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    Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Ovid's Art of Love
  • Ovid's Remedy of Love
  • Ovid's Art of Beauty.
  • The Court of Love, a tale from Chaucer.
  • History of Love, by Charles Hopkins
  • Ovid's Amours.
    		•

    P. Ovidius Naso, Art of Love, Remedy of Love, Art of Beauty, Court of Love, History of Love, Amours (ed. various)

    Ovid's Art of Love: Book II

    Editions and translations: Latin (ed. R. Ehwald) | English (ed. various)
    Your current position in the text is marked in red. Click anywhere on the line to jump to another position.
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    Those prosperous winds that launch'd our boat from shore,
    When out at sea assists its course no more:
    Time will your knowledge in our art improve,
    Give strength and vigour to your forming love.
    The dreadful bull was but a calf when young;1
    The lofty oak but from an acorn sprung;
    From narrow springs the noblest currents flow,
    But swell their floods, and spread 'em as they go.
    Be conversant with love, no toils refuse,
    And conquer all fatigues with frequent use:
    Still let her hear your sighs, your passion view
    And night and day the flying maid pursue.
    Then pause awhile; by fallow fields we gain;
    A thirsty soil receives the welcome rain.
    Phyllis was calm while with Demophoon bless'd,
    His absence wounded most her raging breast:
    Thus his chaste consort for Ulysses burn'd,
    And Laodamia thus her absent husband mourn'd,
    With speed return, you're ruined by delays,
    Some happy youth may soon supply your place.
    When Sparta's prince was from his Helen gone,
    Could Helen be content to lie alone?
    She in his bed receiv'd her am'rous guest,
    And nightly clasp'd him to her panting breast.
    Unthinking cuckold, to a proverb blind!
    What, trust a beau and a fair wife behind!
    Let furious hawks thy trembling turtles keep,
    And to the mountain wolves commit thy sheep:
    Helen is guiltless, and the lover's crime
    But what yourself would act another time.
    The youth was pressing, the dull husband gone;
    Let ev'ry woman make the case her own.
    Who could a prince, by Venus sent, refuse?
    The cuckold's negligence is her excuse.

    1 This and the following similes are taken from country affairs, which have an agreeable effect on this occasion, when the poet speaks of the tendency of every living thing to love.

    Preferred URL for linking to this page: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Ov.+Ars+2.378

    Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education provided support for entering this text.

    This text is based on the following book(s):
    P. Ovidius Naso. Ovid's Art of Love (in three Books), the Remedy of Love, the Art of Beauty, the Court of Love, the History of Love, and Amours. Anne Mahoney. edited for Perseus. New York. Calvin Blanchard. 1855.


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