OVID: THE ART OF LOVE - Book III (Parts XI-XVIII)
(ARS AMATORIA)
Translated by A. S. Kline ã2001 All Rights Reserved
tkline.freeserve.co.uk
Book III contd - Parts XI-XVIII
Book III Part XI: Take Care with Letters
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’.
Book III Part XII: Avoid the Vices, Favour the Poets
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.
Book III Part XIII: Try Young and Older Lovers
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.
Book III Part XIV: Use Jealousy and Fear
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.
Book III Part XV: Play Cloak and Dagger
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 the exits you seek?
And the jailor’s attention’s fuddled with much wine,
even though the grapes were picked on Spanish hills:
then there are drugs that bring deep sleep,
and close eyes overcome by Lethe’s night:
or your maid can rightly detain the wretch with lengthy games,
and be associated herself with long delays.
but why use these tortuous ways and minor rules,
when the least gift will buy a guardian?
Believe me gifts captivate men and gods:
Jupiter himself is pleased with the gifts he’s given.
What can the wise man do, when the fool love’s gifts?
He’ll be silent too when a gift’s accepted.
But let the guard be bought for once and all:
who surrenders to it once, will surrender often.
I remember I lamented, friends are to be feared:
that complaint’s not only true of men.
If you’re credulous, others snatch your joys,
and that hare you started running goes to others.
She too, who eagerly offers room and bed,
believe me, she’s been mine more than once.
Don’t let too beautiful a maid serve you:
she’s often offered herself to me as my lady.
Book III Part XVI: Make Him Believe He’s Loved
What am I talking of, madman? Why show a naked front
to the enemy, and betray myself on my own evidence?
The bird doesn’t show the hunter where to find it,
the stag doesn’t teach the savage hounds to run.
Let others seek advantage: faithful to how I started, I’ll go on:
I’ll give the Lemnian girls swords to kill me.
Make us believe (it’s so easy) that we’re loved:
faith comes easily to the loving in their prayers.
let a woman look longingly at her young man, sigh deeply,
and ask him why he comes so late:
add tears, and feigned grief over a rival,
and tear at his cheeks with her nails:
he’ll straight away be convinced: and she’ll be pitied,
and he’ll say: ‘She’s seized by love of me.’
Especially if he’s cultured, pleased with his mirror,
he’ll believe he could touch the goddesses with love.
But you, whatever wrong occurs, be lightly troubled,
nor in poor spirits if you hear of a rival.
Don’t believe too quickly: how quick belief can wound,
Procris should be an example to you.
There’s a sacred fountain, and sweet green-turfed ground,
near to the bright slopes of flowered Hymettus:
the low woods form a grove: strawberry-trees touch the grass,
it smells of rosemary, bay and black myrtle:
there’s no lack of foliage, dense box and fragile tamarisk,
nor fine clover, and cultivated pine.
The many kinds of leaves and grass-heads tremble
at the touch of light winds and refreshing breezes.
The quiet pleased Cephalus: leaving men and dogs behind,
the weary youth often settled on this spot,
‘Come, fickle breeze (Aura), who cools my heat’
he used to sing, ‘be welcome to my breast.’
Some officious person, evilly remembering what he’d heard,
brought it to the wife’s fearful hearing:
Procris, as she took the name Aura to be some rival,
fainted, and was suddenly dumb with grief:
She grew pale, as the leaves of choice vine-stalks
grow pale, wounded by an early winter,
or ripe quinces arching on their branches,
or cornelian cherries not yet fit for us to eat.
As her breath returned, she tore the thin clothing from her breast,
and scratched at her innocent cheeks with her nails:
Then she fled quickly, frenzied, down the ways,
hair flowing, like a Maenad roused by the thyrsus.
As she came near, she left her companions in the valley,
bravely herself entered the grove, in secret, on silent feet.
What was in your mind, when you hid there so foolishly,
Procris? What ardour, in your terrified heart?
Did you think she’d come soon, Aura, whoever she was,
and her infamy be visible to your eyes.
Now regretting that you came (not wishing to surprise them)
now pleased: doubting love twists at your heart.
The place, the name, the witness, command belief,
and the mind always thinks what it fears is true.
She saw signs that a body had pressed down the grass,
her chest throbbed, quivering with its anxious heart.
Now noon had contracted the thin shadows,
and dawn and twilight were parted equally:
behold, Cephalus, Hermes’s child, returned to the wood,
and plunged his burning face in the fountain’s water.
You hid, Procris, anxiously: he lay down as usual on the grass,
and cried: ‘Come you zephyrs, you sweet air (Aura)!’
As her joyous error in the name came to the miserable girl,
her wits and the true colour of her face returned.
She rose, and with agitated body moved the opposing leaves,
a wife running to her husband’s arms:
He, sure a wild beast moved, leapt youthfully to his feet,
grasping his spear in his right hand.
What are you doing, unhappy man? That’s no creature,
hold back your throw! Alas, your girl’s pierced by your spear!
She called out: ‘Ah me! You’ve pierced a loving heart.
That part always takes its wound from Cephalus.
I die before my time, but not wounded by a rival:
that will ensure you, earth, lie lightly on me.
Now my spirit departs into that air with its deceptive name:
I pass, I go, dear hand, close my eyes!’
He held the body of his dying lady on his sad breast,
and bathed the cruel wound with his tears.
She died, and her breath, passing little by little
from her rash breast, was caught on her sad lover’s lips.
Book III Part XVII: Watch How You Eat and Drink
But to resume the work: bare facts for me
so that my weary vessel can reach harbour.
You’re anxiously expecting, while I lead you to dinner,
that you can even ask for my advice there too.
Come late, and come upon us charmingly in the lamplight:
you’ll come with pleasing delay: delay’s a grand seductress.
Even if you’re plain, with drink you’ll seem beautiful,
and night itself grants concealment to your failings.
Take the food daintily: how you eat does matter:
don’t smear your face all over with a greasy hand.
Don’t eat before at home, but stop before you’re full:
be a little less eager than you can be:
if Paris, Priam’s son, saw Helen eating greedily,
he’d detest it, and say: ‘Mine’s a foolish prize.’
It’s more fitting, and it suits girls more, to drink:
Bacchus you don’t go badly with Venus’s boy.
So long as the head holds out, and the mind and feet
stand firm: and you don’t see two of what’s only one.
Shameful a woman lying there, drenched with too much wine:
she’s worthy of sleeping with anyone who’ll have her.
And it’s not safe to fall asleep at table:
many shameful things usually happen in sleep.
Book III Part XVIII: And So To Bed
To have been taught more is shameful: but kindly Venus
said: ‘What’s shameful is my particular concern.’
Let each girl know herself: adopt a reliable posture
for her body: one layout’s not suitable for all.
She who’s known for her face, lie there face upwards:
let her back be seen, she who’s back delights.
Milanion bore Atalanta’s legs on his shoulders:
if they’re good looking, that mode’s acceptable.
Let the small be carried by a horse: Andromache,
his Theban bride, was too tall to straddle Hector’s horse.
Let a woman noted for her length of body,
press the bed with her knees, arch her neck slightly.
She who has youthful thighs, and faultless breasts,
the man might stand, she spread, with her body downwards.
Don’t think it shameful to loosen your hair, like a Maenad,
and throw back your head with its flowing tresses.
You too, whom Lucina’s marked with childbirth’s wrinkles,
like the swift child of Parthia, turn your mount around.
There’s a thousand ways to do it: simple and least effort,
is just to lie there half-turned on your right side.
But neither Phoebus’s tripods nor Ammon’s horn
shall sing greater truths to you than my Muse:
If you trust art’s promise, that I’ve long employed:
my songs will offer you their promise.
Woman, feel love, melted to your very bones,
and let both delight equally in the thing.
Don’t leave out seductive coos and delightful murmurings,
don’t let wild words be silent in the middle of your games.
You too whom nature denies sexual feeling,
pretend to sweet delight with artful sounds.
Unhappy girl, for whom that sluggish place is numb,
which man and woman equally should enjoy.
Only beware when you feign it, lest it shows:
create belief in your movements and your eyes.
When you like it, show it with cries and panting breath:
Ah! I blush, that part has its own secret signs.
She who asks fondly for a gift after love’s delights,
can’t want her request to carry any weight.
Don’t let light into the room through all the windows:
it’s fitting for much of your body to be concealed.
The game is done: time to descend, you swans,
you who bent your necks beneath my yoke.
As once the boys, so now my crowd of girls
inscribe on your trophies ‘Ovid was my master.’
End of Book III and of The Ars Amatoria |
