OVID: THE ART OF LOVE - Book II (Parts I-X)
(ARS AMATORIA)
tkline.freeserve.co.uk
Translated by A. S. Kline ã2001 All Rights Reserved
Book II
Contents
Book II Part I: His Task. 3
Book II Part II: You Need Gifts of Mind. 5
Book II Part III: Be Gentle and Good Tempered. 6
Book II Part IV: Be Patient and Comply. 7
Book II Part V: Don’t be Faint-Hearted. 9
Book II Part VI: Win Over the Servants. 9
Book II Part VII: Give Her Little Tasteful Gifts. 10
Book II Part VIII: Favour Her and Compliment Her 10
Book II Part IX: Comfort Her in Sickness. 11
Book II Part X: Let Her Miss You: But Not For Long. 12
Book II Part XI: Have Other Friends: But Be Careful 13
Book II Part XII: Aphrodisiacs?. 14
Book II Part XIII: Stir her Jealousy. 14
Book II Part XIV: Be Wise and Suffer 16
Book II Part XV: Respect Her Freedom.. 17
Book II Part XVI: Keep It Secret 19
Book II Part XVII: Don’t Mention Her Faults. 20
Book II Part XVIII: Don’t Ask About Her Age. 20
Book II Part XIX: Don’t Rush. 21
Book II Part XX: The Task’s Complete...But Now... 22
Book II
Book II Part I: 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.
Book II Part II: You Need Gifts of Mind
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.
Book II Part III: Be Gentle and Good Tempered
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.
Book II Part IV: Be Patient and Comply
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.
Book II Part V: Don’t 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.
Book II Part VI: 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.
Book II Part VII: Give Her 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.
Book II Part VIII: Favour Her and Compliment Her
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.
Book II Part IX: Comfort Her in Sickness
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.
Book II Part X: Let Her Miss You: But Not For Long
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.
.....Book II contd.... |
