POETA LE VIS! OVID'S ELEGIAC NEQUITL4

by

Catherine Feeley

Submitted in partial fiilfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia Jdy 1999

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List of Tables ...... v

Abstract ...... vi

.. List of Abbreviations Used ...... vil

... Acknowledgements...... vu1

Introduction ...... -1-6

Chapter 1 . Ovid as Poefa Levis ...... 7. 12

Chapter 2. Omnia Non VincifAmor: Ovid's Scepticism About the Power of Love ...... 1 3.23

Chapter 3 . The hsincenty of Ovid's Amator ...... -24-40

Cha p ter 4 . The Debatable Nequitia Lewis of Ovid ...... -41 -5 8

Chapter 5 . Ovid the Satirist ...... -59-76

Conclusion...... -77-79

Bibliograpby ...... -80-84 List of Tables

Figure 1. Occurrences of certain Latin sexual vocabulary in some Roman pets...... 48

Figure 2. Occurrences of the synonyms osdum. basium and savium (suavium) in some Roman pets...... 50 Abstract

Ovid's love poetry has been the subject of much criticism throughout the centuries since they were fïrst pubtished. This criticism has veered between condernnation and adulation, but one recurring element has been an emphasis upon the sexual morality of the poetry. Despite the sometimes very different concepts of what was deemed sexually immoral among these different critical mileus (the emperor Augustus' fear for the stability of the aristocracy is rather different fkom feminist concerns about sexual objectification, for example), this element has nevertheless been one of the main concems. The reason for this lies in the dichotomy between Ovid's sophisticated style and his extreme fnvolity - verging on amorality - conceming his subjects of love and sexual relationships. Thus the critics, who Like most people have held some sort of ethical beliefs regarding Ovid's subjects, have been divided between condernnation of the poetry for flouting these beliefs, and admiration of his style. This dichotomy has even resulted, in the case of certain medieval, and many feminist, ctitics, in a peculiar blindness to Ovid's sexual amorality, to the extent that it is argued to be a virtue. This has been accomplished either by ignoring the elements that contravene the critic's view of sexual morality, or by assuming that these elements were present only because Ovid was writing satire. This study examines these diverse arguments, with their relative ernphasis on Ovid's poetry as king purely nivolous (levis) or dangerously immoral (nequitia), and it shows how both of these descriptions must be combined in order to fom a real understanding of &id' love poetry. List of Abbreviations Used

A. A. = Ars Amatoria of P. Ovidius Naso

Am. = Amores of P. Ovidius Naso

Catull. = C. Valerius Catullus

Contr. = Controversiae of M. hmaeus Seneca

Ecl. = Eclogae of P. Vergilius Maro

Inst. = Institutiones Oratoriae of M. T.Quintilianus

Liv. = Titus Livius

Prop. = Sex. Aurelius Propertius

Tib. = Albius Tibullus

Tr. = Tristia of P. Ovidius Naso

vii 1 would like to thdmy joint supervisors Dr. Rainer Friedrich and Dr. Patricia Calkin, and my reader Dr. Patrick Atherton, for their help in the preparation of this manuscript. 1 also thank Oisin Feeley for his support and encouragement.

viii introduction

The understanding of Ovid's Amores has ken complicated, perhaps more so than

that of the works of any other Classicai author, by the warring elements of its style and

content. The light and witty style of his writiog is seemingly at odds with what is

actually said; yet the style is so pervasive and charrning that its influence on the content

cannot be denied. Afier ail, for a critic to assume that Ovid means everything that he

says, in complete disregard for his jesting tone, would be to ensure that the joke was on

that critic. Nevertheless, to err on the other side - to assume that Ovid had no opinions

beneath his levity - might be equaily inadequate, for it can be argued that al1 jokes must have an assumption behind them in order for them to be found hy.if Ovid's love

poetry does have a single underlying theme, what might it be? The possible answers to these queries are varied indeed, and they are made more confusing by the fact that too close an analysis of Ovid's motives might uncover some Ovidian nequitia that one might not wish to hd.

The ktpoem in the Amores, for example, begins the collection with Ovid's assertion that he tried to write of arma gravi numero violentaque bella - "arms and violent wars, in a weighty meter" - but he was prevented fiorn doing so by the intervention of Cupid. Cupid compels hirn to write love elegy instead of epic, and Ovid complies. To read only this fiom Amores 1.1, however, would be naïve beyond credibility.

For one thing, it would k impossible to deny the humour inherent in the incongruou appearance of the puer Cupid after such a ponderous opening. The fact that

Cupid literally steals a metrical fwt fiom Ovid's majestic hexameter not only sabotages

Ovid's supposed epic, but also the readers' automatic suspension of disbelief. From the

first line of a poem, readen will ordinarily tend to relinquish the conscious knowledge

that they are reading words, organized into a particular rhythm, and will focu on the

story and maod that the author wished to convey. Ovid, however, by Cupid's actions,

has forcibly recded the readers back to an awareness of poetry's forma1 procedures.

Upon delving Merinto these opening lines, it becomes plausible to argue that

Ovid was not just commenting on the writing of poetry in general, but on the works of a particular poet: Vergil. Ovid's arma, after all, is cleariy a reference to Vergil's arma

virumque Cano, both by that identical fist worci, but also, it has been argued, by the sirnilarity of the vowel sounds in the htthree words.' Ovid, thus, has begun his Amores collection with the somewhat brash suggestion that his poetry is comparable to the well- respected Vergil's.

Furthemore, Ovid's explanation that, though he could have written Vergilian hexarneters, he was unfortunately prevented by divine interference can be seen as a veiled disparagement of Vergil. In his 6" Eclogue, Vergil had made use of the Callimachean recusatio, a traditional poetic excuse for choosing to write other than epic poetry.

Vergil's Eclogue depicts the appearance of Apollo, who comrnands Vergil's narrator to eschew songs of kings and battles (reges et proelia, line 3) and to sing a lighter

-- - - - 1 E.J. Kemey numbered the vowel sounds in Vergil's half line, and compared them to Ovid's words, noting that arma vimrnque Cano and magravi numero share the same vowel for their first, second, and iast syllables, while the four remaining vowels in each set are the same, but in a different order. E.J. Kenney, (deducfum)song. With Vergil having aiready been brought to the readers' minds by the

arma of Ovid's line 1, Cupid's laughing preseace becomes a parody of Vergil's ~~ollo.'

uistead of merely tweaking the poet 's ear, Cupid's metrical thefi points out the artifice

and artificiality of poetry itself. This has undercut Vergil's attempt to validate his

shepherd's songs, as well as the respectability of his divine patron.

If that were not enough, Ovid tries to add insult to injury in the four-line

introductory epigram witb which he begins his Amores collection. In this epigram, the

poems speak for themselves: they, who once were five books, are now only three, they

explain. As a result, the reader may not find them any more enjoyable, but at least at

levior dempris poena duobus erit - "it will be a lighter punishment, since two books have

been removed" (Am., epigrurn). This false modesty (Ovid certainly did not believe his

poems to be unpopular) codd simply be a neat little introduction to the collection,

reminiscent of Catullus' modest lepidus nomtibeffus. However, when the context of

the first poem is taken into consideration, that humble introduction tums out to have been

a witty foreshadowing of his encounter with Cupid. Not only has he had to discard arma

gravi numero violentaque bella for the lighter love-elegies, after the required sixth foot of

his alternate lines was removed, but his first attempt at these elegies has also had to be

made levior by the loss of two books. By calling the slirnmed-down three books a

"lighter punishment" than the earlier five, Ovid must be implying that the originally

planned epic poem, with its 'Lweighty measures," would have been a weighty punishment

"Ovid: A Poet in Love with Poeüy," Omnibus 8 (1984), p. 12. ' 1 am not the only one to suggest this connection. Reitzenstein, in an article entitled "Kunstwollen" (p. 2 12). apparently also compared the recusutiones of Vergil's 6 Eclogue and Ovid's Amores 1.1, according to A.M. Keith, "Amores 1.1 : Propertius and the Ovidian Programme" in Studies in Latin Literafure and Roman Hisrory VI{Collection Latomus 217, Bruxelles, 1Wî), p. 128. indeed for the reader. This undercuts Ovid's recusatio with an exaggerated modesty over his pretended attempt at epic (arma itself was used by the Augustan pets as a technical term for the epic genre)3 in Amores 1.1, and it certainly augments his imverent criticism of Vergil. Especially considering that Callimachus' original recusatio had ken a result of that poet's abhorrence for al1 pst-Homeric epic, Ovid's Amores can be seen to be condemning the Aeneid with Callimachus' view of a pÉya PLf3Ai ov iaov .. . TG p~yaA+

KUKG.' On a different tack, the picture of Cupid's theft could show an entirely different motive. After Cupid has forced Ovid's verse into elegiac couplets, Ovid cornplains that it is unfair to make him write elegy when he is not in love. Cupid, of couse, remedies this situation with his bow, and so the Amores are launched. Ovid, struck by the love arrow, burns with passion, and, although it takes him some tirne before he discovers an object for his love, he is nevertheless well able to write his elegiac verse. It has been noted, however, that it was a poetic repos that love-elegies corne as a result of burning passion.5

The fact that Ovid's elegies precede his love shows that love, in the heart-felt and passionate sense of the word, is not one of Ovid's motives in writing. This insincenty towards his overt subject leaves Ovid's elegies open to specdation on whether or not the poet took other people's emotions seriously. If he did not, then his depiction of the lover beating his mistress in Amores 1.7, or, in Amores 2.7 and 2.8, of blackmaiting a slave-girl for sexual favours, could show a lack of sympathy and perhaps even plessure in other

3 A.M. Keith, Amores 1.1 : Propertius and the Ovidian Programme" in Studies in Latin Lirerature and Roman History VI (Collection Lafornus 2 1 7,Bruxelles, 1 W2), p. 330. ' Callimachus, Fragmenta vol. I Rudolfus Pfeiffkr [dl(Oxford: The Clarendon Ress, 1949), Fr. 465 (359). ' Leslie Cahoon, "A Program for Betrayal: Ovidian Nepitia in Amores 1 .l, 2.1, and 3.1 " in Helios, vol. 1 2 people's pain.

An extension of this interpretation goes beyond the exposure of Ovid's possible immorality or amorality, and combines with it Ovid's undeniably witty style, in order to argue that Ovid was actuaily wnting satire. His depictions of the artificiality of Iovers' emotions could be a comment upon the genre of love-elegy as he found it: inherently self-deceiving. This approach permits the reader to excuse whatever he or she finds disagreeable or shocking in Ovid's love elegies, and it is obviously a very attractive approach for this reason.

Which of these approaches to Ovid's Amores is the most valid? With so many possible interpretations to the introduction and £kt poem of the Amores, it is no wonder that the entire Amores collection has been judged in contradictory ways. The simplest approach, which identifies Ovid's love poetry as pure comedy, argues that everything that

Ovid wrote was intended as a joke, regardless of its subject. This is to define Ovid's love poetry as Zevis - light and inconsequential. This approach has different levels, and one fevei that grants Ovid a more specific ahthan just to make his audience laugh is to identiQ his poetry as primarily Literary parody. Thus Ovid's main purpose is seen to have been to show off his erudite literary knowledge, and to challenge his readers to pick out his sources. While this approach can go a long way, it can be a problem when the subject encased in this Ovidian wit is egregiously lacking in hurnorous elements. One is thus forced to ignore Ovid's lack of taste when his literary allusions take on a misogynist or inhumane tone.

(1985), pp. 29-39. To emphasize the serioumess of Ovid's nequitia - bis apparently callous and cruel approaches to love and sexual relationships - seerns to belie his channing wit. How can Ovid, whose poetry is so much fun to read, be bad? The most notable exponents of this approach are certain feminist scholars, who have interpreted what they see as Nd's cruelty in his elegies to be social satire. The poetry's humour is thus explained as king directed at its own content in order to say the opposite of what is written. These arguments for Ovid the Satirist try to prove how Ovid's elegies display cruelty and misogyny, yet they are ineffectual in proving that its presence is satirical. By this interpretation Ovid can no longer be seen as levis; nor, on the other hand, can his nequitia be explained as disguised morality.

This study will trace the different interpretations of Ovid's love-elegies that have affected their understanding by readers. It will try to answer the question of whether

Ovid's love poetry - his Arnores and his Ars Amatoria - can be fùlly described as Ievis or whether their nequitia, in the form of the pet's callous cruelty, should be acknowledged as such. Chapter 1

Ovid as Poeta Levis

"Ovid's poetry is ojïen dirmissed ar fiivolous flu-and to a large exten: it 13. But ir is very sophi3ticared $UA: " - John Porter, University of Saskatchewan, 1995.

"Nothing like a Zittle judicious levity " - Michael Finsbury, The Wrong Box. ch. 7.

The describing of Ovid's love poetry as levis can be said to comprise the

traditional approach of Ovidian criticism. This is not to Say that it has been the only

approach until recent years; as will be noted, Ovidian criticism has always been varied.

There has nevertheless been a comparative dearth of Ovidian scholarship in the first half

of the 20~centuryl due at least in part to the classification of Ovid's elegiac poetry as

lightweight. This bas resdted sometimes in a general disapproval of Ovid, depending on

the moral outlook of the period in question, or more perniciously in a feeling that Ovid,

while arnusing, was not worthy of scholarly attention. In more recent years, the goal of entertainment has not seemed so worthless an ah, and so there has been much work done on how, and to what extent, Ovid played on the expectations of his audience in order to make them laugh.

The classification of Ovid as levis, however, is not an arbitrary one, for it stems fiom Ovid's own words. In the opening poem of his Amores he goes to some length to assure the reader that his poetry is levis. Also, the first poem of Amores book 2 insists

I M.-K. Gamel, "introduction" in Helios, volume 12 (1 985), p.3. Gamel noted chat there were only 24 literary entries in I 'Année Philologique of 1966, as contrasted with 57 articles in 1982. that the poems are not serious, for the narrator cries: procul hinc, procul este, severae! / non estis teneris opta theatra rnodis - "be gone fiom here, you who are serious, you are not a suitable audience for my tender measures!" (Am. 2.1,3-4). Yet more evidence for

Ovid's self-described levity cornes in Amores 3.1, the third programmatic poem of the collection, which again specifically belittles his elegies. In this third example, Tragoedia, the goddess of tragedy, urges him to write in her measures, inspired by her gravior thyrsus, and to begin a greater (maius)work (Am. 3.1,23-4). The contrast between the senoumess of tragedy and the lightness of elegy is mermarked by the subsequent presentation of the goddess Elegia. She says "sum levis, et mecum levis est, mea cura,

Cupido; /non sum materiafortior ipsa mea" - "1 am light, and Cupid, who is my concem, is as light as me, nor am 1 more robust than my subject" (Am. 3.1,4 1-2). Ln the cIosing lines of the same poem, Ovid calls tragedy the labor aeternus, while elegy is brevis (68), and he vows that, when he has finished the light elegies, he will write a grandius opus of tragedy (70) - "greater" than his currant elegiac trifling.

In fact, the Amores collection ends with a final farewell to elegy, which puts a stronger emphasis on the lightness of Ovid's elegies. In this Ovid tells of his intention to discard his love poems by moving on to less Wvolous work. He makes the comment that

Bacchus has struck him with a thyrsrcs gravior, a weightier thyrsus, and has told him to abandon his present occupation for an area maior - "a greater course"(Am. 3.1 5, 17-20).

The comparative adjectives gravior and maior clearly belittle the importance of his elegies.

Ovid's assertions that his elegies are hadess levity are repeated with desperate earnestness in the Tristia. Ifhis words in the Tristia can be taken as his true convictions

(although this is certainly a mwt point), they show that Ovid classified his own elegies as meaningless fiin.

in the second book of the Tristia, Ovid goes to great lengths to try to convince the emperor Augustus how unimportant were his love-elegies, and thus how undeserving of so great a punishment. His poems he calls meae deliciae - "my delights, or whims" (Tr.

2, 78)- mei ioci - "my jests" (238), and he says that he wasted his poetic talent nimium iuventaliter - "in too juvenile a manner" (1 17). in fact, the Ars Amatoria was unworthy of the great emperor's notice, king merely lusus inepti - "foolish, or inept, games" (223) and otia - "idleness" (224).

Furthemore, Ovid explicitly contrasts the slight skill, which he says, is required for the writing of numeri leviores - "lighter verses" (33 1) with the greater skill required for epic. Ovid says that he was ody capable of writing pumi modi - "small" or even

3nsignificant measures" (332), and that the effort of writing epic conantem debilitabit

"will weaken hhif he tries" (334). He then refers specifically to Amores 2.1, in which he had written that he would have written of caelestia bella and the story of Otis and

Ephialtes, if only he had not ken prevented by his arnica closing her doors (Am. 2.1, 1 1-

17). In the Tristia, however, Ovid now says that he thought that his attempt at epic had demeaned the subject (sed detrectare videbar, Tr. 2,337), and he thus returned to his feve opu and iuvenalia carminu - "light work" and "juveniie songs" (339). This assertion on

Ovid's part is surprising, for it goes beyond a mocking false modesty, and dismisses his elegies as, not just levis, but as the insignificant product of an unskilled pet. The reference to the closed doors of his mistress also suggest a rather pragmatic motivation

for writing his poetry: he wrote (so he tries to daim) in order to flatter his mistress, rather

than for purely artistic reasons. This sort of comment, if taken seriously, cannot have

worked LI favour of Ovid's reputation as a poetic master.

If Ovid could himself so belittle his elegies, even if his belittlement stemmed fiom

mockery or fear, then it is not surprishg that other critics would do the same. Thus we

fmd Seneca the Elder, a contemporary of Ovid, and Quintïlian, bom only 22 years after

Ovid's death, tending to disparage Ovid's works.

Seneca the Elder wrote of Ovid in his Controversiae that adparet summi ingenii

viro non iudicium defùisse ad compescendarn licentiam carminum suorum sed animum -

"it is evident that it was not the judgement to suppress the Iicense [verbosity?] of his

poems that was lacking in the man of such genius, but the will" (Contr. 2.2,12), implying

that more restraint would have improved the quality of his works. He later says,

criticising the orator Montanus Votiennes as homo rarissimi etiansi non emendatissimi

ingenii - "a man of most rare, if not whoily perfected, genius" (Contr. 9.5,15), that he

had been called the "Ovid" of orators, narn et Oviditu nescit quod bene cessit relinquere

- "for Ovid also does not know how to leave well enough alone" (Contr. 9.5,17).

Quintilian said of Ovid that he was lascivus @la@) and nirniurn amator ingenii sui - "too much the lover of his own genius" (inst.10.1,88), although he did add that he ought nevertheless to be praised for parts of his works. Later, in cornparison to Tibullus and Propertius, he defines Ovid again as Zascivior with respect to his elegies (Insf.

10.1,93). Quhtilian rather reserves his praise for the now lost Medea of Ovid, and that work he contrasts favourably with the rest of the Ovidian corpus: the Medea, he said, showed quantum ille vir praestare poruerit si ingenio su0 imperare quant indulgere maluisset - "how much that man could have excelled if he had preferted to command his genius, rather than to indulge it" (imt. 10.1,98).

The last comment, especidy, which stems fiom a fuller knowledge of Ovid's works than would be possible today, cannot but reinforce the image of Ovid's elegies as being amushg but unimportant, and unworthy of note. Allison Elliott has argued that indeed the views of Seneca the EIder and Quintilian, which judge Ovid guilty of self- indulgence and of insuficieot serioumess in his poetry, have had too great an influence on later criticism.' Evidence of this approach is found in 1885, when The Encyclopc~edia

Britannica contained an article on Ovid, which, in theory, reflected the general attitudes of contemporary Classical scholars. The author of this article, W. Y. Sellars, discussed how Ovid's influence had waned considerably, leaving Vergil, Horace, Lucretius and

Catullus held in rnuch higher esteem. "Oviâ," he wrote, "is not one of those pets who seem to have much to teach us, or much power to move and interest us now."* Even as late as 1969, as Allison Gordon Elliot found, there is an interesting unanimity of opinion regarding Ovid's merits; they echo the opinions of Seneca the Elder and of Quintilian in judging him technically skilful, but too self-indulgent and ~ndisci~lined.~Thus the history of Ovidian criticism began with the critical comments of three very influential

7 Ailison Goddard Elliott, "Ovid and the Critics: Seneca, Quintilian, and 'Seriousness'" in Helim volume 12 (1985), pp. 7-20. W.Y. Sellars, 'Ovid", Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary ofArts, Sciences. and General Lirerature, Ninrh Edifion, Volume XV..II (Ediiburgh: Adam and Charles Black, MDCCCLXXXV [1885)), p. 83. Allison Goddard Elliott, ''Ovid and the Critics: Seneca, Quintilian, and 'Senousness"' in Helios volume 1 2 (1985), pp. 7-20. voices: that of the pethimself, that of the pet's contemporary, and that of a critic who shared the same century with the poet. Such authoritative opinions must be seriously considered. Chapter 2

Omnia Non Vincit Amor: Ovid's Scepticism About the Power of Love

"Vwe resïsr our pasions it ïs morefiom rheir weakness rhanfiorn our strengrh. " - La Rochefoucauld, Mwims No. 125

If the description of Ovid's love poetry as levis is accepted, an examination of the fî-ivolities with which Ovid filled his poems will reveal much that is of interest for our topic. Levity in Ovid's elegies may originally have been deemed a flaw; in the latter half of the 20~century, however, king an age fairly tolerant of light humour, the idea that

Ovid was only playing Fivolous games has not hindered academic study. Indeed the examination of his love poetry as witty stories challenges scholars to figure out how far

Ovid's subtleties extended. The analysis in Chapter lof the introductory epigram and the beginning of Amores 1.1 has shown that Ovid was not just creating humour by throwing together ludicrously unlikely images. The parody of existing Literary traditions in fact forms a large part of Ovid's humour. Brooks Otis discussed the situation in which, he surmised, Ovid began to write his Amores: he argued that the genre of the Latin love elegy was based on a difficult balance between the subjective and conventionally imitative elements.' Catullus, Otis thought, had fused the Alexandrian allusions perfectly with his own personal experience, but for Tibullus and Propertius it was more difficult.

"Even in Lucretius' time, the typical stage lover was 'funny'," Otis wrote, "but

' Brooks Otis, "Ovidand the Augustans," Classical World, volume 69, (1 938). p. 196. a lover writing about himself cmof aii people lest afford to be 'funny 9 .,911 Tibullus and

Propertius, therefore, were exhausting al1 the possible ways of combining the conventional images with the subjective sincerity. Ovid's entrance on the scene of Latin love elegy came, therefore, just when, in Otis' words, "the genre was ripe for such

[irreverent] treatment."12 Kathleen Berman also notes the fact that Propertius and

Tibullus had exhausted the supply of elegiac originality, leaving Ovid with no other approach than to play ironic games with his poetic predeces~ors.'~Ovid thus ~uldhave written his Amores with the intention of making a reductio ad ubsurdurn of Gallus',

Tibuilus' and Propertius' elegiac themes.

If one wished to take this argument to an extreme length, it has even been argued that Ovid's Amores, far fiom king genuiae expressions of the poet's feelings, were in fact poems entirely about petry.14 Thus CorinnaYsfist entrance in Amores 1.5 is said to be like the entrance of a poetic Muse, more than that of a real woman. She enters in a half-lit bedchamber - pars adupertafirit, pars altera clamafenestrae - with the windows being half open, half-closed (Am. 1.5, 3) which is commonly a feature of divine epiphanies in Augustan poetry.15 Indeed, in Amores 3.1, in which Ovid is met by the rival goddesses of elegy and tragedy, the pet is waadering in a woodland grove nernoralibus umbris - in le* shadows (Am. 3.1, 5). Corinna, thus, is seen as a representation of elegy, parallel to the more obvious representation by EZegia herself. By

' ' Otis, p. 196. " Otis, p. 197.

'j Kathleen Berman, "Some Propertian Imitations in Ovid's Amores" in Cfussical Philofogy 67 (1972), pp- 1 70-7. " A.M. Keih, "Corpus Eroricum: Elegiac Poetics and Elegiac Puellae in Ovid's Amores," Chical Worfd Volume 88.1 (1994), pp. 27-40. an extension of this approach, the entire Amores collection becomes a comment upon

Augustan love poetry.

It is possible to indulge in endless discussion regarding the exteut of Ovid's literary parodies; indeed, Ovid's forays into this area are so multifaceted and ingenious that it is easy to decide that it was Ovid's prime (or even his only) intent in writing love poetry. It is possible however to narrow the examination by focussing on major themes in Ovid's Amores that hark back directly to the traditions of Roman love elegy. One theme is the depiction of Amor as an overwhelming and irresistible force against which the amator can only struggle in vain. Ovid's approach to this theme is to interpret it as artificial and false, through mockery of the other Roman elegists. This chapter will follow some of these burlesques, showing Ovid's detached view of love's omnipotence.

For the traditional Roman elegists love was a force to which anyone could be made subject and fiom which few of its victims could escape. While no one would suggest that Catullus, Propertius, and Tibullus never employed humour in their depictions of omnipotent love and its effects, their humour could never go so far as to ridicule that love's power. Evidence for the essential seriousness of the Roman love elegists is seen in the way that they had to defend themselves against the Lucretian philosophy of reason.

For example it has been cogently argued that the publication of De Rerum Nafura, in which Lucretius denounced erotic passion as dangerously irrational, was a senous threat to Roman elegy.I6 Book Four of this work scientifically discusses the necessity of

Is Keith, p. 29. l6 Jeff Shulman, "Te Quoque Falie Tamen: Ovid's Anti-Lucrerian Didactics" in CfassicalJournal 76 (1 981), pp. 242-53. overcoming the irrationality of love that leads inevitably to madness and unhappiness.

Not only does this book cal1 love irrational and mad, but it also claims that a clear-sighted

man can avoid the snares of love that cause such unhappiness by perceiving the

deceptions practised in love &airs. The response to this philosophy was for the Roman

elegists to try to create situations that were passionate, yet serious enough that the lover did not become an object of ridicule." An examination of the seriousness with which the elegists took their submission to love will show how Ovid's irreverence shook the traditional stance of helplessness in the face of love.

A return to the discussion of Ovid's Amores 1.1, for example, with which this study began, offers Meropportmities for uncovering Ovid's literary games. Ovid's sport with the idea of all-conquering love can k seen as a direct reference to Propertius.18

In the fïrst poem of Propertius' collection, his narrator explained that he had not yet been touched by Cupid (desire), until caput impositis pressit Amor pedibus - "Love pressed

[his] head with feet pressed down" (Prop. 1.1,4).

Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis, contactum nullis ante cupidinibus. tum mihi constantis deiecit lumina fastus et caput impositis pressit Amor pedibus donec me docuit castas odisse puellas irnprobus, et nulIo vivere consdio. (Prop. 1.l, 1-6)

Cynthia, with her eyes, was the ktto have caught poor me, Me whom no desires before had touched. Then Love cast down my glory of steadfast disdain And pressed my head with imposing feet Until he shamelessly taught me to hate chaste girls

17 Kenneth Quinn, Latin Explorations (New York: Hurnanities Press, t 963), p. 295-7. A.M. Keith, "Amores 1.1 : Propercius and the Ovidian Programme," in Studies in Latin Lirerature and Roman Hktory VI (Collection Latomus 2 17, Bruxelles, l992), pp. 327-44. And to live without prudence.

It is not difficult to see, in Ovid's metricaily imposing Cupid, a playful allusion to

Propertius' image:

Arma gravi numero violenfaque beiia parabarn edere, materia conveniente modis. par erat inferiw versus--risisse Cupido dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem. (Am. 1.1, 1-4)

Arms and violent wars, in weighty meter, 1 was preparing To bring forth; subjects suitable for those measures. The lower verse was equal - but Cupid laughed, It is said, and he stole one foot.

While it has been argued that Ovid's Propertian allusion indicates Ovid's wish to pay homage to the it is difficult to see how ûvid's mockery of the power of love, and his ridicule of the hapless lover, is a compliment to Propertius' passionate confessions. Propertius' tale of the lover's suffering in his estpoem - his life now lived with nuZZurn consilium ( 1.1,6), his furor ( 1 -1, 7), his non sanum pectus ( 1.1, 26), his noctes amarae (1.1, 33) - is a sympathetic tale, but only when the poet's words are assurned to be the result of genuine passion. Ovid's use of thisfuror, by contrast, highlights the laughable nature of the stricken lover by distancing the lover fiom reality by means of the humorous context.

It is furthemore interesthg to compare these lines with the beginning of the fiflh elegy of Tibullus' Book 1 :

19 See A.M. Keith, "Amores 1.1 : Propertius and the Ovidian Programme," pp. 327-44. Asper eram et bene discidiwn me ferre loquebar: at mihi nunc longe gloria fortis abest. namque agor ut per plana citus sola uerbere mi-ben quem celer a&ueta uersat ab arte puer. ure ferum et torque. libeat ne dicere quicquam magn~fbrnpas! haec: horrida uerba doma. (Tib. 1.5, 1-6).

1 was angry, and said 1 endured our parting well: But now that brave pride is far absent fiom me. For 1 am driven like a swiftly spinning top over a level floor, From a whip that a quick boy twists by his accustomed skill. Bum and torture this wild beast, lest 1 dare to say anything Boastfd again: Tame my uncouth words.

These lines express the now familiar raging of the stricken amator, who has

discovered the infidelity of his mistress, but has also found that he is unable to deny his

enduring servitude to his love for her. The image of the celer puer twisting a top with his

whip is clearly an allusion to the puer Cupido driving a lover. In Amores 1.1, however,

Cupid has lost his demonic power and is reduced to manipulating the metrics of the

elegiac poet; lost too, for Ovid's lover, is the dignity of the servitium urnoris of

Propertius' and Tibullus' lovers.

These details are part of Ovid's over-al1 strategy of deflating the elegiac

omnipotence of love. The very title of Ovid's collection of love-elegies refers to the first

butt of Ovid's wit, for he ahost certainly named it after the Amores of the elegiac pet

Gallus. Gallus' Amores collection has not, unfortunately, survived, and thus our

understanding of Ovid's literary allusion might have ended there. However, Ovid's

allusions to Vergil (as discussed in the Urtroductory chapter) supply a clue to one of

Ovid's designs. Vergil's 10" Eclogue, afier all, tells the tragic story of Gallus, and how he was conquered by love. The way that Vergil interprets Gallus' overwhelming love was infinitely sympathetic; the way that Ovid treats that pwer of love is wholly disrespectful.

Ovid's lover uses the conventions of omnipotent love in such a way as to turn it into an

excuse for self-indulgent behaviour.

Vergil's 1oh Eclogw takes the phrase omnio vin& omor - "love conquea ali"

(Ecl. X, 69) as its main theme.*' This last Eclogue begins with the poet's detennination

to sing for his fnend Gallus, using as a mode1 the first Idyll of Theocritus, in which

Daphnis is anlicted by love.2' In this case, Daphnis, the Arcadian shepherd, is replaced

by Vergil's tragic fiiend. It is to be Vergil's last labor, but the words - exfremum

laborem - imply that it is to be his most important labour as well. In fact, these verses

rnrcst be Sung, says Vergil, employing the passive periphrastic conjugation (sunt dicenda,

Ecl. X, 3), instead of the calmer future tense, to tell of his intent; thus the sense that Amor

is overwheiming everything is very apparent.

Furthermore, this love is a destructive one. The word Amor in its various cases

appears twelve times in the poem, closely associated with words of unhappiness: soZZicifos, indigno, insanis. non mrat, crudelis, insanus and pati (Ecl. X, 6, 10,22,28,

29,44,53). "What groves and what glaties did you inhabit, Naiads?" asks the poet, "for

al1 the rest of nature was sympathetic, weeping with Gallus for his indignus Amor'' (Ecl.

X, 9- 10). The word efiam is repeated three tirnes to emphasize the extent of the sorrow

felt. The trees, mountains, shepherds and swineherds are al1 asking what is it that has

conquered Gallus, as are Apollo, Silenus and Pan. Pan asserts that Amor non tafiacumt

As Theodor Haecker has pointed out in bis book Vergil, Father of the West [translated by A. W. Wheen] (London: Sheed & Ward, 1934). " Gian Biagio Conte, [translated by Charles Segal] The Rhetoric of Imitation: Genre and Poetic Memory - that "Cruel love does not care for such things," and is unappwed by tears (Ecl. X, 28-

30).

The verb used in the description of love's cmelty is saturo, which defines Amor

as a ravenous, dl-consuming force that must be sated. It is impervious to tears, leaving

subrnission to this brutal force the ody option. The cornparison between the power of

love and that of war is made by Gallus, who, fiom lines 3 1-69 laments his woes. His

insanus Amor is linked with Mars, arma, fela and hostia. Whether the Amor in line 44 is

a passion for Lycoris, Gallus' faithless mistress, which has driven him into the army, or

whether the Amor is a passion for the god of War which has tom Gallus nom Lycoris, the

image resulting is of two forces of almost equal strength, and of similar characteristics.

Amor, too, has arms and darts and enemies, and, as is suggested by the teversion to the

subject of Lycoris in line 46, Amor, too, has camp followers who must trudge hardily

over the snowy Alps and fiozen rivers. With Gallus' words acris venabor apros (Ecl. X,

56) - "1 shall hunt the fierce wild bar" - the stncken lover is pictured trying to

overcome his passion by throwing himself into violent action? However, as Gallus

discovers, Amor is the stronger, for afler al1 the imagery of the hardships of campaigning,

it appears that not even War cmwithstand Love. Unlike Theocritus' Daphnis, who preferred to die rather than yield,23Vergil's Gallus despairingly gives himself up for love, having unsuccessfully tried to forget his love. Using words that may have been taken

in Vergil and Other Latin Poets (Ithaca: Corne11 University Press, 1986), p. 104. -3 1 According to M. Owen Lee, the aper or wild boar usually symbolizes an aaempt to kill one's erotic desires. M. Owen Lee, Death and Rebirth in Vergil S Arcadia (New York: State University of New York Press, 1989), p. 98. 23 Gian Biagio Conte [translated by Charles Segai] The Rhetoric oflmitution: Genre und Poeric Memory in Vergil and Other Latin Poets (ïthaca: Corne11 University Press, 1986), p. 104. directly fiom the real Gallus' own ele@e~,~~the poor lover cries out a truth that he has

tried to deny: omnia vincit Amor. The anaphora effectively ends the Eclogue, although a

short epilogue follows.

With Amores 1.2, however, Ovid tums the love elegy upside-down by refushg to

take it serio~sl~.~'The second poem in his Amores begins with a credible account of the

poet's insomnia, which vividly describes a dura strata and the tossing and tuming of the

man as witnessed by the pallia which will not stay put. He is patently empty - vamus -

of sleep, he says, with a yawning, four-spondee-line (3): et vacuus somno noctem, quam

longa peregi (Am. 1.2,3) he says, which, with the sibilance of the Iassaque versati

corporis ossa (4)emphasizes the length and fatigue of the sleepiess night. What could be

happening, wonders the narrator, to cause such grief? And he slowly, with uonic

denseness, asserts that surely he wodd be aware of it had he been stricken by love. The

experience of love is examined by the pet with irony and intellectual deta~hment."~~

Afier the description of his having been shot by Cupid's arrow in the previous poem, the

reader is perfectly well aware of what subject Ovid's poems are to explore. Nevertheless,

Ovid chooses to use dramatic irony in order to make a burlesque of the hapless lover,

unexpectedly ensnared by love.

"Cm love have attacked me secretly?" he wonders, naively. Sic erit - "that'll be

it" he sighs gloomily: hueserunt tenues in corde sagitae/ et passessa ferus pectora versat

'" M. Owen Lee, p. 99. " And thus spelling the end of love elegy, by making it impossible for anyone to take it seriously again., as John Barsby argues in his book: Ovid: Amores Book I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), p. 17. '6 See Conte, Latin Lirerature: A Hirfory [Joseph B. Solodow, trans.], (Baltimore :Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p 343. Amor (7-8). He describes Arnor as fem in a somewhat off-band manner. There is little

anguish; rather there is almost immediate capitulation to a force that is assumed to be

ovenvhelming (although there is not much evidence that the pet has the foaitude to put

up any resistance). Ovid takes the convention of Roman elegy that love is a violent and

cruel force, uncontrollable and without moderationT2'and he exploits it unstintingly.

"Will 1 yield?" he asks, as though his fate were already decided for him, as indeed it

seems, for he takes it as fact that his ardour will only increase if he fights it. He avoids

even a deliberative subjunctive in the question:8 but responds with a magnanimous "let

us yield," philosophically expressing his belief that levefi quod bene fertur, onus (1 0) -

"the burden becomes light that is borne well." This poem, more than any other of the

Amores, emphasizes the servirium Amoris "the servitude of love" that Gallus had so

stressed, but Ovid has created a distance fiom the concept of love for a particular woman,

and instead has focussed on the experience of love itself?'

in three images Ovid attempts to convince his readers, or himself, of the futility of

resistance to the inevitabk - that trying to extinguish a torch by shaking it only fans the

flames; that an ox which tries to flee the yoke is oniy beaten the harder; and that an

unruly horse merely suffers a more bruising bits. The three metaphors here, especially

the latter two, seive the important purpose of exaggerating the physical hardships of a

lover. The paùiful blows and cuts which the ox and horse suffer are parallel to the way

that Amor urger acrius ferocius - "presses more sharply and more fiercely" on those who

" V. A. Tracy, "One Aspect of Nequiria in Ovid's Amores" in Car1 Deroux [ed.], Studies in Latin Lirerature and Roman ffistory I (Bruxelles: Latomus, Revue é études Latines, 1979), p. 344. See John Barsby, Ovid: Amores Book I. p. 45. 29 Conte, Latin Literarure, p. 343. do not surrender willingly. When the pet does yield, he describes himself as Cupid's

nova proeda - "new prey." His han& are conquered; love is sa powerful that there is ni2

opus... bello - "no point in fighting" - love's weapons have conquered him.

The image of Cupid having literaily conquered the poor defenceless Ovid is given

reinforcement in the next 26 lines (23-48), as Cupid's triumph is described. This poem

can have no other theme than that expressed by Gallus in Vergil's tenth Eclogue: omnia

vincir Amor, but it displays a vastly different aspect of Amor's conquering powers.

Where Gallus is supposed to be sîncerely suffering and has al1 of nature suffer with him,

Ovid's narrator is apparently smirking aH the the while he is king conquered. The

sufferings of the Ovidian lover are, in fact, descnbed with much more painfiil detail than

those of Gallus, but by this very hyperbole, the idea of love's temble force is undercut

and made ludicrous. After ail, we know that Ovid is only in love because of the patently

ludicrous episode with Cupid that began the Amores; we know nothing of the love object

as yet. It has been said of Ovid's half-hearted passion that "if love can be said to

conquer, it only conquers pariially and he~itantl~."~~By exaggeration, therefore, Ovid

has over turned the tragedy of Gallus' elegiac love in Vergil's tenth Eclogue, with the

result that it becomes impossible to consider Ovid's love to be of the same class as

Gallus' at all.

3 0 M.L. Stapleton, HarmfUI Eloquence: Ovid's Arnoresfiom Anliquity to Shakespeare (Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1W6), p. 35. Chapter 3

The lnsincerity of Ovid's Amator

"A iittie sincerity is a dungerous thing, and a great deai of ir is ubsolutelyfutai. " - Oscar Wilde, The Critic As Artisr, Part I Intentionr

The preceding chapter has shown how Ovid undermined the elegiac convention of the ail-conquering power of love. However, his destruction sliced more deeply than that into the traditional themes, cutting away at the very sincerity of the lover's passion. lndeed Ovid's subversion of the image of ail-conquering love left his lover in the inconvenient possession of his own willpower. Unlilce the traditional lover, Ovid's lover had no excuse for his spineless Uifatuation with an unfaithful woman, or for his inability to see her flaws when she made no attempt to hide them. Ovid takes this other theme of elegiac love - that of the lover's wholehearted devotion to his love - and he again tunis it inside out. Lucretius, the foe of erotic passion, had suggested that love was self- deception: Ovid drove that suggestion brutally home. Lucretius' main method for the avoidance of love was for the lover to make himself aware of the deception inherent in his own and his mistress' feelings. hstead of trying to deny Lucretius' assertion that love and self-deception were inevitably linked, Ovid's love poetry supports this assertion.

Furthemore, Ovid applauds deception and self-deception, and implies that the game of love, which is usually so pleasurabie, may die by an excessive fkeedom fiom illusion.'

For example, Amores 1.4 contains lines in which the lover is painfully jealous of

' 1 am indebted to Jeff Shulman's article "Te Quoque FaffeTamen: Ovid's Anti-Lucretian Didactics" for

24 his mistress' husband, and he prays that she will not please bim that night (67). ifhis

prayers are dot answered, however, at lest let her receive no pleasure fkom her husband, he says. ifeven that is not possible he begs that she will nevertheless tell him in the morning that she has not given herself to her husband (70). This is a barefaced example of the lover's awareness of his self-deception. In a second example, the narrator in

Amores 2.19 praises a woman's pretence of fleeing his advances - he will be bored if she does not hold him off for a while, even though her dtimate intention is to succumb to hirn (33-6). A third example cornes in Amores 3.14, in which the lover displays a conscious awareness that his perception of his mistress is based on his own self- deception, for he begs her, not to be faithful, but to pretend to him that she is (1 -6). T'us

Ovid has taken Lucretius' argument that one must overcome illusion to be happy, and turned it around by insisting that in fact the mastery of illusion is the key to happiness.

This aspect of Ovid's deliberate self-deception can be seen in his corruption of the scenarios and tenninology of a genuine elegiac lover: Catullus. If Ovid's sincerity is in doubt, Catullus' can never be. The latter's unabashed outpouring of passion is u~valled in al1 extant Roman love poetry. It has been argued that Catuilus' originality was unmatched by either Propertius or ~ibullus;'~therefore a simple contrast between

Catullus' passionate highs and lows and Ovid's versions of the sarne will clearly highlight the awareness of deception that pervades Ovid's poetry. Thus, an analysis of

Amores 1.5, Ovid's story of successful love, shows a contrast with the happy heights of

Catullus' Carmen 5; Amores 3.14, feigning a bitter unhappiness, parodies Catullus'

pointing out this element of Ovid's guile. 3' Brooks Otis, Wvid and The Augustans"Classical World, vol. 69 (1 93 8), p. 196. despair as seen in his Carmen 8. These contrasts expose Ovid's fiivolous perception of love: Ovid considered elegiac lovers to be self-indulgent li berlines.

As an example of genuine elegiac feeling, Catuilus' Carmen 5 serves well, king one of his most exalted. AAer his subtle and tentative proposition, he has obviously won a favourable reception fiom his mistress Lesbia, and he now asks her openly to "live and love" with him with utter abandon. The poem emphasizes two important things - that life is too short to waste, and that love is the best way to spend one's short life. The tone of the poem is imperative and pleading, yet triumphant, as though Catullus is fairly sure that he has a chance with Lesbia, but can hardly wait for her capihilation: he is intensely sincere.

The first line emphasizes the importance of Ioving by placing it opposite to vivamus so that the two ideas - love and life - are equated, with Lesbia central to both. The sense is clear - to love Lesbia is to live, and to be without this love is tantamount to death. In fact, Catullus emphasizes the neamess of death by making it clear that una perpetua nox is lurkuig around the corner (Catull. 5,6). Soon the brightness of day will set, and unlike the real soles, the brevis lux of human life cannot return. With the gloomy sound of dormienda, Catullus restates his urgency - "life is short, life is love, so let us live and love! "

The quick imperative: da mi basia mille, deinde centum (Catull. 5,7), using the abbreviated mi instead of mihi, shows a lover who can hardly contain himself Here is no cool libertine, taking his pleasures where he chooses. The repetition signifies a fiantic and vesanus - mad - lover. It has been suggested that this rapid accumulation of kisses is to be seen as stacks of grah bags, which are thcn jumbled into a single heap." Another suggestion is that the basia are counted out on an imaginary abacus, by the thousands and hundreds. 34 Nevertheless, it is obvious that while the senes of line 2 are only worth a single coin, Lesbia is out of their league entirely, being wohinnumerable basia.

There is, of course, much humour intended in this poem. Kisses cannot be stored up, and even the idea of 3300 kisses al1 given at the same tirne, is a little absurd (as

Lesbia apparently thinks, for Catullus is forced to defend his request in Carmen 7, Iines

1-2) . Although Lesbia was meant to smile at these images, she was not meant to laugh at her lover's passion. The direct address; the impulsive flowing of words; the sense of intense excitement only barely held in; tbese show that Catullus cared a great deal about the affair.

Ovid's Amores 1,5, like Catullus' Carmen 5, is an early account of a love affair, when everything is well. Nevertheless, the similarities are superficial, for where Catullus starnrners and exclaims Ovid lies back lady, and receives what is offered to him. The poem is not even directed to Corinna, but is told to the public at large, almost as though it were merely braggadocio. The reader is in no doubt as to whether or not Ovid wanted

Corinna's Company that afternoon, but whether another woman might have done just as well is debatable. At any rate, mere kisses are not enough to stir Ovid's muse.

The poem begins by setting the stage for the event, which implies fkom the start that Ovid is trying to tantalize his readers. Aestus erat - "it was hot," - or, more literally,

- -

33 Quinn, Kenneth, Cahd1u.s: The Poem (London: MacMillan, St. Martin's Press, 1970), p. 109. '' H. J. Levy, "Catullus, 5,7-11 and the Abacus," American Joumai of Philology 62 (1941), p. 222-4. "there was heat," or even "£ire," or "passion" - and it was just past mid day (Am. 1.5, 1).

Ovid is half-asleep on his couch, thinkuig idly that the light happens to be just right for

modest girls, since, with the window half shuttered, they would presurnably feei less

timid about taking off their clothes. It is interesting how he dweiis on this image, for he

spends three lines describing the haif-light, and then with a rolling, four-spondee line, he

savours the image of the verecundis puellis (Am. 1.5,7). This is certainly a long

introduction to Corinna, and not a particularly appropriate one, since he has been

imagining girls wholly unlike Corinna's immodest character. Compared to Catullus' headlong plunge into the subject of Lesbia, this poem is somewhat cooler, with a wait of eight lines before Corinna is even mentioned (there has ken, in fact, a wait of 186 lines, if one counts the four previous poems in the Amores, where the reader only slowly leams that the love object is even female, let alone who she is).

Then ecce, Corinna venit! (Am. 1.5,9) - Corinna cornes, but is it really Corinna that sparks the poet's interest, or the fact, noted immediately derher name, that she has removed her belt and loosened her hair so that it hangs seductively over her bare neck? It seerns it is only beautifid women in general who interest Ovid, for Corinna is actually no different fiom formosa Sameramis or amafa Lais (Am. 1.5, 1 1- 12). Qualiter is Corinna to them - "just such a type - although the cornparisons are flattering ones: Sameramis was supposed to be so beautifid that she gained sole reign over the Babylonian empire through it,3s and Lais was a courtesan who successfùlly asked 10,000 drachmae from each of her customers, and was finally assassinated in Thessaly's temple of Venus by a

35 Harry Thurston Peck [ed,], Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities (New York: Cooper Square Publisfiers, Inc., 1965), p. 1438. group ofjealous wi~es.'~Nevertheless, the reader has no assurance that Corinna is

anything more than a name for an attractive body. Ovid does not even greet her, but

irnmediately tears off her tunic. He dwells on the woman's pretended modesty, with

another rolling line of spondees (Am. 1.5, 15) and then details her naked beauty, only to

stop, srnugly, forbearing to describe her too closely, and leaving the reader to guess the

culmination of the scene. Ovid is obviously playing with his audience. He ends with a

rather callous remark, wholly devoid of persona1 feeling for the woman - proveniant

medii sic mihi saepe dies - "may mid days ofien corne to me in this way!" (Am. 1.5,26).

Significantly, he is foçussing on the erotic occasion, rather than on the person. It is not

hard to believe that Corinna was sirnply created as a name for an idealized sexual

encounter, and that Ovid had no more affection for her than he had for his personified

goddess ~le~ia.)'

The sarne could certainly not be said of Catullus' Lesbia, for his poems are too obviously full of passion. From Catullus' high spirits as expressed in Curmen 5, he plunges down to fiantic despair, for Lesbia is obviously not a particularly devoted lover.

She may never have returned Catullus' love, although she must at least have become his physical lover, as is seen in Carmen 68A. Certainly, for a while the only evidence

Catullus had of her love was that she abused him so significantly - si nosiri obliîa laceret/ sano esset - "If she did not abuse me, it would prove she had forgotten about me, and was not in love with me still" (Catull. 83. 3-4), he insists, naively. Nevertheless, eventually he realizes that she wants nothing to do with him, and this realization is obviously a bitter

36 Peck, p. 91 7. " As A.M. Keith suggests, in his article "Corpus Emticum: Elegiac Poetics and elegiac Puellae in Ovid's blow. Carmen 8 expresses the poet's utter dejection. Catullus is trying to admit that

Lesbia is lost to bim, but while assuring himself that he is now firm in his resolve to give her up, his mind flits away to excruciating images of her being with other men. This poem is a masterpiece of held-back emotion, and gives an excellent example of Catullus' sincere attachment to his mistress.

With the first lines, Catullus States his resolve - no more poetry is to be written about Lesbia, or to her, for that matter. He has been wasting bis tirne, and now he must admit quod vides perisse perdirurn - he must admit what is lost to be lost indeed (Catull.

8, 2). And yet he cannot forget what is past, for instantly he recalls in line 4 of Carmen 5 that "once bright suns shone" for him. Carrnen 5 warned how srion the noxperpetua would overtake the lovers, and already the soies have set for him. When the sun shone,

Lesbia was his - although perhaps he suspects she was never wholly devoted, for while

Catullus actively wished to associate with Lesbia, she was ody "not unwilling" - nec pitella nolebat (Catull. 8,7). Though al1 the love may have been on his side, she ought to have responded, for he loved her as no woman will ever be loved - amata nobis quantum amabitur nulla (Catull. 8,s). However, now non vult (Caîull. 8,9) - she does not want it any more, and Cahillus tums suddenly and cries out to himself: "useless one, let you not want it either!" A series of bitter imperatives follow, echoing the eager ones of Carrnen 5, and with a similar effect of urgent passion. Now in self-flagellation

Catullus commands hirnself (almost implying the knowledge that he is bound to ignore these commands) to ndi, nec sectare, nec vive miser, sed obdura (Catull. 8,9- 11). The penultimate imperative is hteresthg, for with the use of the adjective miser instead of the

Amores," Classical World, 88.1 (1994), p. 30. adverb misere, the sense that Catullus is simply saying: "Ddt even bother living," is emphasized, especially when Carmen 5 has suggested that there is no point in living without Lesbia.

Catullus, however, has no sooner commanded hïmself to be £ïrm, and has bid farewell to the girl, when he faoatically starts trying to goad her into remorse. "You'll be sorry!" he cries, "whom wifl have you now?" But at this he reaily begins to wonder -

"who will visit you, call you beautifid, gain your love, call you his own, be kissed by you?" (Catull. 8, 15-8). The momting hysteria which is effected by the staccato of questions gives al1 too reveding an insight into Catulius' reai chances of forgetting

Lesbia. From the simple assumption that no life can now remain for Lesbia (note again the association between love and life) Catullus has dredged up a very unwelcome picture of Lesbia king able to live quite nicely now. With a sudden change of subject, Catullus returns to the initial idea: al tu, Catulle, desinas obdura (Catull. 8,19).

Ovid's Amores 3.14, with its subject of his mistress' (presurnably Corinna's) infi~delity,serves well as a counterpart to Catullus' horrified acknowledgement of Lesbia's cruelty. It has, in fact, been argued that Ovid is genuinely suffe~gin this poem, with

Georg Luck clairning that "If there are any traces of irony, it is bitter and harsh, bordering on sar~asm."~'When contrasted with Catullus' "bitter and harsh irony," this one shows itself to be somewhat lacking in fire. The "traces of irony" undercut the superficial emotion too much, so that it becomes clear that Ovid is quite unconcemed with the tum that events have taken. As Frank Copley put it, "it sounds more as if he were merely

38 Georg Luck, The Latin Love Elegv (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1959).p. 168. playing a part on the stage, or even better were standing in the wings and amusing himself by observing himself in the role of the unhappy lover."39 Ovid has unblushingly shown that he is unfaithful to Corinna, but now he shows that he does not reaily expect her to devote herself to him, so long as she does not let him know the details of her promiscuity. This is an immense change of tone fiom Catiillus. Does Ovid not even feel a dog-in-the-manger attitude of possession? However unjust, such an attitude would imply some genuine emotion. In fact, this poem is the pendtirnate one in the Amores collection, and occurs just before he decides to abandon his inbelles elegi - unwarlike etegies - completely (Am. 3.15, 19). The affair, for what it was worth, is obviously ending, but more through the pet's indifference than through any sudden change of heart. Corinna has been conveaient to Ovid, for he had decided he needed a mistress

(after all, how could he write love-elegies without a mistress?), but now al1 he requires is that she not embarras him by any vulgar show of il1 breeding. The poem does slip into a somewhat savage mood, but this is merely an ironic imitation of a genuinely outraged lover. Ovid is no more serious in this poem than in the previous, more obviously humorous ones.

The poem begins with the strange logic that the poet should not expect Corinna to be faithful, since she is, afier dl, beautifùl- non ego, ne pecces, mm sisformosa, recuso.. .( Am. 3.14, 1) Ovid then resorts to the standard epithet of the slighted lover with misero (Am. 3.14,2) but is he wretched because he cares about Corinna, or because he is cringing with embarrassrnent at her lack of good taste? Both interpretations are possible,

'' Frank O. Copley, Latin Lirerature: From the Beginnings tu the Cheof the Second Centus, A.D. (Michigan, The University of Michigan Press, 1 %9), p. 266. but one does not get a sense that Ovid is really suffering when he goes on to daim that

non peccat quaemmque potest peccasse negare (Am. 3.14,s) - "she does not sin who can deny that she has sinned," - and then he goes Mer,and equates the sin with merely a

bad reputation - solaque farnosam culpa professa facit (Am. 3.14,6). Even a meretrk

knows better than to expose her sordid aff'to the public eye, says Ovid with scom, so

at least pretend you have some elegance of mind. He even goes so far as to insist that

Corinna continue to cheat on him - quae facis, haec fado (Am. 3.1 4,15) - he does not

mind that, so much as the impending prospect of public humiliation.

Lines 3 1-40 have a histrionic tone to them, which could be meant seriously, but

which is too much in imitation of Catullus for that to be the case. He has written a

detaiIed set of instructions for what Corinna should do, so long as she does it in secret,

and this, in theory, compares to the feelings in lines 16- 18 of Catullus' Carmen 8.

However, Ovid's words are surprisingly cheerfûl if that is the case - he uses no harsh

imperatives, but the more polite subjunctive, and the extent to which he wants her to go

with her other lovers is rather lovingly dwelt upon. 1s Ovid enjoying himselr! It rather

looks like it. In lines 3 1-40, however, he begins to cornplain that even if she cannot keep

her own reputation pure, she should at least keep her actions fiom his knowledge. He

claims he is king tortured - tuntum non oculos crimen deducis ad ipsos (Am. 3.14, 35) -

"you al1 but bring your fault to my very eyes" and so parce mihi (Am. 3.14,36) - "spare

me!" He actually suffers death when she flaunts her transgressions, in fact, he loves her, and he hates what he loves.. .(Am. 3.14,37-40). But this sounds familiar - it echoes very closely the concise little poem of Catullus, Carmen 85. Catullus said odi et amo - "1 hate and 1 love" - and said that he was king tortured by this unbearable duelling of his emotions (Catuil. 85). Ovid is trying to work himself up into a passion, but al1 he cm

find to Say is in imitation of a real lover. This outraged lover attitude is not suited to

Ovid. He rehrms simply to try and instil two Littîe words into Corinna's head: non feci!

(Am. 3.19,48) - "1 did not do it!", which, if she will only remember to Say them when

faced with her crimes, he wiil happily pretend to believe. He has made it clear that he

does not really care; he is not a sincere lover.40 In Ovid's view deceit is not only an

inherent, but also an essentiai, part of a love affair.

In case the echoes of Catullus were not enough, Amores 3.14 hdsanother

precedent in Propertius' Elegy 1.15. This is one of the poems about a faithless mistress,

and it is written as a genWne outbwst of bitter grief. The pet, he writes, ofien feared

hardships caused by Cynthia's levitas, but never did he imagine such perfidia (1.1 5, 1-2).

Saepe ego rnulta tuae levitatis dura tirnebam. hac tamen excepta, Cynthia. perfidia. aspice me quant0 rapiat fortuna periclo! (Pro p., 1.15,1-2)

Often I used to fear many harsh things fiom your fickleness, Yet never, Cynthia, treachery such as this. See into what danger fortune forces me!

She has lied to him, yes she is not even ashamed: tu tamen in nostra lenta tirnore venis

the poet cornplains - she does not even have the decency to try to comfort his distress,

md in fact shows no concem at all. She combs her hair, and examines her face in a leisurely manner, dressing herself ut formosa novo quae parat ire viro - "as though she

-- --

'O It is important of course to remember Archibald Allen's point conccming the idea of sincerity in Roman thought. Fides as a rhetorical tenn meant the ability to sound sincere. Thus Ovid's lack offides indicates his deliberate remto espouse sincerity in his love affkir. See Archibald Allen, 'Sincerity and the Roman Elegists" Chsical Philology, XL V. 3 (1950), pp. f 46- 7. were making herself beautifid for a new man" (Prop. 1.15,8). A contrast between the poet's words of hardship and unhappiness is made with the cailous self-absorption of the mistress: dura, tirnebarn. perjida, perido and timore against [enta, crines.fuciem. desidia. lapillis, and formosa. Cynthia's betrayal thus is al1 the more complete when she does not even care whether or not she hides her deeâs. She seems, indeed, to be bare- faced about confessing them, for the pet begs her: desine iam revocare luis periuria verbis - "cease to recall your faithlessness by your words" (Prop. 1.15,25). He tries to fi-ighten her with the thought of the go&' revenge for broken vows, but she is unrepentant, and he ends the poem with a bitter warning to al1 lovers not to entnist their safety to flatteries.

In the light of this elegy of Propertius, Ovid's Amores 3.14 is al1 the more a mockery of elegiac love - a seductio ad obsurdum, as Kenneth Quinn put it.4'

Propertius' lover is shocked by his mistress' infidelities, but even more so by the fact that she does not, apparently, regret them. He may hply that he would prefer Cynthia to be a good liar than be confionted with her inndelities, but Ovid's version of the scene brings into the open what is implicit in Propertius' words. Ovid's straightforward request to his mistress, not that she be faithful to him, but that she deceive him more perfectly, casts away any pretence that Ovid really cares about his mistress.

The analyses in this and in the preceding chapter have shown only a very small percentage of the possible examples of Ovid's ironic treatment of the topoi of the love- elegy. indeed, this topic is a favourite one with Ovidian scholars, for the subtleties within

II Kenneth Quinn, Texts and Confexts: The Roman Writers and their Audience (London, Boston and Ovid's Amores are endless, with nearly every line rich in humorous interpretations. The

idea that Ovid had an ironically detached perspective on the love that was so al1

consuming for his Literary predecessors is one that can be supported by many examples

within the texts. But to Say that this is the whole story would be too simple. Regardless

of the fact that Ovid kept insisting on the fiivolous playfulness of his Amores, is it really

possible to assume that Ovid was undercutting the passion of his elegiac colleagues in

order to replace them with nothing? Was he rewjust making fun of the genre on an

arbitrary whim?

Men, for example, Ovid jokes about Corinna having lost al1 of her hair, can he

really be so callous about her griet? in that instance, the lover heartlessly gloats: dicebam

'medicare tuos desiste capillos!' / tingere quam possis. iam iibi nulla coma est - "1 told

you: 'Stop dying your hair! ' and now you have no more hair to stain" (Am1.14, 1-2). It

has been argued that this poem is only expressing the lover's soothing suggestion to his

weeping mistress that she is "making a fuss about notl~in~,"~~but this interpretation

ignores the crowing condescension that is clearly present. If he is joking, on the other

hand, there is something cruel about his humour. Whether or not Corinna was a real

person, such mockery of her misfortme implies a total disregard for the feelings of

someone in such a situation. There are other such unpleasant elements in the Amores -

the depiction, for example, of Corinna's "no means yes" behaviour in the aforementioned

Amores 1.5 - which force us to confiont the question of whether Ovid was only a levis joker. As Charles Martindale has put it, "part of what is troubling in some Ovidian

Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 191 M. LeM. DuQuesnay, The Amores" in J. W. Binns [ed.] Ovid (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan episodes is the combination of cruelty with a certain wit and detachment and the unruffled stylishness with which acts of violence are described; in consequence the reader is lefi uncertain of how to rea~t.'~~The branch of criticism that explains al1 of Ovid's love poetry as levis has to ignore Ovid when he deals with senous subjects. Although this is occasionally possible within the bounds of the Amares, when the collection is taken in context with Ovid's Ars Amatoria and even the Metamorphoses (and this context is impossible to ignore), Ovid's levis humour starts to be undeniably harsh. His disrespect for love, corning, as it does within a large corpus of poetry about love, begins to beg the question: if Ovid does not have a sentimental or passionate view of love, why does he write about it? 1s it possible that his use of the genre of love-elegy was actually a fiont for indulging bis audience with illicit sexual images?

Augustus had, afier dl, accused him of just that. He claimed that Ovid's Ars

Amatoria incited respectable women to adultery and, despite Ovid's assertions to the contrary, his love poetry does depict adultery. Amores 1.4, for example, begins an address to a dilecta puella with two references to the woman's husband. Vir tirus, in fact, begins the poern, and the same words appear again in the second line. There is little ambiguity about whether or not vir is meant to irnply any man, or if he is the woman's wedded husband. For one thing, the possessive adjective implies some sort of marital possession. Furthemore, the instructions the lover gives to the woman with regards to her behaviour at the upcoming banquet show that her relationship with the lover is a

Paul, 1973), p. 20. 43 Charles Marcindale [ed.], Ovid Renewed: Ovidian influences on Lirerature and Art fiom the Middle Ages to the TwenfierhCentury (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19988). p. 2 secretive betrayal of the vir."

.. .Clam rnihi range pedern me specru nutusque meos vufîumque loquacem excipe fürtivas et refer ipanotas. (Am. 1.4, 16-7)

" .. .secretly touch my foot, watch my nods and speaking looks And receive furtive sigm, and you yourself retum them."

So the lover urges the woman. With the adverb clam, and thefurrivae notae that they are to exchange, it is made clear that his instructions are not aimed at a permitted behaviour.

Further evidence that it is adultery that Ovid's lover intends cornes in the line optabis rnerito cum mafamulla viro "you will wish many evils on your husband" (Am. 1.4, 28).

If what the woman and her lover are plotting can be termed rnala, then surely this is no legitimate affair. Finally, when the lover anxiously thinks of his mistress and her husband spending the night together, he admits that she will probably have to give in to her husband's sexual demands because she will be izrre coacta - "coerced by the law"

(Am. 1.4,64). By this lïne, there can be no doubt that the woman is the legal wife, and not just a mistress, of the vir of line one.

There are many other bits in the Amores that betray Ovid's version of amor as being often adulterous. Amores 2.19, and its companion piece Amores 3.4 are both clear references to the seduction of married women. Amores 2.19 is impudently advising the husband more carefully to guard his wife in order not to make her too boringly accessible to her lover, and thus to diminish his interest in her. The word used for the woman is

U L.P. Wilkinson argues that the term vir can mean any reigning lover, but he agrees that in Corinna's case her vit must be "something very like a husband." L.P. Wilkinson, Ovid RecaIIed (Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press, 1959, p. 5 1. uxor (Am. 2.19,46), which certainly implies an officia1 marital relationship? Arnores

3.4, in which the lover changes his tune and tries to persuade the husband to relax his guard on his de,specificdiy uses the word adulteru to describe the desired woman

(Am. 3.4,29).

In the Ars Atnaforia, Ovid had specifically countered possible accusations that he was promoting adultery. Afier his invocation of Venus in the opening lines of Book 1, the praeceptor amoris cries ''Este procul," which was a ritual cry used by priests to order off unqualified persons fkom religious ~eremonies.~~Ovid's cry is directed at women who Wear vittae tenues - "slender fillets" and instita hnga - "the long flounce of a dress" which were both symbols of respectable Roman matrons (A. A. 1,31-2). Later, in Book 3 of the same work, he cIaims to be teaching the arts of love only to women quas pudor et leges et sua iura sinunt - "whom modesty and laws and their own rights permit" (A. A.,

3,58). These comments though, even if they did not draw suspicion to the very thing they deny, are belied by the adulteries in the Amores. Whether such writing could be said to incite modest women to follow his teachings is perhaps debatable, but clearly Ovid was guilty at least of the charge of tolerating adultery in his writing.

Finally, to take Ovid's statements in the Tristia as evidence of his real opinions about his love poetry is a very hcautious approach. The Tristia, as the name connotes, were written when Ovid was miserable; when he had been banished to a wretched exile

4s It is difficult ever to be certain of the meanings of the Latin names given to men and women. Tibullus' Delia had a coniunx, but is later shown not to have been properly marrie4 for she does not Wear the traditionai dress of a Roman matron, and is thus probably the man's concubine. Guy Lee, Tibullus Elegies, Inrroducrion, Taz,Translation and Notes (Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1982), pp. 14-5. 46 A.S. Hollis, "Comrnentary" fiom A.S. HoUis [ed.] Ovid: Ars Amutoria Book f (Oxford: the Clarendon fiom Rome. Ovid's love of Rome is manifest in his love poetry (one of the most common favourable qualities he applies to his pdae and their husbands is that they are urbanaeli and non rusticae/i"). His forced removal fiom civilization devastated him, and he could blame his love poetry, specifically his Ars Amatoria, for this intolerable punishment. When Ovid denounces his love poetry as worthless, and too trivial for anyone's S~~OUSnotice, why should we take this to be his genuine conviction?

If Ovid was writing about illicit loves, then, the idea that his motivations were not just fiivolous whims is Merenhanced. Ovid is not convincing when he claims to be innocent of Augustus' charge of immorality, and by his ironic play with passionate love has exposed his inherently fnvolous view of love and sexual relationships. It seems therefore that Augustus' charge that Ovid was deliberately writing sexually immoral poetry may not have been so far fiom the truth.

Press, 1977), p. 38. 47 Ovid uses the word cultus, in its various declensions, 13 times in the three books of his Amores, and the word rusticus 9 times. Chapter 4

The Debatable Nequitia Levis of Ovid

"Soon afrer the publication ofhis dictionary, Dr. Johnson had called on his friends Mrs. Digby and Mrs. Brooke and rhey paid him due compliments on the occasion. Among orher topics of praise. rhey very much commended the omission of dlnaughty words. 'Whar! My dears! Then you have been looking for rhem? ' said the moralist. The ladies. confùsed at being caughr. dropped the subject of the dicrionary- " - Henry Digby Beste, Personal and Literary Mernorials

The argument that Ovid may not have been as levis as he claimed is not a new one. Critics fiom widely varied backgrounds have criticized Ovid's Amores for their sexually immoral content, not the lest example of which was Augustus' relegation of the poet to the Black Sea. The near dearth of Ovidian scholarship that was notable in the 19* and early 20" centuries cannot be blamed only on a scholarly disapproval of Wvolity;

Ovid was specifically charged with imrnorality. Furthermore, Ovid's attitude to what he called amor has provoked considerable discornfort since the rise of ferninist scholarship in the 20" cenhiry. It is interesting that these different milieus, with their different moral codes, should nevertheless agree in their wish to focus on, and disapprove of, Ovid's morality. Furthermore, the existence of critics who also focus on Ovid's morality, but in their case to commend it, needs explmation. For not only did Ovid himself deny the charge, but there remains the undeniable fact that his attitude towards love, specifically, was highly regarded in the Middle Ages, and it vigorously informed the Courtly Love tradition. Finally, whik it might be assumed that the feminist awareness in Classical scholarship that identified Ovid's attitude towards love as disturbing nequitia should result in a near universal rejection of the pet, the opposite is surprisiogly the case. in fact, most of the feminist critics analyse the elements of Ovid's love poetry that contravene their ideas of sexual morality only to identify them as evidence for virtuously rnotivated satire.

These contradictory views both focus on Ovid's sexual morality; obviously if these views have any validity, Ovid cannot be described as levis. Yet fiom where does this desire to moralize Ovid corne? To understand this, a fidl examination of the opposing arguments must be made. This chapter will discuss the reasons why different groups with their different definitions of sexual moraiity - ranging fiom a dislike of the consequences of adultery, to a dislike of sexual objectification of people - should find it necessary to judge Ovid's morality.

It is clear that it was indeed the sexual immorality of the Ars Amatoria to which

Augustus took overt exception, even though the untold error was probably the more crucial reason for Ovid's exile. In the Tristia, Ovid tries to argue how unreasonable it is to accuse his poetry of king anything out of the ordinary, when bawdy, sexually arousing pictures existed on the walls of ordinary people's homes, including, possibly,

Augustus' palace. He clairns that in domibus vestris - "in your houses" are little tablets de picting concubitus varios venerisque figuras - "the di fferent sexual unions and erotic positions." Similarly it is unfair to punish him when "adulteries" were lawfùlly perfonned on stage: genus hoc scripti faciunt sua puma tuturn? - "do they make this kind of writing safe by its being on stage?" he wondea (Tr. 2,521-28).~~Thus Ovid's

own words, while they argue that it was hypocntical, conhthat there was apparent

opposition to the treatment of sexuality in the Ars Amatoria on the part of Augustus.

Ln stark contrast to the criticism of Ovid's love poetry by Augustus, however, is the sometimes wildly uncritical approach to his work in the Middle Ages. Beginning in the 12" century Ovid's works began to be used in schools; indeed, his works, ïncluding his love poetry, came to be considered essential to a liberal education. The 12¢ury has even been given the name aetas Ovidiana because of its devotion to Ovidian poetry."9

The Remedia Amoris, for example, was one of the texts fiequently used for the teaching of elementary grammar.50 What is interesting, though, is how blandly oblivious some medieval critics seemed to have been to the elements of Ovid's poetry that did not chime with medieval morality.

That the Amores and Ars Amatoria were actually used to uphold monastic morality is a little hard to believe. Nevertheless, Peter Abelard quotes fiom the Amores

48 1 am indebted to Molly Myerowitz's article "The Domestication of Desire: Ovid's Parva Tabella and the Theatre of Love" for pointing out this piece of evidence. Ovid's comment, Myerowitz argues, irnplies that the few such erotic pictures that have survived in Roman buildings, especially in Pompeii, were not unusual. Ovid's exact words, unfortunately, have become unclear, and it is not certain whether he claimed that parva tabella were in vesrris domibus or in nostris domibus. The question of whether Ovid was accusing Augustus of keeping them himself, or accusing himself and his fnends, as Myerowitz says, is not acnially important; either way, in order to defend his Ars Amatoria, he must have been comparing his poetry to a normal and unquestioned presence of erotic pictures. See Molly Myerowitz, "The Domestication of Desire: Ovid's Pana Tabella and the Theatre of Love" in Amy Richlin [ed.] Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1WS), pp. 131-57. 49 Franco Munari, Ovid im Mittelalter (Zurich, Stuttgart, 1960), p. 10, this section was translated by C. W. Grocock in his article "Ovid the Crusader," in Charles Martindate [ed.] Ovid Renewed: Ovidian Literature from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 55-69. 50 L.D. Reynolds [ed.],Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford: the Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 258-9. in a letter to Heloise: nifimur in vetihrm semper nrpimurque negato - "we always

struggle against prohibitions, and we desire those things denied" (3,4, 17). This

quotation is nestled amongst a quotation from St. Augustine, and several fiom the Bible,

and the interesting thing is that he was arguing for less strictness in monastenes in order

to promote virtue." When Ovid wrote the lines, the narrator was actually hoping to

induce a too-careful husband to relax his guard on his wife. "By guarding her, you will

make her less faiffil to you" the narrator in the poem claims, but, as usd, his intent,

should the husband be convinced, is to seduce the wife with greater ease. Abelard was

apparently using Ovid's words to support an opposite position fiom the one originally

implied.

A particdarly arnusing example of the medieval habit of disregardhg the context

of Ovid's verses cornes fiom the 13' century chronicle of James 1 of kagon.'' At an

assembly of the bishops and barons, in the Dorninican church at Aragon, wrote the king:

"1 rose and began by a text of Scripture." The words he recites, however, are a slightly

incorrect quotation fiom Ovid's Ars Amatoria: Non minor est virtus quaerere quam quae

sunt parta tueri, he says - "It is not less a vheto seek, than to guard those things which

have been a~~uired."'~King James was using, as he thought, the word of God to support

'' The Leirers ofAbelard and Heloise [transtated and with an introduction by Betty Radice] (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1974). p. 239. '' The Chronicle of James I, King ofAragon, Surnamed the Conqueror(Written by Himselli), Ttanslated from the Catalan by the Late John Potster, Esq., with an Historical Introduction, Notes, Appendix, Glossary and General index by Pascual de Gayangos, in two volumes (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd, 1883), p. 507. 1 am indebted to Edward Rand's Ovid and Hi&lnjluence (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, inc., 1963), p. 136 for pointing out this reference. 53 Ovid actually wrote: Nec nrinor est virtus, quam paerere, parta tueri - "Nor is it less a vunie to guard things that have been acquired, than to seek [them]." King James' inversion of the statement, however, does not seem to me to be particdarly important. It is his belief that he was quoting fiom the Bible that is interesting. his efforts to consolidate his conquests. In fact, however, it was only Ovid's mock

instructions for the seduction and keeping of a mistress to which King James appeaied for

ultimate authority.

In fact, scholars of the Middle Ages were notorious for their moralization of Ovid,

seeking hidden rneanings beneath the pleasant style of his writing." Presumably Ovid's

love poetry was not adrnired only by those medieval min& who misunderstood it; by

those who took his mock-serious maxims out of context to provide ahost any opinion

with authoritative support. Most of the monks and scholars who recopied Ovid's works

surely knew that they made no ciahto morality; nevertheless, through his fÎivolous

aphorisms about human nature, some Christians were able to kail Ovid as Master, and to

overlook the uncomfortably licentious elements of his poetry.

In the 19' century, conversely, Ovid could not so easily be praised. As has been

noted, W.Y. Sellars, speaking (in his opinion, at least) for the whole of contemporary

Classical scholarship, said in 1885 that Ovid's works were not much respected any

Ten years iater, these opinions are given a stronger turn by J. W. MacKail, in his

book Latin Literarure. in 1895, he refers to the Ars Amatoria as "the rnost immoral poem

ever ~ritten."'~According to one analysis, the 19~century's attitude towards Ovid was

that he was a sort of Roman Lord Byron, and thus, as was said of Byron, "mad, bad, and

'' Charles Martindale, "Introduction" in Charles Martindale [ed.] Uvid Renewed: Uwidian Literafure from the Middle Ages fo the Twenrierh Century (Cambridge: the Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 8-9. 55 W. Y. Sellars, "Ovid in Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionas, ofArts, Sciences, and General Lireratrire, Ninth Edition, Volume XVIIl (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, MDCCCLXXXV f 1885]), p. 83. 56 J. W. MacKail, Latin Literature (London: John Murray, 1906), p. 139. dangerous to kno~."~'Fuithemon, Byron's poem Don Juan not only referred to Ovid as a rake, but it is argued that the rake Don Juan himself was based on Byron's perception of Ovid' s character." Ovid was obviously seen as sexually immoral.

Fwthermore, these contrastiing cnticisms that spanned the centuries fiom Ovid's time to the 19& century have been since reiterated, to some extent, in the 20~century.

Feminist critics have looked at Ovid's love poetry and veered fiom apologetic excuses to

£hmcondemnation of his poetry as sexuaily immoral. This is especialiy interesting, since what is deemed sexually immoral in the tomcentury is, at first glance, quite different fkom what was disapproved of by earlier critics. The difference, however, is less than the similarity. While Victorian morality may have fkowned upon Ovid for apparently having no other motive in his writing than unrepentant libertinage, a feminist consciousness in modem Classical scholarship also fhds it difficult to view with equanimity Ovid's total disregard for the well-king of bis lovers' sexual objects. Both groups show a discornfort with Ovid's exclusive and absorbing emphasis on his lovers' sexual activities, as did

Augustus, in his &y. It is useful to discover what justification they may or may not have had.

There are two reasons why such accusations of sexual immorality might be dismissed as untenable. One reason is the relative lack of obscene or overly physical

'' Norman Vance, "Ovid and the Nineteenth Century," in Charles Martindale [ed.] Ovid Renewed: Ovidian Lirerarure frorn rhe Middle Ages to the Twenrieth Century (Cambridge: the Cambridge University Press, l988), p. 2 1 7. 58 Vance, p. 2 17-8. vocabulary in Ovid's love poetry, for without these obvious verbal cues, it is less easy to

see why anyone should consider the poetry risqué or dangerous to public The other reason is more all-encompassing: it is the idea, first suggested by Ovid himself, that

his narrator is separate fiom the pet, and thus the narrator's activities cannot be said to be promoted or even approved of by the pet. While these reasons go some way to explain why many readers of Ovid's elegies do not find them sexually immoral, they nevertheless do not wholly disprove the arguments on the other side.

An analysis which posits the following hypothesis has ken undertaken: if, taking the literal view, Ovid's love poetry were dangerous pornography, one might expect its vocabulary to be more obscene than works by other poets of the same era. This is not, however, the case. Quantification of the incidence of obscene words (identified as obscene in J. N. Adams' The Latin Sexucil ~ocabu1at-y~~in Ovid and the other main

Augustan poets, reveals Ovid's love poetry as similar to Tibullus, Propertius and Vergil.

Catullus, by contrast, far outstrips any of these pets in the use and fiequency of obscene words [see Figure 11.

According to Adams, the most comrnon obscene Latin words are mentula, verpa, cunnus, futuo. pedico. irrumo. andfel~o.~'Catullus uses al1 of these words, but the other

Augustan poets rarely use them, and Ovid's Amores and Ars Amatoria are singularly fiee of them. As a control, the Carmina Priapea, that body of poetry written in honor of the

59 1 am indebted for this idea to Amy Richlin, The Garden ofPriapus: SexuaIify and Aggression in Roman Humour (New York: Oxford University Ress, 1992). 60 J.N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulaty (Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), p. 7. 61 The words coleus, ceveo and criso are also mentioned by Adams as common Latin obscenities, but phailic god Priapus, who guarded Roman gardens against thieves, should give a standard

for obscenity in poetry. Similady, the 1" century AD poet Martial, well known for his

obscenity, will show how obscene Roman poetry could become.

Figure 1. Occurrences of certain Latin sexual vocabulary in some Roman poets

annus fello fùnro irrumo mentula pedico Carmina 7 O 6 5 25 6 Priapea Martiai 19 10 26 5 23 10 Cahillus 1 1 3 10 8 4

Horace 2 O 1 O O O

Tibullus O O O O O O

Propertius O O O O O O

Vergil O O O O O O

Ovid s O O O O O O A mores OvidSArs O O O O O O Am.

Figure 1 shows that Tibullus, Propertius, Vergil and Ovid, in his Arnores and Ars

Amaforia, use none of the cornmon Latin obscenities. Catullus, on the other hand, uses obscene words that are normal only in the Carmina Priapea and in Martial.

A second line of inquhy related to this is the preference for particular synonyms.

An interesting exarnple in word choice is the occurrence of three synonyms for "kiss": osculum, basium and savium (or suavium). Servius, in his commentary on Vergil, discusses the different meanings. He says that "osculum should be used in a religious, or these did not appear in my list of authors with enough regularity to warrant inclusion in the table. worshipphg sense, while savium should be used in a pleaswable sense" and he then

States that "it is said that an osculurn is given to one's sons, a basium to one's wife, and a savium to a prostitute.''62 There is some debate over the accuracy of these dennitions, but there is etymological evidence for a similar dierentiation: basium is thought to be related to the verb badare, which means "to gape," and thus the word basium properly means "an opening of the rn~uth."~~This is in contrast with osculum, which is, of course. a diminutive of the word os. oris;@it bas the sense of "making a linle mouth" or "purring the lips." 1s it too much to suggest that basium is a Memore physically explicit a term than oscirlurn? Catullus very likely introduced the use of the word basium to Roman poetry, and it has been argued that it was a local dialect word fiom his native Verona; nevertheless, he mut have had some reason to prefer it to osculum, which he used only a fifth as often [see Figure 21. The word is not used much after him, until nearly a century later, when Martial (author of notably obscene verses) uses it, nearly 4 times as much as he uses osculum. Suvium (or the later fom suavium), like basium, is similarly a reference to an opening of the mouth." Catuilus uses smium 7 times in his extant works, and of the main poets of the Augustan age, only Horace uses it at all, and only once at that.

The use of the word osculum, however, is clearly unexceptional, as it is the preferred word of Propertius, Tibullus and Vergil, who use no other synonyms. Since

Ovid also uses osculum exclusively, he is, at least in his descriptions of kisses, more

'' Servius, Commentaty on Vergil 's Aeneid (Perseus Project, Tufis University, http:l/www.~erseus.~fts-edu/lserv. verg. a. 1.256. 63 T.G,Tucker, A Concise Eiymological Dicrionas, of Latin (Halle (Saale):Max Niemeyer Verlag, 193 1 ), p. 32. 61 T.G.Tucker, p. 176. 65 T.G.Tucker, p. 214. closely allied to the unquestionably respectable Vergil, Tibullus and Propertius, and is far exceeded in open sexuality by Catullus.

Figure 2. Occurrences of the synonyms mculurn. bariurn and smium (suuvium) in some Roman poets

1 Horace O 2 1

1 I 1 Tibullus 1 O 18 O

1 1 1 Vergil 10 15 (O

Ovid 's O 16 O Amores OvidS Ars O 10 O 1 Am. 1 1 1

It can be argued that the use of obscenities and wlgar language was reserved for invective and abuse; since Ovid's love poetry was intended to be erotic rather than abusive, it is therefore to be expected that he would use demure language. That argument does not hold, however, for there is evidence that the use of obscene words was regarded by the Romans as sexually stimulating. Indeed, Ovid's Amores 3.7, in which the narrator self-mockingly describes an incidence of unwonted impotence, also describes the efforts of the woman to arouse him. Et mihi blanditias durit dominumque vocuvit, / et quae praeterea publica verba iuvmt. (Am. 3. 7,7-12) - "And she has spoken flatteries to me, and called me master, / And besides, she said those helpfùl vulgar words." It is obvious that the woman is trying to arow the impotent pet by ushg obscene words. There is a similar example in the Ars Arnatoria: Et es aequo res [Le. res veneris] iwet illo duos./ Nec blandae voces iucundaque murmura cessent./ Nec taceant rnediis improba verba iocis - "And let that act of love delight both, nor let the flattering voice and pleasant murmurs cease, nor let the shamefbl words be silent in the rnidst of the fût?' (A. A. 3.794-

6). Martial and Juvenai also refer to the importance of words as an accompanirnent to intercourse.66

Ovid's near total lack of obscenities, then, is significant in the face of an accusation of sexual immorality. The poetry does not, on the surface, sound like he was trying to incite his readers to illicit sexual activity. It is, perhaps, for this reason that some medieval readers were apparently able to ignore, or at least overlook, Ovid's erotic subject. It is also this absence of literal cues that has made femuiist criticism so complicated and contradictory.

The other important way in which readers of the elegies argue that Ovid did not intent to flout Augustus' adultery laws lies in the concept of separation of the poetic narrator fiom the poet's person. This solution to the problem was originally supplied by

Ovid himself, and it is, in essence, a variation on the "pure comedy" argument; on the idea that Ovid's elegies are too levis to be taken senously. The argument, however, will prove to be insufficient, leaving Ovid's elegies under the charge of immorality.

66 J.N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), p. 7. In Tristiu, book 2, Ovid mehis desperate appeal to Augustus, trying to convince the emperor to relent and to recall Ovid back fiom his miserable exile. Part of

Ovid's plea twk the form of explainhg that the poetry for which he had been banished was not deserving of such a heavy penalty, it king merely levis and trivial, and not even very good. However, he also tried to convince Augustus that if his poetry can be called licentious, he himself, at least, has led a pure life. Deme mihi studium. vitae quoque crimina demes he says - "Remove my work, and you also remove the crime fiom my life" (Tr. 2,9), which suggests that Ovid is backtracking hurriedly to dissociate himself fiom his poetry. Further on in Book 2 comes an even clearer dissociation:

Crede mihi, distant mores a carmine nostro- Vita verecunda est, Musa iocosa mea- Magnague pars men& operum est etfita rneorwm: Plus sibi permisit cornpusitare suo (Tr. 2, 353-6)

"Believe me, my habits are different fiom my Song - my life is modest, and my muse is a joke - and a great part of my work is feigned and made-up: The poetry permits itself more than its author does."

Thus Ovid is saying that he is not the same as his narrator; he is not the praeceplor amoris in the Ars Amatoria, nor is he the amator in the Amores. When the poetic narrator expresses an inappropriate opinion, then, or takes delight in something undelightful, it is not necessady evidence for the blackness of Ovid's character, or so

Ovid tries to explain.

Ovidian scholar Sarah Mack has made the best case for this defence of Ovid.

Mack describes the Amores as a joke fiom start to finish (not so unexpected afier Ovid's claims in the Tristia); at any point where we, the readers, may begin to take Ovid (or his narrator) seriously, Mack argues that we have just fallen for a perfect and subtle joke.

Essential to this approach is the clear separation of poet and narrator, and thus Mack

takes seriously Ovid's assurance that he and his poetry are very different (Tr. 2,353).

She says that the reader should "enjoy the different poses Ovid tries on in his Amores

without king worried about whether he is 'since~e'.''~~

Accordingly, Mack suggests that Ovid used (and possibly invented) the device of

the b'unreliable namator."" The apparent cynicism of the amotor in the Amores, whereby

he flits fiom one pose to another, with no consistency among hem, is therefore Ovid's

running joke. For example, the contradiction between his protestations of love for

Corinna in Amores 2.1 1 and 2.12 (in the fkst one he expresses fearfiil anxiety when

Corinna leaves on a dangerous ship voyage, in the second he rejoices that she sits on his

lap), and his attempt, in Amores 3.2, to seduce another woman, are, Mack argues,

deliberately contrasted in order to undermine the reades' e~~ectations.~~

Mack extends this interpretation even to the most disturbing poems of the

Amores. In Amores 1.7, in which Ovid bewails his "mad hands" for having struck his

mistress, the self-castigating rhetoric of the opening lines seem genuinely remorsefiil.

The ending, however, undercuts the narrator's remorseful outpourings of grief: neve mei sceleris fam trisfiasigna supersint, /pone recompositas in statione comas! he cries - "At

least so that sad traces of my crime do not survive, put your rearranged hair in place"

(Am. 1.7,67-8). Mack takes this ending to mean that the entire episode is a joke. If to

67 Sara Mack, &id, (New Haven and Lmdon: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 5 68 Mack, p. 58-9. 69 Mack, p. 59 rearrange her hair will hide the signs of the narrator's violence, Mack's essential argument goes, then the entirety of that violence can only have been to the hair. "The whole apology has been a pose - an epicizing of a typical elegiac lover's quarrel", Mack conclu de^.'^

Mack's argument codd even be extended to include literary parody as Ovid's motive in joking about this abusive situation, which ought to make it more laughable, and less disturbing. The presence of the violence in Amores 1.7 can be better viewed in the context of another poem that is not included in Mack's analysis: Tibullus' 10" Elegy.

Tibullus' poem is about the superiority of peace over war. Amidst the image of idyllic peace, the poem depicts a drunken nuticus coming home fiom the market, who starts an argument with his wife, and then strikes her. She weeps "bruised on her tender cheeks" and then he weeps, remorsefùl at the violence of his "mad hands." The narrator of the poem then asserts that a man who could strike a woman would be capable of tearing the gods dom fiom Heaven. "Let it be enough," he says, "to have tom the garments fiom her limbs, and to have disarranged her hair" (57-63).

Tibullus' poem provides the motif of violence in Ovid's poem: he was taking up

Tibullus' strange mixture of rustic peace and domestic violence, and he put it to his own use. The analogies between both elegies are intriguing: the narrator of Amores 1.7 is also bewailing his "mad hands" while the woman weeps at being struck (4). The narrator exclairns, like Tibullus' narrator, that if he was capable of this outrage, he would be equally capable of "bearing savage blows against the gods" (6). Finally, where Tibullus

70 Mack, p. 60. suggests that tearing her hair would have ken ewugb, Ovid implies that his narrator took Tibullus' suggestion to heart when he felt the urge to intimidate his mistress - he claims that if his mistress will only neaten her hair, al1 evidence of his violence will be erased.

A similar argument in defence of Ovid's joke bas been put forth by E. our ri ne^.^'

The assumption seems to be that if Ovid's callousness can be traced back to other literary sources, then it is more forgivable. Courtney describes Menander's 'Pam~@~vqas containhg a scene involving a soldier and girl both in tears derhe has jealously cut off her hair. in the second mime of Herodas, Courtney notes, "the pander Batterus is prosecuting Thales for assaulting Myrtale, one of his girls," for having tom out her hair.

It is, however, not the hair on her head, but her axillary and pubic hais that has suffered this assault, and this situation, Courtney argues, was intended as an obscene parody of

Menander's scene. These analyses can support Mack's trivialization of Ovid's bmtality as a mere joke; the implied violence towards his mistress was simply the necessary background to his literary parodies.

The Cypassis poems are, accordhg to Mack, just "more rhetorical tri~ker~."~'

Amores 2.7 shows the lover hotly defending hirnself fiom the charge of having betrayed his rnistress by sleeping with her slave. The lover goes to supercilious lengths to deny any attraction to a sordidn confernptae sortis arnica - "a base girlfnend of despised lot,"

(Am. 2.7,20) who has ferga... verbere secfa- whose "back has been cut with the whip"

71 E. Courtney, "Some Literary Jokes in Ovid's Amores," in Vir Bonus Dicendi Peritus: Srudies in honor of Otto Skutsch (London: 1988), pp. 18-23. '' Mack, p. 60 (22)' but in the next poem he shows his defence was completely spurious. Amores 2.8

has the lover address Cypassis, the slave herself, asking quisfuit inter nos sociati

corporis index - "Who was the informer to Corinna about ourelationship?" (Am. 2.8,s).

It becomes clear that Cypassis had been present during the interchange between the

mistress and the lover, had heard what the lover said about her unworthiness to be his

arnica, king a despicable slave, and now the lover must convince Cypassis that he did

not mean it. "We have been played for fmls," Mack daims, by the contradiction

between the two "sincere" protestations of love.73 The lover ends his reassurances to

Cypassis with an offer to prove that he does not consider himself to be above having sex

with her. When it is implied in the poem that she is not about to comply with the lover's desires, he blackmails her with the threat of telling al1 to Corinna, thus gamering poor

Cypassis a beating fiom her jealous mistress. By feeling natural disgust at the lover's pexfidy, however, the reader is just "falling hto the pet's trap," Mack ~a~s.'~The whole scenario is a fiction, in this view, designed hilariously to lead us on until the outrageousness of the story brings us to a realization that it is not real.

In accord with Sara Mack are John Barsby and Joan Booth, two well-known commentators on the Amores. Booth describes the two Cypassis poems as "scandalously comic" and explains that Ovid is creating jokes by his ingenious adaptations, variations and inversions of stock rn~tifs.~'Barsby argues that the Amores are a product of the poet's persona1 emotion, thus questions of morality, sincerity and autobiography are

'3 Mack, p. 61 74 Mack, p. 6 1. '' Joan Booth, "Introduction" to Joan Booth [editor, translater, cornmentator] &id, The Second Book of the Amores (Warminster, England: Aris & Phiiiips Ltd. 1991), p. 9. "unimportant or irre~evant."'~Barsby argues that Ovid was mocking, more than anything else, the persona of his own Thus he also explains the violence of Amores 1.7 as puely a joke: "the unexpected ending," he explains, 'bdercuts the apparent seriousness of what has gone before."'* When Ovid expresses opinions through his amoror, so this argument goes, which are unpleasant to the critic's sense of morality, it is just another example of Ovid laughing at his despicable narrator.

This approach to Ovid's Amores too simple. It depends for its support on the idea that anything, if told with a wink or a nudge in the ribs of the reader (metaphorically speaking) is an innocent jest. Yet this is clearly too naïve a perspective on humour.

When a joke takes, as its theme, a subject that is usually associated with anger or unhappiness, the joke must be either mocking people who feel anger or unhappiness at the subject in question (in which case its humour is callous) or else it is mocking people who have no respect for the anger and unhappiness felt by most people. The interpretation of Ovid's Amores that assumes they are pure comedy cannot avoid the implication that the comedy is cnielly callous.

These two attempts at Ovid's moral defence, then, have proved rather that his elegies are subtle rather than that they are innocent. The absence of overly physical or obscene language absolves them of being considered clumsy and vulgar, but who would ever have accused Ovid of clurnsiness or vulgarity? The other argument, that Ovid was only jokuig and that he meant none of what he wrote so that anyone who is shocked by

76 John Barsby, fiid, in Greece and Rome: New Surveys in the Clarsics, Number 12 (Oxford: the Clarendon Press, I978), p. 7 77 Barsby, p. 8 his images bas been made a fool by Ovid's supenor wit, is so vague that is could be applied to anything: it is therefore ineffectual. Ovid still stands accused of immorality. Chapter 5

Ovid the Satirist

"Ir is the nature of an hypothesiï, when once a man has conceived ir, rhat it assimiiates everything fo irselfl as proper nouriirhmenr; and, fiom the fist moment ofyour begetting if, it generaiiy grows the srronger by everyfhingyou see, hem, read or understand. This is of great use. " - Laurence Sterne, The Lve and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Book II, Cbapter xix

The most interesthg defence of Ovid has come fiom the reiatively new sphere of feminist scholarship. The defence relies on accepting and even exposing the evidence for

Ovid's nequifia, in order to use this evidence to argue that Ovid was writing morally educative satire. The leap in logic necessary for making this argument is substantial, as this chapter will show; yet among feminist Ovidian scholars this approach is apparently quite popular. The explanation for this lies in the previously noted absence in Ovid's love-elegies of prirnary obscenities and vulgar language, and in his levis and charming style of writing: Ovid is fun to read, so how can he be bad? Furthexmore, the idea of the separation of poet and narrator is essential to this view. The following survey of some of these arguments will show how this particular branch of criticism convincingly highlights the imrnorality and cruelty inherent in Ovid's love poetry. They prove to be entirely unconvincing however in their attempts to argue that Ovid was satirizing the phenornena he describes.

Mary-Kay Gamel bas encapsulated this argument when she expressed her regret that Ovid's work tended to be viewed only as literary, and she suggested that this was an unfortunate result of conflating Ovid with his literary persona.79 The fact that, in his love poetry, Ovid's narrator calls his poeây levis should not, in Garnel's opinion, be taken too seriously. Instead, Ovid's earnest assertion in the Tristia that his own life was quite modest, though his Muse was playfui - vita verecunda est, Musa iocosa mea (Tr. 2,354) should, Gamel argues, be taken as Ovid's real story. "The narrative persona of Ovid's works", Gamel claims, "are carefiilly shaped creations whose ideas must constantly be questioned."80 Thus what other cntics may find distastehl in Ovid's Amores is actually a deliberate move on the part of Ovid to show that erotic love is a potentially destructive force, and is incapable of king kept within boundaries.'' 'Qvid shows the connections between sexual eros and the eros of power,"82 Gamel argues, and Ovid's awareness of the potential violence inherent in love, she somehow concludes, is evidence for his intention to satirize the self-deceptive naïveté of those who view love as idyllic.

Ellen Greene, in her article "Sexual Politics in Ovid's Amores 3.4, 3.8, and 3.12", argues strongly for the position that Ovid's images of the mock servus amoris, and the ofien outrageous behaviour of the lover, are actually intended to counteract such phenornena in real Iife. Ovid, she writes, provokes the reader "into a gradua1 uneasiness at the consequences of domination," and thus causes one to question a society that condones the conquest and deception of ~ornen.*~

To argue her point, Greene focuses on the third book of the Amores, in which, she

------

79 M.-K.Gamel, "Introduction" in Helias 1985 (p.4) 80 GameI, p. 4 " Gamel, p. 5 '' Gamel, p. 5 " Ellen Green, "Sexual Politics in Ovid's Amores 3.4, 3.8, and 3.1 2" p. 345. says, Ovidian amor is made to be clearly mercantilist in its depiction. In this way, Ovid betrays the idea that the elegiac lover is in any way a moral ided in Roman society. The three poems on which Greene focuses ail deal with adultery. The deceptioa inherent in adultery, however, is augmented in Ovid's poems by the lover's deceitful approach to it.

Amores 3.4 begins with the lover scolding the strict husband of a desirabie woman. Inposito teneme custode puellue/ ni1 agis - "you accomplish noîhhg by your sîrict guard" (Am. 3.4, 1-2), the lover says, because, Iike a horse who rages against his fetters, but is quiet when unrestrained, so a wife will only think adulterous thoughts if she is made powerless to act upon them. If, however, she is free to act, she will no longer wish to. The lover puts forward the story of Danae as an example of a watched woman who nevertheless was seduced by Jupiter: quaefirerat virgo tradita, mater erat - "she who was dragged into [the stone tower] a virgin, became a mother" Amores 3.4, 22). As an example of the unguarded wife who nevertheless remained faithful to her husband, the lover suggests Penelope (23).

The poem goes on in a simiiar vein, explainhg to the husband that a man will only desire a woman if she is difficult to obtain. Line 37, however, alters the argument, and the lover sudderd y calls any husband who guards his wife's chastity rusticus and notos mores non satis urbis habet - "boorish, and not having enough city habits" (37-8).

After ail, the lover says, many famous mythological characters were born out of wedlock,

Romulus and Remus king fine examples (39). He even implies that to object to illicit affairs is unpatriotic for this reason.

The third argument, which occurs in lines 4 1-42, takes yet another tack: quo tibi formosam,si non nisi casta placebat? /non possunt uffisista cuire modis - 'tvhy did you

marry a beautifid wife, if none but a chaste one would ptease you? For the two

characteristics cannot go together." The lover, by this tirne, has abandoned his original

argument completely, and appeals only to the husband's desire to appear sophisticated.

The final argument appeals to the husbanà's greed: if he will let his wife have as

many lovers as she chooses, he will be pleasantly relieved of the necessity of buying his

wife gifts, and quae non dederis, mulra videre domi - "he will see many gifts at home

which he will not have bought"(48).

As Greene points out, even the first argument is suspect in the light of Amores

2.19, in which the lover actually begs the husband to spark his jaded interest once more

by making access to his wife less easy. Greene, however, stresses that the contradictory, and thus deceitful, nature of the arguments in 3.4 are a deliberate attempt by Ovid to show (and deplore) the fact that love &airs are not only conducted by means of deceit, but that the amator's very love is itself inspired by deceit.

The fact that the lover is discussing the woman's chastity with her husband also shows a very mercantilist approach to love. Ovid's use of mythological exempla to support his arguments, according to Greene, shows that Ovid was making a disparaging comment on the whole basis of his society. The references to Rome's founders, and the idea that Rome itself is founded on adultery, suggests, Greene argues, that Ovid was pointing out the link between "male sexual dominance and the assertion of political control and aggression."" Essential ta her argument is, of couse, the idea that Ovid, in

his description of this element of society, was disturbed by it.

Amores 3.8 depicts the amator expressing outrage that bis mistress should be

influenced by wealth. However, the moral disgust with his commercially-rninded

mistress fades when he realizes that such preaching is having no effect, and that she is

still going to prefer the rich soldier, however bloodstained, to a poor pet. The

realization causes the lover to abandon his high-toned morals with apparently little

struggle, and he makes it clear that it was only the fact that he could not afTord the price

that caused him to bewail her greed. Jupiter, ironically the most important Roman deity

whilst undeniably a cheating and unjust mythological character, is used by the lover of

Amores 3.8 to support a moral argument: buying a woman's favours can not be wrong when Jupiter himself became the price that paid for Danae's seduction.

Greene argues that Ovid's use of Jupiter to stand for the ideal lover, with Jupiter's history of violence and deception, is yet another method of exposhg the sad fact of

Roman society: that "at the end.. . everyone is out for profit."85

A Merexposé of the commercialization of love cornes, Greene argues, in

Amores 3.12, when the amator admits that he has prostituted his mistress for the sake of literary farne. The poem begins with a complaint that, by his poetry which has praised the charms of his mistress, she has become publicly known as a desirable woman. As

Greene argues, the complaint is inherently cynical, since the reason that the woman is "on

8.8 Greene, 347. 85 Greene, p. 348. the market" is because Ovid has put her there so as to profit in ternis of literary farne.

Ovid admits this, and, Greene argues, he is thereby consciously accusing the traditional

elegiac lover of doing the same. That is to Say, that the servur amoris has always been a

subterfuge, and that indeed everyone, especially the much praised elegiac lover, is out for his own profit at the expense of women. Greene writes: "by having his amator openly

identiwing the elegiac mistress as materia, Ovid points to an objectification of women and exploitation of the female that is inherent not only in the elegiac enterprise but in the nature of arnatory relations in general."86

Greene concludes by contrasting the pre-Ovidian Roman poets, who also criticized the growing commercial spirit in Roman society, with Ovid's approach.

Greene argues that other Roman poets have held up the "erotic and imaginative life" as a

"moral refuge fiom the degradation of the extenor world," but that Ovid shows this

"moral refuge" to be nothing of the sort. Instead, the traditional idea of amor only

"reiterates the mercantiiist and imperialistic values" in Roman society. Thus in his exposé of the false ideals inherent in elegiac amor, Ovid shows a "deep cornmitment to the moral responsibility of the pet to show the cruelty and inhumanity perpetrated in the narne of culture, in the name of ~mor."~'Like Gamel, however, Greene has failed to prove her basic argument, for awareness of an evil does not necessarily connote disapproval. Ovid to al1 appearances seems rather to reve1 in his heartlessness.

Leslie Cahoon has promoted Merthe argument that Ovid was trying to

86 Greene, 350. Greene, 350. counteract Roman saciety's decadence when he wrote the mores." Cahoon examined

each of the three programmatic poems of the Arnores, 1.1,2.1 and 3.1, and she argued

that they show a clear progression of ideas.

The recusatio of Amores 1.1, Cahoon argues, is more than just a cornic parody of

poetic inspiration. AAer Cupid forcibly imposes elegiac couplets on Ovid's epic

beginning, the narrator cries out in protest that Cupid has too much power (a typically

elegiac cornplaint), but then abruptly he points out that he is not, in fact, in love. Cupid

remedies the situation with his bow, but although this leaves the narrator buming with

passion, the poem ends without supplying anyone as its object. Cahoon argues that this is

not just a joke. "Whereas the loves of the earlier elegists drove them to write elegies,"

she writes, "Ovid's elegies precede, and, in fact, engender love."89 By this, Ovid is

deliberately suggesting that elegy itself generates a contagious, undirected passion.

Amores 2.1, Cahoon argues, takes further the deliberate, playfil self-deception

implied by Amores 1.1, and twns it outward onto others. It is less playful, for Ovid

identifies himself as nequitiae ... poeta meae - "a poet of my own wickedness"(2.1,2), thus passing explicit moral judgement on his own work, according to Cahoon. The narrator argues that love still commands him to write elegy, but now the poem is aimed at corrupting the innocent (the virgo and dispuer of lines 5-6) and teaching hem to turn their genuine feelings into the "calculating and manipulative garne9' of Ovidian love?

Amores 2.1 repeats the recusatio of 1.1 with the narrator's daim that ausw erarn,

- - - - 88 Leslie Cahoon, "A Program for Betrayal: Ovidian Nequiria in Amores 1 .l,2.1 and 3.1 ," 89 Cahoon, "A Program for Betraya1,"p. 29-30. memini, caelesfia dicere belh (Am. 2.1, 1 1) - he had dared to tell of heavenly battles and of the gigantomachy, but he has again had to return to arnorous elegies at the comrnand of Love (hoc quoque iursit Arnor, line 3). In the middle of his epic scene. with Jupiter ready to hurl his thunderbolt, claurir amicafores - "the girlfiiend closed her doon" (17), and in order to convince her to open them again, Ovid must write her more elegies.

Carminibus cessere fores - '%th songs doors have yielded" (27), Ovid asserts, as regards the usefüiness of epic:

Quid mihi profUerif velox canfuîusAchilles quid pro me Atrides aller et alter agent. quique tot errado, quot bello, perdidir annos, raptus et Haemoniis jlebiiis Hector equis ? (Am. 2.1,29-3 2)

"How will it have profited me to have sung of swift Achilles? What will the Atrides, the one and the other, do for me, And he who lost as many years in wandering as he did in war, And pitiable Hector, taken by the Haemonian horses?"

Instead, by praising the face of a tender girl, she will corne as a reward for the poet's Song (34).

Again, Cahoon argues that to cal1 this poem simply a "facetious form of the traditional recusatio is too naïveY9' Cahoon suggests that the contrast between "distant, mythological caelestia bella and human loves is a deliberate contrast between "distant, mythological, Greek and divine" subjects and the "daily, contemprary Roman and human realities" of the ~rnores.~~He is thus implying that, while they are of a lower order, hurnan loves are more immediately useful and specifically more practical to Ovid

90 Cahoon, "A Program for Betrayaî,"p. 30. 91 Cahoon, ''A Program for Betrayai,llp. 3 1. 92 Cahoon, 'A Program for Betrayd,"p. 3 1. himself, since his reason for abaadoning epic in this poem is because it has lost him access to his arnica. Ovid's teason for resurning the writing of elegies is no Longer an impertinent incarnation of the god Cupid, but the necessities of Amor - he needs to flatter his mistress with elegies before she will give him access to her bed. The Wvolous self- deception of elegy in Amores 1.1 has been succeeded, according to Cahoon, by a more serious deception of others as described in Arnores 2.1

Amores 3.1 yet again pits the ments of epic against those of elegy, although the epic themes are here represented by the goddess Trugoedia. The poet is wandering in a shady grove, wondering with what work he should employ his talents, when seductively attractive Elegia, the goddess of elegies, comes (as Corinna venir in Am. 1S), gracefully limping with her elegiacally unequal feet. Tmgoedia, by contrast, comes with grim brow and berates the pet for wasting his time with elegies. His nequitiae have made him a laughing stock throughout the city, and yet he feels no shame. "Now let me, Roman

Tragoedia, have a name through yoy" she ends (3.1,29).

In response to Tragoedia's argument, Elegia ''srniles with her slanting eyes" and

Ovid thinks she even has Venus by her side (33-4). She mocks Tragoedia's gravity, and the fact that she has, despite her seriousness, stooped to plead her cause in Elegia's uneven couplets. Elegia agrees that she is levis, and says that she is a bawd,lhat she is able to open doors by her flatteries, and she is able to deceive custodes and oppressfides

(49-50). Ovid, seduced by Elegia's flatteries, begs Tragoedia to wait until he has dallied longer with 'Yhe conquering name of love" (65). "You are the etemal labour" (68), Ovid tells Tragoedia, and, presumably flattered by Ovid's tribute, she allows him to continue his writing of elegy.

In this poem, Cahoon argues, Ovid shows even more how shameful his elegies

are. Tragwdia, next to the smiling Elegia, appears as "a ranting, moraiizing shrew" but

her accusations are perfectly justified. Cahoon points out that Tragoedia's charge that he

is a fabula implies not just that he is the subject of cornmon talc, but that his love is a fiction, a fantasy that he has aiiowed to "shape his thought and to direct his experience" so that his existence is hollow and separate nom realit~~'~in the speech of Elegia, Ovid lets her betray herself as king exactly as Tragoedia accused her, and more. She is levis and shameless, and she has the audacity to cla.i.cnthat Venus would be a country bumpkin without elegies to help her; without Ekgia to act as a lem to promote her. By her words,

Cahoon argues, Elegia identifies herself as the one to tuni simple rustic love into a sophisticated Roman game of deception and betrayal, which essentially "tears at the social fabrkWg4

ïhe three initial pwms of Books 1,2, and 3 of the Amores, Cahoon argues, progress fiom a literary game of self-deception, to a less innocent tool for the seduction and exploitation of virgins and boys, and finally to an unabashed corruption of a whole society. The poems are three different, yet related remationes, and together they reject the war and empires of Roman historical epic (1. l), the gods and myths of Homeric mythological epic (2. l), and the gravitas of Tragedy (3.1). Implicitly, however, Cahoon argues that the recusationes are, in fact, a rejection of Ovid's own trivialization of human suffering, and thus form a rejection of his literary persona of poet-lover. By the complete

93 Cahoon, "A hogram for Betraya1,"p. 35 absence of pu&, Ovid has, supposedly inadvertently, exposed the shamefbi nature of his love; Cahoon argues that it is not inadverteut. "Ovid's real interest," she writes, "is not in suffering for its own sake, but in the insensitivities and cruelties that bring it about."95

By exposing the decadence of elegy and amor, even though he does so without apparent disparagement of it, Cahoon argues that Ovid causes the reader fbst to laugh, but then to examine the attitudes which cause the laughter. Ultimately, she argues, Ovid's "poetry of disenchantment" attempts to counteract the decadence and the "disintegration of love" that he saw in his society?

This argument for Ovid as a satirist cm be taken even farther. Cahoon's arguments up to this point have tried to show that OvidTsuse of what she identifies as sexually immoral material was a deliberate aîtempt to express his disapproval of his purported subject. ui a later article, however, Cahwa actually clairns Ovid for her praeceptor of femini~rn.~'Cahwn's primary ahis to defend the utility of male- authored texts in the study of women, but Ovid's works seem to her to be especially usehl in this respect. "It was through Ovid that 1 becarne a feminist at all," she rit es.^^

Not, as one might expect, by reaction to his unfeminist views, but because she saw in him

'?tender, humane, sweet and moral qualities."99 She deplores those critics who see only

"wit, craft, game, cruelty and superîïciality" in Ovid, and who deny "the real love so

94 Cahoon, "A Program for Betrayai,"p. 38 95 Cahoon, "A Program for Beûayai,*'p. 38 % Cahoon, "A Program for Betraya1,"p 38. '' Leslie Cahoon, "Let the Muse Sing On: Pwûy, Cnticism, Feminism and the Case of Oviâ" in Hefios vol. 17, no. 2, 1990, pp. 197-2 f 1. 98 Cahoon, "Let the Muse Sing On," p. 198 99 Cahoon, "Let the Muse Sing On," p. 200 clearly implied.. . by al1 the black Ovidian travesties of love."100 Cahmn thinLs that

Ovid's superficiality and heartlessness ought to be compared with Swift's Modesr

Proposal, since, as the atrociousness of the latter has the effect of making "one yeam to

Save [the babies],"'*' so Ovid's poetry is deliberately intended to bring about a feminist

awareness in its readers.

Cahoon does have arguments with which she tries to defend her statements; she argues that Ovid's stories of male oppression of women have educative and ethical

results. Ceres' grief at the rape of her daughter causes the earth to die, Tereus' rape and torture of Philomela results in a similar destruction of matemal nurturing (the murder of

Tereus' son Itys by the boy's own mother). "Wherever men hurt women, women's nurturing breaks down; .. . wherever women's nurturllig breaks down, children suffer and die, and we al1 go hungry" Cahoon argues.'" Her argument has highlighted the exploitation and cmelty in Ovid's amor, but she, like Gamel and Greene, has erred by her assurnption that Ovid expressed these unpleasaat ideas as a way of decrying them. Her arguments do not admit of the existence of self-admitted sadists.

Julie Hemker's argument for Ovid as satirist focuses on the contrasts between

Ovid's treatment of the rape of the Sabine women in his Ars Arnatoria, and Livy's treatment of the same story. She points out the way that Ovid dwells on the image of women as fearful prey, and Hemker concludes that this is, not evidence of cruelty, but of a warm-hearted sympathy and concem. in Livy's account, the violence and conquest of

100 Cahoon, "Let the Muse Sing On," p. 20. 'O' Cahoon, "Let the Muse Sing On," p. 2ûû. 'O' Cahoon, "Let the Muse Sing On,'' p. 207. Romulus' efforts to promote the city of Rome are made clear in the subjugation of the neighbouring tribes. When Romulus reaiizes that the fùture of the Roman population is at risk for want of enough childbearing women, the lack is clearly to be remedied by the sarne violence. Livy, however, as Hemker points out, tries to excuse this violence, by first of al1 showing Romulus to have asked the Sabine tribe for their daughters, and then, when the request was refùsed, to have managed the mass rape with very haphazard planning. The role of fors - "chance" - is predominant, as the soldiers "seize whichever women they corne upon" (Liv. 1.9. I 1) and Hemker argues that by the accidental nature of the rape Livy fiees Romulus and the men of guilt, placing the blame onfors, a non- hurnan agency.lo3

The women's immediate reaction is not dwelt upon; in a sentence, they are described as without hope and feeling no less indignation thaa do their parents. They are then Yaught" by Romulus that their parents' refusal to give them up willingly was the cause of their rape, and their anger is dissipated by his assurances that they will be legal wives. The final scene, in which the women stand between their warring parents and new husbands, shows the women to have been won over by Romulus' arguments, for they stop the war by exclaiming that no matter who wins, they will be equally bereft of their loved ones. Romulus, thus, has gained what he wanted through deception and violence.

in Ovid's version of the story, the narrator of the Ars Amaforiu also sanctions deception and violence as means to a desirable end. One of the most frequent metaphors

Ovid uses for amor, Hemker points out, is that of the hunt, and while Ovid's narrator

'O3 Julie Hemker, "Rape and the Founding of Rome" in Hefios 12 (1985), p. 42 daims that wild love cm be tamed by art, his example of this is the soothiag effect of art upon Achilles' violent passions. Since the epic subject of the Riad was, in fact, the untamed anger of Achilles, Hemker argues that Ovid was deliberately undercutting his narrator 's self-confident claims. The Ars A matoria's version of the Sabine rape, therefore, is a continuation of Ovid's subtle disapproval of Livy's assumptions about rape and imperialism.

Ovid does this in two ways, according to Hemker. When he sets the scene, the narrator of the Ars Amatoria asserts that the theatres are "fertile" hunting grounds for women. This, Hemker says, implies that Ovid is pointing out the real reason for the rape: the need for fertile women. The second due to Ovid's motives is that his narrator says that the rape pleased the "widowed men" (viduos vzi-os - A. A. 1.102). Since Livy's account clearly showed the Roman men to have been unmarried, rather than widowed, the use of such an adjective, Hemker says, shows that Ovid was undercutting his narrator's false sympathy for the men in need of wives. in particular, he was recalling the

Sabine women's pitifid plea to the battling men that, regardless of who should win, the women would be equally bereft as either orphans or widows.

Where Livy had attempted to exonerate the deception of Romulus' plan by attributhg much of it to chance, Hemker suggests that Ovid stresses the deceitful treachery. The artless simplicity of the theahe where the soldiers sit recalled to Hemker the rape scenes of the Metamorphoses in which "the superficially serene setting conceals the danger lurking ~ithin."'~Furthemore, as opposed to Livy's soldiers who grab

- -- IM Hemker, p.44 whichever woman they see fht, Ovid's soldiers, as they sit quietly, select with their eyes whichever girl pleases them most. When the sign for the attack cornes, Ovid writes "the king gave to the people the sought-after sign of the booty" which, Hemker says, shows not only that the women are ''bootty'' (praeda), but also that the men are eager to make them so.

The rape scene itself is Hexnker's final argument, for its description dwells on the terror of the women. Eight Iines are devoted to their terrifïed ninning and their loss of colour in their fear. As with the dwelling upon the women's fear of rape in the

Metamorphoses, Hemker argues, Ovid is showing undeniable sympathy for their plight and thus is disapproving of his namator's apparent approval of the violent conquest of women.

Arguments of this sort codd go on forever; indeed, îhey seem to do just that.

However, despite the variations in each of these scholars' arguments they are al1 based upon the same premise, and that premise is seriously flawed. To examine Ovid's love poetry for evidence that he saw love and sexual relationships as deceitfùl exploitation is a perfectly justifiable pursuit. To draw fiom the evidence thus compiled the conclusion that Ovid's emphasis on exploitation proves bis disgust with it, however, is wholly arbitrary. There is nothing to justi@ such a leap.

The only thing that supports these arguments is Ovid's comments in the Trisria that he and his poetry were not the same. He says that his elegiac Muse was iocosa; he does not Say he was writing satire. In fact, Ovid explicitly denies that he was writing satire: Non ego mordoci deshimi carmine quemquam Nec meus ullius crimina versus habet Candidus a salibur sueisfelle refùgi Nulla venenato Iiitera ioco est (Tr. 2,563-6)

1have not satirized anyone with caustic comments Nor does my verse have accusations of anyone. 1, pure, have stayed away fiom sarcasm, steeped in gall: No letter has ken mixed with a poisoned jest.

One might quibble about whether Ovid's assurances that he was not satirking anyone

(quernquam and ullius do, of course, imply a person) still leave the possibility that he was satirizing societal mores in general. As has been argued before, it is also true that the

Tristia, as evidence of Ovid's true opinions, is not wholly diable. Nevertheless, it provides some strong evidence against the notion of Ovid as a satirist.

interestingly enough, while there is no convincing evidence for Ovid's disapproval of violence and aggression in love affairs, the arguments surveyed in this chapter have brought to light so much hefùtable evidence for the presence of this violence and aggression in Ovid's love poetry that it is no longer possible to ignore it.

Ovid's love poetry can no longer be simply enjoyed for its levity, for the nequitia is now too egregious.

Thus, the identification of Ovid's love poetry as merely levis is untenable. Such identification relies too much on the tone of Ovid's writing, and ignores the essential aspect of content. Amy Richlin, in her article "Reading Ovid's Rapes" confronts the three groups of Ovidian criticism which these preceding chapters have delineated.

Instead of ignoring Ovid's exclusively selfish and callous approach to sexual relationships, or tracing the literary origins, or arguing that it stands for something else that Ovid was trying to say, she stresses that Ovid's poetry does show evidence of taking

pleasure in violence. "Content is not an accident of a text, but an essential" she argues,

and while there may be other statements in a tale of rape, it is neverttheless still about

rape. 1os Richlin argues that Ovid's descriptions of rape in the Metamorphoses imply a

voyeurism at best, and at worst a sadistic pleasure in women's fear. Daphne's,

Leucothoe's, Europa's, Arethusa's and many other women's reaction to rape or

threatened rape is dwelt upon with especial regard for their fearfid beauty. The beauty is

attributed to them as a result of theK fear, and this, Richlin argues, counters arguments

that Ovid's awareness of the victim's fear implies his syrnpathy; on the contrary, Ovid

clearl y finds their fear very attractive.

Thus, in reference to the rape of the Sabines, Richlin rejects the idea that Ovid and his narrator are different and opposed in their attitudes towards the incident. For one thing, the narrator sets the scene for the rape with his comment that "women now corne to the theatre to watch and be watched. 9,106 Ovid tells the Sabine story, Richlin argues, as an aition for this supposed contemporary custom. The Sabine women sit in the theatre, watched, unaware, by the eager eyes of their prospective rapists. That an awareness, in

future generations of women, of the possibility of such a gaze should be an incentive to go to the theatre cmonly be evidence of Ovid's assumption that women enjoy being raped. The narrator of the Sabine story ends his description of the rape by exclaiming that if every general would supply such a reward to his soldiers, he would hirnself volunteer. This, Richlin says, recalls Amores 1.9 - Militat omnis amans - in which Ovid

'O5 Richlin, "Reading Ovid's Rapes" in @tichiin,Amy, ed.] Pornography and Representafion in Greece and Rome (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 159. likened king in love to waging a campaign. A poet who sees love as comparable to

battle, Richlin says, "might well see violence as part of love."i07

Richlin has pointed out what has been so obvious in the other feminist

interpretations of Ovid's love poetry, but has nevertheless been completely overlwked.

The presence in Ovid's love poetry of the aggressive and exploitative aspects of love and

sexual relationships has to be seen for the cruelty that it is. The fact that it is dressed up

in modest language and hilarious witticisms does not change its essential content. Even

if Ovid did claim to be separate fiom his poetic narratoc, that does not alter the fact that

he chose to give these particular words and actions to his elegiac persona. Fuithemore

the idea that Ovid was writing satire, and that his nequifiawas a pretence designed to

counteract such elements in society has no evidence to support it. Thus Ovid's nequiîia

must be adrnitted, and can no longer be excused or denied.

'O6 Richlin, "Reading Ovid's Rapes" p. 166. 'O7 Richlin, "Reading Ovid's Rapes" p. 188. Conclusion

"There is no such thing us u moral or an immoral book Books are well written, or badiy written. - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Prefice.

The conflicting elements of style and content in Ovid's love poetry have proven to be contradictory indeed. His levity of style is fiequently seen to contrast sharply with his chosen topics of illicit adulteries and mocking cruelty. The hesitation with which so many critics have approached this conclusion is only evidence of Ovid's cIevemess and subtlety, and especiaiiy of his undeniable charm. After ail, the idea that Ovid's poetry was rneaningless and inconsequential came originally fiom Ovid himself in his desperate appeal to his wrathfbl emperor. Such an idea, therefore, should have been automatically treated with suspicion.

Taking this view, the claim in the Amores and Ars Amatoria that his poetry is levis should be seen only as Ovid's prescient need for self-preservation: he knew that his writing flouted Augustus' policy of reforming Roman mores, but he hoped to escape censure. Although there is undeniable cleverness and humour in Ovid's tove poetry, ingenious wit in his literary burlesque, and masterly dekess in his subtle imagery, this fact does not prove Ovid's innocence; rather it proves that there is more to his levity than at fust meets the eye. His ironic treatrnent of the sincerity with which the other elegiac poets took the concept of amor only exposes his own essentially fiivolous character.

Ovid's nequitia is a multifaceted thing. While it stems fiom the pet's inherent arnorality and disrespect for everything and everyone, it results in offending anyone who holds ethical beliefs. Perhaps the best description of Ovid's nequitia cornes fiorn Molly Myerowitz, who discusses the question of sexual immorality in Ovid's love petry. 'O8 in her discussion she argues that Ovid's crime was to have objectified his poetic rnateria.

Strangely, she defends this objectification because she considers it to be indiscriminate, claiming that while both men and women are objectified, women "eam higher marks than their male counterparts from Ovid's praecepior who counsels self-objectification at every possible opportunity and to both sexes. ,9109 Myerowitz thus proves herself to be a member of the school of thought that includes most of the scholars in the preceding chapter. She too tries to absolve Ovid of any immorality, and she too fails to present convincing evidence for her case. She bas however pinpointed the real nub of his nequitia: Ovid does not respect anyone. Hidden beneath his delightful style lies oniy self-indulgence and a complete unconcem for anyone.

Thus it may be concluded that Ovid's love poetry, for al1 its levis style, is undeniably nequitia. Ovid's banishment to the Black Sea by Augustus was the result of the emperor's identification of the dangerously immoral aspects of Ovid's poetry.

Similady the notorious Victorian disapproval of Ovid cm be shown to have sternmed from their knowledge that, despite Ovid's modesty of language in contrast to Catullus,

Ovid - unlike Catullus - had a disturbing lack of respect for morality. By an objective criterion, this investigation lays to rest the modem myth that he was a more "obscene" writer than were his contemporaries. Other scholars who have been so charmed by

Ovid's levity as well as his evident literary merit have had to ignore or misinterpet the

1OS Molly Myerowitz, "The Domestication of Desire: Ovid's Parva Tabella and the Theatre of Love" in Amy Richlin [cd-] Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (New York, Oxford: Oxford university Press, 1992), p. 13 1-57. 'O9 Myerowitz, p. 135. amorality that they could not admit to be present. Thus a large part of 2om century

Ovidian schotarship has chosen to see oniy that Ovid cleverly mocked the sentiments of other poets, and not that these burlesques exposed how little Ovid actually took seriously.

Similarly, some medieval and feminist scholars have found it entirely possible to attribute to their beloved poet mords that are simply not there.

It is a puzzle what caused such extreme reactions, however. It should be perfectly possible to enjoy the works of an author without having to believe that they are somehow morally uplifting or worthwhile. Ifthe candid reading of Ovid's elegies proves it to be a guilty pleasure, why not accept it as such? It seems that such an approach is rare.

Preferable, however, to procrustean attempts by Ovidian scholars to force Ovid into acceptable moulds would be a straightfonvard admission of Ovid's nequitia for what it is, and for each reader take it or leave it as his or her own morality dictates. Bibliography

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