should a spill be
disturbed unless she can raise it.
There’s a kind of
game, the board squared-off by as many lines,
with precise
calculation, as the fleeting year has months:
a smaller board
presents three stones each on either side
where the winner will
have made his line up together.
There’s a thousand
games to be had: it’s shameful for a girl
not to know how to
play: playing often brings on love.
But there’s not much
labour in knowing all the moves:
there’s much more work
in keeping to your rules.
We’re reckless, and
revealed by eagerness itself,
and in a game the
naked heart’s exposed:
Anger enters, ugly
mischief, desire for gain,
quarrels and fights
and anxious pain:
accusations fly, the
air echoes with shouts,
and each calls on
their outraged deities:
there’s no honour,
they seek to cancel their debts at whim:
and often I’ve seen
cheeks wet with tears.
Jupiter keep you free
from all such vile reproaches,
you who have any
anxiety to please men.
Idle Nature has allotted these games to girls:
men have more opportunity to play.
Theirs the swift ball, the javelin and the hoop,
and arms, and horses made to go in a circle.
You have no Field of Mars, no ice-cold Aqua Virgo,
you don’t swim in the Tiber’s calm waters.
But it’s fine to be seen out walking in the shade of Pompey’s Porch when your head’s on fire with Virgo’s heavenly horses:
visit the holy Palatine of laurel-wreathed Phoebus:
he sank Cleopatra’s galleys in the deep:
the arcades Livia, Caesar’s wife, and his sister, Octavia, started,
and his son-in-law Agrippa’s, crowned with naval honours:
visit the incense-smoking altars of the Egyptian heifer,
visit the three theatres, take some conspicuous seat:
let the sand that’s drenched with warm blood be seen,
and the impetuous wheels rounding the turning-post.
What’s hidden is unknown: nothing unknown’s desired:
there’s no prize for a face that truly lacks a witness.
Though you excel Thamyras and Amoebeus in song,
there’s no great applause for an unknown lyre.
If Apelles of Cos had never sculpted Venus,
she’d be hidden, sunk beneath the waters.
What do sacred poets seek but fame?
It’s the final goal of all our labours.
Poets were once the concern of gods and kings:
and the ancient chorus earned a big reward.
A bard’s dignity was inviolable: his name was honoured,
and he was often granted vast wealth.
Ennius earned it, born in Calabria’s hills,
buried next to you, great Scipio.
Now the ivy wreaths lie without honour, and the painful toil
of the learned Muses, in the night, has the name of idleness.
But he’s delighted to stay awake for fame: who’d know Homer,
if his immortal work the Iliad were unknown?
Who’d know of Danae, if she’d always been imprisoned,
and lay hidden, an old woman, in her tower?
Lovely girls, the crowd is useful to you.
Often lift your feet above the threshold.
The wolf shadows many sheep, to snatch just one,
and Jupiter’s eagle stoops on many birds.
So too a lovely woman must let the people see her:
and perhaps there’ll be one among them she attracts.
Keen to please she’ll linger in all those places,
and apply her whole mind to caring for her beauty.
Chance rules everywhere: always dangle your bait:
the fish will lurk in the least likely pool.
Often hounds wander the wooded hills in vain,
and the deer, un-driven, walks into the net.
What was less hoped for by Andromeda, in chains,
than that her tears could please anyone?
Often a lover’s found at a husband’s funeral: walking
with loosened hair and unchecked weeping suits you.
Avoid those men who
profess to looks and culture,
who keep their hair
carefully in place.
What they tell you
they’ve told a thousand girls:
their love wanders and
lingers in no one place.
Woman, what can you do
with a man more delicate than you,
and one perhaps who
has more lovers too?
You’ll scarcely credit
it, but credit this: Troy would remain,
if Cassandra’s
warnings had been heeded.
Some will attack you
with a lying pretence of love,
and through that
opening seek a shameful gain.
But don’t be tricked
by hair gleaming with liquid nard,
or short tongues
pressed into their creases:
don’t be ensnared by a
toga of finest threads,
or that there’s a ring
on every finger.
Perhaps the best
dressed among them all’s a thief,
and burns with love of
your finery.
‘Give it me back!’ the
girl who’s robbed will often cry,
‘Give it me back!’ at
the top of her voice in the cattle-market.
Venus, from your
temple, all glittering with gold,
you calmly watch the
quarrel, and you, Appian nymphs.
There are names known
for a certain sort of reputation too,
they’re guilty of
deceiving many lovers.
Learn from other’s
grief to fear your own:
don’t let the door be
opened to lying men.
Athenian girls, beware
of trusting Theseus’s oaths:
those gods he calls to
witness, he’s called on before.
And you, Demophoon,
heir to Theseus’s crimes,
no honour remains to
you, with Phyllis left behind.
If they promise truly,
promise in as many words:
and if they give, you
give the joys that were agreed.
She might as well put
out the sleepless Vestal’s fire,
and snatch the holy
relics from your Temple, Ino,
and give her man
hemlock and monkshood crushed together,
as deny him sex if
she’s received his gifts.
Let me speak closer to
the theme: hold the reins,
Muses, don’t smash the
wheels with galloping.
His letters written on
fir-wood tablets test the waters:
make sure a suitable
servant receives the message.
Consider it: and read
what, gathered from his own words, he said,
and perhaps, from its
intent, what he might anxiously be asking.
And wait a little
while before you answer: waiting
always arouses love,
if it’s only for a short time.
But don’t give in too
easily to a young man’s prayers,
nor yet deny him what
he seeks out of cruelty.
Make him fear and hope
together, every time you write,
let hope seem more
certain and fear grow less.
Write elegantly girls,
but in neutral ordinary words,
an everyday sort of
style pleases:
Ah! How often a
doubting lover’s been set on fire by letters,
and good looks have
been harmed by barbarous words!
But since, though you
lack the marriage ribbons,
it’s your concern to
deceive your lovers,
write the tablets in
your maid’s or boy’s hand,
don’t trust these
tokens to a new young man.
He who keeps such
tokens is treacherous,
but nevertheless he
holds the flames of Etna.
I’ve seen girls, made
pallid by this terror,
submit to slavery,
poor things, for many years.
I judge that
countering fraud with fraud’s allowed,
the law lets arms be
wielded against arms.
One form’s used in
exercising many hands,
(Ah! Perish those that
give me reason for this warning)
don’t write again on
wax unless it’s all been scraped,
lest the single tablet
contain two hands.
And always speak of
your lover as female when you write:
let it be ‘her’ in
your letters, instead of ‘him’.
If I might turn from
lesser to greater things,
and spread the full
expanse of swelling sail,
it’s important to
banish looks of anger from your face:
bright peace suits
human beings, anger the wild beast.
Anger swells the face:
the veins darken with blood:
the eyes flash more
savagely than the Gorgon’s.
‘Away with you, flute,
you’re not worth all that,’
said Pallas when she
saw her face in the water.
You too if you looked
in the mirror in your anger,
that girl would
scarcely know her own face.
Pride does no less
harm to your looks:
love is attracted to
friendly eyes.
We hate (believe the
expert) extravagant disdain:
a silent face often
sows the seeds of our dislike.
Glance at a glance,
smile tenderly at a smile:
he nods, you too
return the signal you received.
When he’s practised,
so, the boy leaves the foils,
and takes his sharp
arrows from his quiver.
We hate sad girls too:
let Ajax choose Tecmessa:
a happy girl charms us
cheerful people.
I’d never ask you,
Andromache, or you, Tecmessa
while there’s another
lover for me than you.
I find it hard to
believe, though I’m forced to by your children,
that you ever slept
with your husbands.
Do you suppose that
gloomy wife ever said to Ajax:
‘Light of my life’: or
the words that usually delight a man?
Who’ll prevent me
using great examples for little things,
why should we be
afraid of the leader’s name?
Our good leader trusts
those commanders with a squad,
these with the
cavalry, that man to guard the standard:
You too should judge
what each of us is good for,
and place each one in
his proper role.
The rich give gifts:
the lawyer appears as promised:
often he pleads a
client’s case that must be heard:
We who make songs, can
only send you songs:
we are the choir here
best suited above all to love.
We can make beauties
that please us widely known:
Nemesis has a name,
and Cynthia has:
you’ll have heard of
Lycoris from East to West:
and many ask who my
Corinna is.
Add that guile is
absent from the sacred poets,
and our art too
fashions our characters.
Ambition and desire
for possession don’t touch us:
the shady couch is
cherished, the forum scorned.
But we’re easily
caught, torn by powerful passions,
and we know too well
how to love with perfect faith.
No doubt our minds are
sweetened by gentle art,
and our natures are
consistent with our studies.
Girls, be kind to the
poets of Helicon:
there’s divinity in
them, and they’re the Muses’ friends.
There’s a god in us,
and our dealings are with the heavens:
this inspiration comes
from ethereal heights.
It’s a sin to hope for
gifts from the poet:
ah me! No girl’s
afraid of that sin.
Still hide it, don’t
look greedy at first sight:
new love will balk
when it sees the snare.
No rider rules a horse
that’s lately known the reins,
with the same bit as
one that’s truly mastered,
nor will the same way
serve to captivate
the mind of mature
years and of green youth.
This raw recruit,
first known of now in love’s campaigns,
who reaches your
threshold, a fresh prize,
must know you only,
always cling to you alone:
this crop must be
surrounded by high hedges.
Keep rivals away:
you’ll win while you hold just one:
love and power don’t
last long when they’re shared.
Your older warrior
loves sensibly and wisely,
suffers much that the
beginner won’t endure:
he won’t break the
door down, burn it with cruel fire,
attack his mistress’s
tender cheeks with his nails,
or rip apart his
clothing or his girl’s,
nor will torn hair be
a cause of tears.
That suits hot boys,
the time of strong desire:
but he’ll bear cruel
wounds with calm mind.
He burns, alas, with
slow fires, like wet straw,
like new-cut timber on
the mountain height.
This love’s more sure:
that’s brief and more prolific:
snatch the swift
fruits, that fly, in your hand.
Let all be betrayed:
I’ve unbarred the gates to the enemy:
and let my loyalty be
to treacherous betrayal.
What’s easily given
nourishes love poorly:
mingle the odd rejection
with welcome fun.
Let him lie before the
door, crying: ‘Cruel entrance!,
pleading very humbly,
threatening a lot too.
We can’t stand
sweetness: bitterness renews our taste:
often a yacht sinks
swamped by a favourable wind:
this is what bitter
wives can’t endure:
their husbands can
come to them when they wish:
add a closed door and
a hard-mouthed janitor,
saying: ‘You can’t,’
and love will touch you too.
Drop the blunted foils
now: fight with blades:
no doubt I’ll be
attacked with my own weapons.
Also when the lover
you’ve just caught falls into the net,
let him think that
only he has access to your room.
Later let him sense a
rival, the bed’s shared pact:
remove these arts, and
love grows old.
The horse runs swiftly
from the starting gate,
when he has others to
pass, and others follow.
Wrongs relight the
dying fires, as you wish:
See (I confess!), I
don’t love unless I’m hurt.
Still, don’t give
cause for grief, excessively,
let the anxious man
suspect it, rather than know.
Stir him with a dismal
watchman, fictitiously set to guard you,
and the excessively
irksome care of a harsh husband.
Pleasure that comes
with safety’s less enjoyable:
though you’re freer
than Thais, pretend fear.
Though the door’s
easier, let him in at the window,
and show signs of fear
on your face.
A clever maid should
leap up and cry: ‘We’re lost!’
You, hide the
trembling youth in any hole.
Still safe loving
should be mixed with fright,
lest he consider you
hardly worth a night.
I nearly forgot the
skilful ways by which you can
elude a husband, or a
vigilant guardian.
let the bride fear her
husband: to guard a wife is right:
it’s fitting, it’s
decreed by law, the courts, and modesty.
But for you too be
guarded, scarcely released from prison,
who could bear it?
Adhere to my religion, and deceive!
Though as many eyes as
Argus owned observe you,
you’ll deceive them
(if only your will is firm).
How can a guard make
sure that you can’t write,
when you’re given all
that time to spend washing?
When a knowing maid
can carry letters you’ve penned,
concealed in the deep
curves of her warm breasts?
When she can hide
papers fastened to her calf,
or bear charming notes
tied beneath her feet?
The guard’s on the
look-out for that, your go-between
offers her back as
paper, and takes your words on her flesh.
Also a letter’s safe,
and deceives the eye, written with fresh milk;
you read it by
scattering it with crushed ashes.
And those traced out
with a point wetted with linseed oil,
so that the empty
tablet carries secret messages.
Acrisius took care to
imprison his daughter, Danae:
but she still made him
a grandfather by her sin.
What good’s a guard,
with so many theatres in the city,
when she’s free to
gaze at horses paired together,
when she sits occupied
with the Egyptian heifer’s sistrum,
and goes where male
companions cannot go,
when male eyes are
banned from Bona Dea’s temple,
except those she
orders to enter?
When, with the girls’
clothes guarded by a servant at the door,
the baths conceal so
many secret joys,
when, however many
times she’s needed, a friend feigns illness,
and however ill she is
can leave her bed,
when the false key
tells by its name what we should do,
and the door alone doesn’t grant t