THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY FOUNDED BY JAMES LOEB, LL.D. EDITED BY tT. E. PAGE, C.H., LITT.D. t E. CAPPS, PH.D., LL.D. t W. H. D. ROUSE, LITT.D. L. A. POST, M.A. E. H. WARMINGTON, M.A., F.R.HIST.SOC. OVID THE ART OF LOVE, AND OTHER POEMS I \ r l' ,111 .. OVID THE ART OF LOVE, AND OTHER POEMS WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY J. H. MOZLEY SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF KINO'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, LECTURER IN CLASSICS, UNIVERSIT Y OF LONDON DE MEDICAMINE FACIEI ARTIS AMATORIAE I-III REMEDIORUM AMORIS NUX IBIS HALIEUTICON CONSOLATIO AD LIVIAM APPENDIX TO IBIS LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSE'ITS HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS MOMLVII ~ ..........-,,-- t.~.------~- COUNTY s:roc¥, ..•. ~. CONTENTS , PAGE \ '&1 \ INTRODUCTION • vii ON PAINTING THE FACE • 1 ~-.. " THE ART OF LOVE. BOOK I 11 First printed 1929 67 .. " II Revised and Reprinted 1939 " Reprinted 1947, 1957 " " III • 119 THE REMEDIES OF LOVE. 177 THE WALNUT~TREE 235 IBIS. 251 ON BEA-FISHING 309 A POEM OF CONSOLATION • 323 \.~ ~~ APPENDIX TO IBIS 359 INDEX OF NAMES • 373 . ".,"~ INDEX OF SUBJECTS 381 \-\,M"t 4l~(4i Printed in Great Britain v INTRODUCTION THE poems here translated consist of (i) the didactic poems on love, namely, the fragment On Painting the Face, the Art of Love, and the Remedies for Love; (ii) four miscellaneous pieces, the fragment on sea­ fishing, the Ibis, the Walnul-lree and the Consolation to Livia, of which the last two are generally considered spurious. I. The Didactic Love-poems. These mark the final stage of Ovid's first poetical period, his previous achievements in love-poetry being the Amores, which describe his own experiences, and the Letters of the Heroines.! It seems to have been an original idea of the poet's to include love-making among the subjects of didactic poetry, examples of which are to be found in the philosophical poems of Empedocles or Lucretius, and the treatises of a Macer on herbs or of a Manilius on astronomy. It was perhaps suggested by some of the poems in the Amores; for example, i. 4, in which he gives advice to his mistress how to behave in her husband's presence, or ii. 2, in which a eunuch is instructed how to relax his watch over his charge, or i. 8, in 1 The lost tragedy of Medea also belongs to this period. vii INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION which he retails the advice given by a procuress to It was a worthy product of the brilliant and reckless a courtesan. society of Augustan Rome, and it is hardly surprising First, we have a fragment on cosmetics, probably that, though not the cause of the poet's banishment, a mere versification of a catalogue of recipes, preceded it was looked upon with disapproval by the Emperor.1 by a comparison of the smartness of modern times And Ovid's plea that he was not damaging the moral with the rude fashions of the past, which serves as life of Rome cannot be taken very seriously; it is an introduction and also to explain the importance true that there was a very clearly marked difference of the subject. Gaps have been suspected after II. between the respectable "matrona" or " virgo" and 26 and 50, and the work as we have it is unfinished. the" libertinae," and that Ovid's precepts must be It was written some time before the Ars CA. A. iii. taken as being concerned only with the latter class; 205). intrigues with them, whether they were married or The Art of Love was written just at the turn of unmarried, were regarded in quite a different light, the eras.1 In broad outline the scheme of the work and Ovid makes the most of this distinction; still, is as follows: in Book I the poet gives advice as to one feels that his protestations are rather too earnest where the lover may find a mistress to his taste to'1Je really ingenuous. (1-264), and then as to how she is to be won (265- Ovid, however, is anything but an indiscriminate end); in Book II he gives a number of precepts for sensualist; the mere harlot he will hav.e none of the retaining of her affections; Book III is devoted (ii. 685 sqq.); he even insists on a high standard of to the women in their turn, and they too receive culture in the mistress of his choice. She must be advice how to capture and to retain a lover's affec­ a "culta," even a "docta puella," and that such tions. It need hardly be said that the Ars has cultivation of the mind was seriously aimed at by enjoyed uninterrupted popularity; Ovid's know­ the "libertinae" may be gathered from his remark ledge of human, particularly of feminine, nature, (ii. 281-2), that though many aimed at being the brilliant picture of the social life of Rome, the "doctae," few succeeded in their aim. His standard studied artlessness of the comparisons he draws from is certainly high, for she must be accomplished in animals and from pursuits such as hunting, farming arts and languages, and have read Callimachus, or sailing, the narratives that he cannot resist inter­ Phil etas, Anacreon, Menander, Sappho, besides weaving with his teaching from time to time-all contemporary Latin verSe. Less exacting require­ these elements, together with a considerable degree ments are that she should be tasteful, elegant, of humour, his cool flippancy and irresistible wit, have combined to give the work a unique attractiveness. 1 The real cause seems to have been some discreditable event in which Ovid was concerned (cf. "cur aliquid vidi? 1 He refers to the naval sham fight exhibited by Augustus cur noxia lumina feci"? etc., Trist. 2. 103, and Trist. 3. 5. in 2 B.C. aud to the expedition of the young Gaius Caesar to (9); it has been oonjeotured that it was some escapade of the East in 1 B.C. the Princess Julia. viii IX INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION took a compendium of mythology with him into scrupulously clean and soignee in dress and person, exile)I know how to walk and laugh, etc. Culture to Ovid The fragment on Sea-fishing must also have been was the mark of the age, that age into which he written at Tomi, where he could join direct rejoiced that he was born (iii. and he delighted 121), observation, or perhaps rather gossip with fishermen, in being fastidious j at least, so he would have his to information found in hand-books, probably Greek, readers believe. as there seems to be a source common to this work In the Remedies for Love, precepts are given for the and to the later works of appian and Plutarch on falling out of love, if that is required, mainly to men, the subject. The fragment falls into three parts: though it is to be understood that his precepts apply (i) how fishes resist being caught, 1-48, (ii) contrast to women too (1. 49). Rival occupations are.recom­ between fishing and hunting, 49-81, (iii) some rules mended (there is a long description of country life, for catching fish, with a list of various fishes and their I. 169), and the teachings of the Ars are reversed, haunts, 82-end. Its authorship has been doubted, e.g. avoid theatres, mark the other's bad points, etc. but in view of Pliny's explicit statement that Ovid wrote it, together with his paraphrase of the opening II. Miscellaneous Pieces. lines, it seems a little unreasonable to do so. Housman doubts it on the grounds of prosody (Class. The Ibis was written during the poet's exile at Quarterly, 1907). Tomi on the Black Sea j its name is borrowed from The poem on the Walnut-tree is sometimes con­ a poem written by the Alexandrian poet Callimachus sidered spurious j strong arguments, however, have against Apollonius, who, though a native of Rhodes, been adduced by C. Ganzenmuller (Die Elegie Nux was apparently a citizen of Naucratis, a town und ihr Verfasser, Tubingen, 1910) for holding it connected with the cult of the Egyptian god Theuth to be a genuine work of Ovid, written in the last and with the Ibis, a bird sacred to him j hence period of his exile j the poet's fate is like that of the Apollonius is attacked under that name. Ovid's tree, for both have enemies who ill-treat them without poem is apparently much longer than that of cause. In form the piece is an expansion of a Greek Callimachus j the real name of the enemy whom he epigram, Anthol. Pal. ix 3. attacks is unknown, though various conjectures The Consolation to Livia is almost as certainly un­ have been made. The greater part of the work Ovidian as any piece can well be, both in its consists in a long series of imprecations, in the prosody (e.g. ll. 307, 379) and in its heaviness of course of which the whole of mythology is ran­ treatment (contrast the Lament for Tibullus, Am. sacked for instances of violent deaths, which the poet prays may be his enemy's lot. (Either Ovid 1 The student may be referred to C. Zipfel, "Quomodo Ovidius Callimachum aliosque fontes imprimis defixiones secu­ had an extraordinarily retentive memory, or he tUB sit" {Leipzig, 191O}, and to Rostagni'slbis (Florence, 1920). x xi INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION iii. 9).1 It has also been remarked that had Ovid written it he would surely have mentioned it in his Ars Amatoria.