Ars Amatoria

Ars Amatoria by Ovid

Ars Amatoria, meaning "The Art of Love," is a didactic poem in three books composed by the Roman poet Ovid, likely completed around 1 BCE. The work presents itself as a practical manual on the subject of erotic pursuit, written in elegiac couplets and structured as a series of instructions delivered by an authoritative poetic teacher who claims Venus herself has appointed him guardian and guide of Love. The first two books are addressed to men. Book One opens with a declaration that love, like sailing or chariot-driving, is a skill that can be taught and mastered. Ovid positions himself as a kind of Chiron figure, the wise tutor who shaped even wild and divine students. He then proceeds to advise his male readers on where to find suitable women in Rome, recommending the porticoes, theatres, circus races, and public festivals as ideal hunting grounds. Rome itself, he says, contains more beautiful women than any place in the world. He describes how a man might use the circus seating to press close to a woman, offer small attentions, and strike up conversation under the cover of the spectacle around them. He references historical events, including Julius Caesar's naval displays, as further opportunities for amorous encounters. Ovid then turns to strategy. He advises cultivating the handmaids of the desired woman, since they can ease access and share information about their mistress's moods. He warns against over-reliance on bribing the maid herself, as this introduces complications. He counsels persistence through letter-writing, arguing that even a woman who returns a letter unread will eventually soften, comparing the wearing down of resistance to water hollowing stone and to the eventual breaking of Troy. He recommends feigning sickness, attending to a woman when she is ill, accompanying her everywhere, and adapting one's behavior entirely to her preferences. Ovid discusses the proper use of flattery, advising men to praise the woman's appearance regardless of her actual looks, to find sympathetic names for her defects, and to pretend to be in love even if the feeling has not yet arrived, since performed emotion often becomes genuine. He warns against trusting friends with the secret of one's passion, since friends are apt to steal the beloved. He recommends attending banquets, using wine as a social lubricant while remaining personally sober enough to function, and watching for the woman's mood. He advises bold action in the form of kisses and physical advances, controversially arguing that women often wish to yield to what they appear to resist, and citing mythological examples such as Deidamia and Achilles to support this claim. Book One closes with instructions on personal grooming, recommending neatness and fitness without excessive vanity, and on adapting one's approach to the temperament and age of the individual woman. Book Two is devoted to the art of retaining a woman once won. Ovid opens with an elaborate retelling of the story of Daedalus and Icarus as a metaphor for the dangers of excessive ambition and the importance of the middle path. He then argues that beauty alone will not hold a lover and that character, eloquence, and intellectual cultivation are what create lasting attachment. He praises Ulysses as an example of a plain-looking man who captivated goddesses through wit and storytelling. He advises men to be patient, yielding, and accommodating, to tolerate jealousy without showing it, to endure a rival with equanimity, and to avoid violent quarrels or outbursts of anger. He recommends cultivating good relations with the woman's entire household, presenting modest gifts from the country rather than expensive tokens, and making her feel that every favor she receives is owed to your effort. He advises that the man should never be so present as to become tiresome, and that strategic absences can rekindle desire, citing Phyllis, Penelope, and Laodamia as examples of women inflamed by a lover's departure. He warns against jealousy and against the detection of rivals, drawing on the myth of Mars and Vulcan caught in the net to argue that exposure only destroys what concealment might preserve. Ovid addresses the management of quarrels, advising that anger should be soothed with caresses rather than allowed to harden, and that reconciliation through physical affection is the surest remedy. He includes a discourse on the origins of human civilization and love, suggesting that Venus herself taught the first humans how to desire. He concludes the second book with an exhortation to mutual pleasure as the proper foundation of the erotic relationship, arguing against selfish or purely perfunctory encounters. Book Three reverses course and addresses women directly. Venus herself, Ovid says, appeared and commanded him to instruct the female sex, since the preceding books had armed men too well. Ovid defends women from the charge of universal faithlessness by recounting the sufferings of Ariadne, Phyllis, Dido, and others betrayed by men, before proceeding to his actual precepts. He begins with appearance. Women should dress to suit their coloring and figure, choose hairstyles appropriate to the shape of their face, and use cosmetic arts skillfully, but always in private, since the sight of beauty being manufactured destroys its effect. He recommends a long list of colors, fabrics, and styles. He then moves to the cultivation of accomplishments, advising women to learn to sing, play the lyre, dance, understand literature including the poetry of Callimachus, the Anacreontea, Sappho, Propertius, Tibullus, and Gallus, and even to handle themselves gracefully at dice and board games. Public visibility matters as well, since beauty unseen attracts no one. He advises women to frequent the porticoes, temples, theatres, and public spaces of Rome. Ovid then addresses the conduct of a love affair from the woman's side. He advises against immediate compliance, recommending a calculated delay that stimulates desire without extinguishing hope. He counsels the management of the husband or guardian through strategic deception, offering an elaborate catalogue of methods for passing secret letters, including writing in milk, concealing notes under sandals, and using a maid's body as a messenger. He warns against jealousy, telling the story of Procris and Cephalus as an extended cautionary tale about the destructive consequences of unfounded suspicion. He advises women to flatter the man, to make him believe himself uniquely desired, to simulate emotion when it is absent, and to arrange moments of apparent danger and concealment that intensify the lover's feeling of privileged access. He recommends cultivating poorer suitors who will give verses rather than gifts, arguing that such devotion is more lasting. The poem ends with instructions on behavior at banquets, including timing of arrival, manner of eating and drinking, and conduct in the bedroom, where Ovid again stresses the importance of mutual pleasure and the appearance of genuine feeling. The closing lines bring the work to a formal conclusion, with Ovid inviting both his male and female pupils to inscribe on their amorous victories that Naso was their teacher. Throughout all three books, Ovid sustains an ironic and self-aware tone, openly comparing himself to generals, navigators, and agricultural experts, and repeatedly reminding the reader that love, however unruly, submits to art. The poem is also deeply embedded in the physical landscape and cultural life of Augustan Rome, using the city's monuments, festivals, and public spectacles as both backdrop and occasion for the erotic instruction it provides. This engagement with contemporary Roman life, combined with the poem's frank treatment of adultery, is traditionally cited as one of the reasons Augustus later banished Ovid from Rome.

By Ovid · Genre: Didactic Poetry, Erotic Poetry, Love Elegy · 3 chapters · 32,803 words

First lines

Should any one of the people not know the art of loving, let him read me; and taught by me, on reading my lines, let him love. By art the ships are onward sped by sails and oars; by art are the light chariots, by art is Love, to be guided. In the chariot and in the flowing reins was Automedon skilled: in the Hemonian ship _of Jason_ Tiphys was the pilot. Me, too, skilled in my craft, has Venus made the guardian of Love. Of Cupid the Tiphys and the Automedon shall I be styled. Unruly indeed he is, and one who oft rebels against me; but he is a child; his age is tender and easy to be governed. The son of Phillyra made the boy Achilles skilled at the lyre; and with his soothing art he subdued his ferocious disposition. He who so oft alarmed his own companions, so oft the foe, is believed to have stood in dread of an aged man full of years. Those hands which Hector was doomed to feel, at the request of his master he held out for stripes [701] as commanded. Chiron was the preceptor of the grandson of Æacus, I of Love. Both of the boys were wild; both of a Goddess born. But yet the neck of even the bull is laden with the plough; and the reins are champed by the teeth of the spirited steed. To me, too, will Love yield; though, with his bow, he should wound my breast, and should brandish his torches hurled against me. The more that Love has pierced me, the more has he relentlessly inflamed me; so much the fitter avenger shall I be of the wounds so made.

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ancient Rome · Latin poetry · didactic poem · elegy · love · seduction · romance · courtship · erotic literature · satire · social commentary · urban life

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