Read Online The Art of Love by Ovid - Free Book Online Page B

white onions from Megara, the hot,
    Sexy rocket from your garden plot,
    Hymettus honey, eggs, the nuts that fall
    From the needled pine…
    [L ATIN :
Docta, quid ad…
]
                                            But, learned Muse, why all
    This pseudo-medical lore? I must use the rein
    To keep my chariot in the inside lane.
    If you followed my advice about lapses, “Conceal them,”
    You must change tack now, because “Reveal them”
    Is my new motto. Don’t blame
    Me for inconsistency: the same
    Wind doesn’t always drive the ship, we sail
    With canvas hauled and set to catch the gale
    From north, south, east or west—we veer.
    Observe the skill of a charioteer:
    How for full speed he lets the reins float slack,
    But pulls them taut to hold his horses back.
    Some women ill reward
    A tame, indulgent lover; they get bored
    With lack of competition and grow less
    Passionate. Success
    Breeds over-confidence; it’s hard to stay
    Calm and fair when everything’s going your way.
    A fire gradually weakens and dies down
    And lies hidden under a crown
    Of grey ash, yet sprinkle sulphur and it learns
    To revive, and the blaze returns.
    So love, grown lazy and self-satisfied,
    To be rekindled needs some shock applied.
    Heat up her lukewarm heart, alarm her with tales
    Of your bad behaviour, so that she pales.
    Trebly, incalculably happy is the lover
    Whom an injured mistress agonises over.
    As soon as she hears what she’d rather not know,
    The poor girl faints—her voice, her colour go.
    How I’d like to be the man whose hair she tears,
    Whose soft cheeks she scratches, at whom she glares
    With lovely, tear-filled eyes, the man she would
    Cut out of her life, if she only could!
    How long should you let her sulk? Not long. The longer
    You put off making it up, the stronger
    Her anger will grow. To prevent this,
    Throw your arms round her neck, give her a kiss,
    Pull her sobbing to your breast, hold her there tight,
    Keep kissing her, treat her to the delight
    Of Venus while she’s weeping. That’ll bring peace:
    It’s the one sure way to make the tantrum cease.
    When she’s raged her fill but still seems unreconciled,
    Then
sue for terms in bed, and you’ll find her mild.
    Bed is the place, arms laid down, war forsworn,
    Where Harmony dwells, where Tenderness was born.
    After a fight doves snuggle, beak to beak,
    And coo and murmur in bird-speak.
    [L ATIN :
Prima fuit rerum…
]
        In the beginning the world was inchoate,
    There was nothing but a great
    Featureless mass, no earth, sea, stars or moon;
    But soon
    Sky was set above earth, land ringed with sea,
    Chaos retired to its own vacancy,
    Forest and air gave beasts and birds their living quarters,
    And fish lurked deep in the new waters.
    Through this lonely, empty place
    Wandered the nomadic human race,
    Powerful, uncouth brutes
    Whose home was the forest, who ate grass and fruits
    And bedded on leaves, long shunning one another
    Suspiciously, brother ignoring brother.
    What softened those fierce natures? Pleasure, they say.
    A man and a woman met in a wood one day
    And wondered what to do. No need for tuition:
    Venus arranged the rough, sweet coition.
    Birds have their mates, fish in the cold mid-ocean,
    Thrilled by sexual emotion,
    Find partners, hinds follow stags, snakes clasp snakes,
    Dogs couple, glued together, the ewe takes
    Pleasure in her tupping ram, the heifer’s full
    Of desire for her covering bull,
    The snub-nosed she-goat happily bears
    Her stinking billy, and heat-crazed mares,
    Though separated
    By miles from stallions, swim streams to get mated.
    Act, then. Only a strong dose of love will cure
    A woman with an angry temperature.
    Better than old Machaon’s drugs, my medicine
    Will restore you to her favour when you sin.
    [L ATIN :
Haec ego cum…
]
        While I was writing this, I saw Apollo coming
    Towards me with his golden lyre, thumb strumming
    The strings, bays in his hand, bays on his