P. Ovidius Naso Ars Amatoria 3

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Ars Amatoria. P. Ovidius Naso. New York. 1855.

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Current edition Perseus

The Art of Love (English) (Ovid. 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. Dryden, John; Congreve, William; translators. New York: Calvin Blanchard, 1855.)

Editions (1)
Ars Amatoria Perseus (Ovid. P. Ovidius Naso, Volume 1: Amores, Epistulae, Medicamina faciei femineae, Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris. Ehwald, Rudolf; Merkel, Rudolph; editors. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1907.) — 3 focus

Notes on the current edition

Art of Love

1. Agamemnon and Menelaus, two brothers, married two sisters: both the sisters preferred gallants to their husbands.
2. Her chastity is often mentioned to the reputation of the fair.
3. Protesilaus, Laodamia's husband, was the first Greek who was killed in the Trojan War. When his wife heard the news she desired to see his ghost; which being granted by the gods, she embraced it so closely, that she perished in its embraces.
4. She was represented at Rome in a woman's habit, and a temple and stars were dedicated to her.
5. Phyllis despairing of the return of Demophoon, to whom she had granted her last favours, was about to hang herself, when, as the fable says. the gods, in compassion to her, turned her to an almond tree without leaves: Demophoon, some time after this. returning, went and embraced his metamorphosed mistress, and the tree afterwards put forth leaves.
6. It is certain that none can make too much haste to acquire the good graces of philosophy and fine learning; for which, youth, genius, and the strength of maturity are necessary.
7. Though Ovid has gone very far out of the way for this simile, yet in this place it has a good effect.
8. The capitol was a hill in Rome , so called from a man's head which was found there as the Romans were digging the foundation of the temple of Jupiter . So Livy and Dionysius write. It first went by the name of Saturnian, and afterwards by that of Tarpeian, from the name of the vestal Tarpeia, who was crushed to death by the weight of the arms of the Sabines that were thrown upon her, after she had delivered the place to them on condition those arms should be given to her. Tarquin built a temple there, which was dedicated by the consul Horatius. This edifice being, as Appius writes, destroyed in the civil wars, Scylla rebuilt it, and Catullus dedicated it. Vespasian restored it after he had put an end to the war against the Vitellians, or the party of Vitellius. It was not many years before it was burnt : and Domitian rebuilt it again, as Tacitus reports in his 10th book.
9. Varro writes that there were two sorts of courts in the capitol; one for the delivering of sacred matters, and the other for affairs of state. Both the one and the other were called Curia, a cunando, from the care that was taken there: one went by the name of Hostilia. from Hostilius. the fourth king of Rome : and before this were the Rostra; which took their names from the heads of ships that were hung up there, as may be seen by the eighth book of Livy.
10. By this we perceive the Roman ladies were as fond of fashions as the French, or the English, too much their imitators.
11. Women rarely shed their hair; eunuchs not at all. And no animal, with the exception of man, becomes bald about the temples and ears.
12. They dyed their hair with the juice of herbs. according to the fashion of the Germans, who make use of certain herbs to darken their hair, or dye it any other colour to disguise their age, and appear young. The Gauls made use of an herb which is called guesde, or woad, as Caesar reports in the third book of his commentaries.
13. The Tyrian scarlet was the finest dye in the world; preferable to that of Amyclea near Sparta , though that was also excellent. This scarlet is often confounded with purple, of which there were two sorts, one of a pomegranate colour, as the African, and the other of a reddish scarlet, as the Tyrian. Tibullus speaks of them distinctly.
14. The colour like that of Phryxus's ram. He was the son of Athamas king of Thebes , and to avoid the anger of Ino, his mother-in-law, fled with his sister Helle upon a ram with a golden fleece. His sister tumbling into the sea gave it the name of Hellespont , but he arriving at Colchos sacrificed the rain to Mars, who placed it in the zodiac. The golden fleece was hung in a temple, consecrated to Mars, and under the keeping of a dragon.
15. It is thought he means that Venus of which Pliny speaks, and which was in Octavia's portico in the temple of Jupiter . She is described as rising out of the sea with her hair still wet; such as Apelles painted her.
16. Semele was daughter of Cadmus, and mother of Bacchus by Jupiter , whom having the curiosity to enjoy in all his celestial majesty, she was burnt by lightning. Leda was the daughter of Thestius and mother of Castor and Pollux, whom she had by Jupiter, who in the shape of a swan enjoyed her as she bathed in the river Eurotas.
17. The Sidonian Europa, daughter of Agenor, king of Phoenicia, whom Jupiter fell in love with, and ravished her in the shape of a bull.
18. The story of Paris and Helen, and the Trojan war, is so common that we shall say no more of it.
19. Bolsters are yet in use, both for this defect in women, and in calved stockings for the men. And it is satisfactory to the curious to know that this fashion is 1800 years old.
20. Ovid here advises the ladies to learn to sing, and takes his comparisons from the Sirens. They were three in number, half women and half fish; one made use of her voice, another her lyre. and another her flute. Their haunt was on the coast of Sicily , where they charmed voyagers by their singing, but Ulysses escaped them.
21. Those airs were a sort of sarabands, in vogue among the Egyptian and Gades . The movement was dissolute and provoked to lust, as one may see by Martial.
22. He means the wall of Thebes , built by the sound of Amphion's lyre. He was the son of Jupiter and Antiope. Eusebius writes that Amphion reigned at Thebes , and made rocks move with the sound of his lyre.
23. Arion was a celebrated musician of antiquity. of whom Ovid in the second book makes mention. Some say he was a poet and musician of Lesbos . Having got a great deal of money, and returning from his travels home by sea. the sailors robbed and threw him over-board; when a dolphin charmed with his music, conveyed hin safe to Peloponesus; where he procured Periander to put the sailors to death. The poet, by all these instances of the power of music, would persuade the ladies to learn it, as the version tells us.
24. Callimachus was a considerable poet, and, according to Quintilian, the first that wrote elegies in Greek. He was the son of Battus, who built Cyrene .
25. Philetas was a native of the island of Cos in the AEgean sea; a celebrated poet and writer of elegies, and flourished under Philip and his son Alexander the Great. Ovid calls Anacreon the old man of Teios, who loved drinking so well. He was a lyric poet, and Pliny tells us he choked himself with a grape-stone as he was drinking.
26. The ancients used to call their servants by the names of the countries from whence they came, as Lydus, Syrus. Dacus; so Geta comes from the country of Getae. The French to this day do the same, and call their footmen Champagne, le Picard, le Gascon, le Bourginon. etc. And Sir George Etheridge, in his Sir Fopling Flutter, the Hampshire , etc., speaking to his valet imitates this custom.
27. Sappho is made famous by almost all the poets of antiquity, as well as by her own writings. She was born at Mytelene in the Isle of Lesbos , and was contemporary with Alceus. She wrote nine books of elegy, and several epigrams and satires. The Sapphic verges took their name from her. There is nothing of her compositions extant, besides a hymn to Venus, and an ode to a young girl whom she loved. According to some authors, she flung herself into the sea because Phaon neglected her. Her sentiments were very tender in her verses, wherefore Ovid advises lovers to read them.
28. Sextus Aurelius Propertius was a native of Umbria , that rude part of Italy ; so that we find genius and politeness are not confined to places. He was very much esteemed by Maecenas, and his works are still extant.
29. Every body who is the least acquainted with antiquity, knows he was one of the first wits of the Augustan age, and a man of gallantry and profusion, wasting his estate, even while he was in his youth, on his extravagancies and pleasures. Horace speaks of him as his friend; and Ovid reckons him amongst the best writers of his time.
30. The Romans were great encouragers of their dancers and mimes; some of them grew very eminent, such as Roscius Amerinus, for whom Cicero pronounced that fine oration; some of them also grew prodligiously rich, as Clodius Aesopus, of whose luxury Pliny makes mention; and Horace in the third satire of his second book, speaks of the son of this Aesopus, who swallowed a pearl of great price in one of his frolics.
31. Latronum praelia ludet, is the same which the version renders chess; but what the Tessara Missa, of which we have spoken, is, none of the critics are clear in; those who come nearest suppose them to be billiard balls. Merula's explanation is very obscure; nor is Mycillus's much clearer. The latronum proelia is with more certainty interpreted to be chess. There is another game mentioned by the poet Reticuloque, etc., which none of the commentators have explained clearly; but the tunos lapillos is by all of them agreed to be what we call merills, a boyish game which Ovid describes so well, there is no doubt but it is the same. The dye spoken of here is supposed to refer to a game like the modern trick-track.
32. The sun is the master planet, and Leo the fifth sign in the zodiac, by astronomers called the House of the Sun, which therein causes the greatest heats.
33. They were the most noted in Rome , and in the Field of Mars.
34. It is said Phoebus descended at the battle of Actium , and was present on the Roman side when Augustus beat Mark Antony.
35. Thamyras son of Philamon, of whom it is said, that as he returned from the city of Aetolia , he met with the muses by the way, and was so proud of his singing he fancied he could out-do them in that art; at which the daughters of Jupiter were so enraged that, in revenge, they deprived him of the use of his reason; as Homer writes in his second Iliad. Diodorus says they only took away his voice, and his art of playing on the lyre. The Latins say they struck him blind.
36. Every one has heard of Apelles, the famous painter. He was a native of Cos, or, as others write, Ephesus , and born in the 112th Olympiad, about the 422nd year of Rome . For his great skill in his art he was called the prince of painters; and so industrious, that Nulla dies sine linea is his known motto. Alexander forbad any painter but him to draw his portrait. His master-piece was reckoned the Venus rising out of the sea, of which Ovid speaks, and which the Emperor Augustus dedicated in the temple of his father Julius Caesar. This piece was at last ruined by time, and Nero put another in its place, drawn by Dorotheus. Apelles had begun another Venus for the inhabitants of Cos, which would have excelled the first, but he was hindered by death from finishing it; and after him none had the boldness to put the last hand to it, as Pliny informs us.
37. Homer's name, and the contention of seven cities for him, are so well known, that there is no need of saying much about it; he was so called from his blindness. He was the most famous of all the Greek poets, but poor to the extermity of begging. His Iliads and Odyssey are to this day in the first rank of heroic poems, and the Aeneids only dispute with them the pre-eminence.
38. Danae, daughter of Acrisius king of Argos ; who having consulted the oracle, and being told that she should be killed by her son, shut her up in a brazen tower to prevent it. Jupiter transforming himself into a golden shower, bribed her keepers, and got her with child; which. beingborn, was the renowned Perseus. Her father commanded both the babe and the mother to be thrown into the sea; but being unfortunately cast ashore on one of the islands called Cyclades , the king of the island married the mother; and Perseus, when he was grown up, unwittingly killed his grandfather.
39. Priam king of Troy , and father of Paris, who stole Helen, was for restoring her to the Greeks, when they demanded her by their ambassadors; but other courses prevailing, the war ensued, which ended in the destruction of Troy and the death of Priam, who was killed by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, after forty years' reign.
40. The temple of Venus stood in the Appian way, and the gallant women used to frequent it to meet their sparks.
41. The poet, in his advice to the men, has given them the same caution, when they write letters to show their passion, and not their wit, which is a rule that will last as long as truth and reason.
42. This is very delicate, and shows of what importance it is to beauty to be well bred, if it would be victorious.
43. Minerva playing on her flute by the river side, and seeing in the water what grimaces it obliged her to make, she flung away the instrument in a passion, and cursed it so much that he who made use of it afterwards had cause to repent it.
44. Nemesis was the goddess of justice; Adrastus built the first temple to her. The Romans invoked here before they went to battle, and returned her thanks after victory. But the Nemesis here is the woman whom Tibullus loved and celebrated in his poems, while Cynthia is the woman about whom Propertius wrote.
45. In the verses of the poet Gallus, who was greatly enamoured of her.
46. Ovid sung his mistress by that name, which is supposed to be a nom de guerre taken from the Grecian poetess, who, as we are told, won the prize for poetry four or five times from Pindar; however, those who say so, own her beauty contributed much to that advantage. There were two Corinnas, one a Theban, who wrote epigrams and lyric poems, and contended with Pindar; the other was a Thespian, whom some call Corinthia. Ovid gave the name of Corinna to his mistress on account of her beauty and wit.
47. Ladies must keep out both husbands and lovers to raise their passion, which is apt to be cloyed when admittance is too easy.
48. Thais was a name given to all sorts of lewd women who affected discretion.
49. The fable of Argus has been spoken of before; he had a hundred eyes, and kept Io from Jupiter by Juno 's order; for which Mercury killed him by command of his father Jove. To make him amends Juno turned him into a peacock, and placed his eyes in the tail.
50. Alluding to those wicked women who rose against the men, and did not spare their own husbands.
51. The priestesses and priests of Bacchus, who celebrated the festival of that god, did it with the noise of shouts, drums, timbrels, and cymbals, were crowned with ivy, vine, etc., and carried a thyrsus or staff wove with it in their hands; they were frantic and outrageous in their actions during the cerremony.
52. To show that he treats of love affairs, represented by the swans that are said to draw Venus ' car sometimes; though doves are more often harnessed on this occasion. As to swans, Ovid observes in his Metamorphoses, that they were put to this use.