Ars Amatoria

Ovid

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.

His guest from flight Minos inclos'd around,
Yet he with wings a daring passage found.
Thus Daedalus her offspring first confin'd;
Who, with a bull, in lewd embraces join'd:
Her teeming womb the horrid crime confess'd;
Big with a human bull, half man half beast.
Said he, " Just Minos, best of human kind,
Thy mercy let a prostrate exile find:
By fates compell'd my native shores to fly,
Permit me, where I durst not live, to die,
Enlarge my son, if you neglect my tears,
And show compassion to his blooming years:
Let not the youth a long confinement mourn,
Oh, free the son, or let his sire return!"
Thus he implor'd, but still implor'd in vain,
Nor could the freedom that he sought, obtain.
Convinc'd at length; " Now, Daedalus," he cried,
"Here's subject for thy art that's yet untried.
Minos the earth commands, and guards the sea,
No pass the land affords, the deep no way:
Heav'n's only free, we'll heav'n's auspicious height
Attempt to pass, where kinder fates invite;
Favor, ye powers above, my daring flight!"
Misfortunes oft prove to inventions kind,
Instruct our wit, and aid the lab'ring mind:
For who can credit men, in wild despair,
Should force a passage thro' the yielding air?
Feathers for wings design'd the artists chose,
And bound with thread his forming pinions close;
With temper'd wax the pointed end he wrought,
And to perfection his new labors brought.
The finish'd wings his smiling offspring views,
Admires the work, not conscious of their use:
To whom the father said, "Observe aright,
Observe, my son, these instruments of flight.
In vain the tyrant our escape retards,
The heavens he cannot, all but heav'n he guards:
Tho' earth and seas elude a father's care,
These wings shall waft us through the spacious air.
Nor shall my son celestial signs survey,
Far from the radient virgin take your way;
Or where Bootes the chill'd north commands,
And with his fau chion dread Orion stands:
I'll go before, me still retain in sight,
Where'er I lead securely make your flight.
For should we upward soar too near the sun,
Dissolv'd with heat the liquid wax will run;
Or near the seas an humbler flight maintain,
Our plumes will suffer by the streaming main.
A medium keep, the winds observe aright;
The winds will aid your advantageous flight."
He caution'd thus, and thus inform'd him long,
As careful birds instruct their tender young;
The spreading wings then to his shoulders bound,
His body pois'd, and rais'd him from the ground.
Prepar'd for flight, his aged arms embrace
The tender youth, whilst tears o'erflow his face.
A hill there was, from whence the anxious pair
Essay'd their wings, and forth they launch'd air;
Now his expanded plumes the artist plies,
Regards his son, and leads along the skies;
Pleas'd with the novelty of flight, the boy
Bounds in the air, and upward springs with joy.
The angler views them from the distant strand,
And quits the labors of his trembling hand;
Samos they past, and Naxos in their flight,
And Delos, with Apollo's presence bright.
Now on their right Lebintho's shores they found,
For fruitful lakes and shady groves renown'd.
When the aspiring boy forgot his fears,
Rash with hot youth and unexperienc'd years;
Upwards he soar'd, maintain'd a lofty stroke,
And his directing father's way forsook.
The wax, of heat impatient, melted run,
Nor could his wings sustain the blaze of sun.
From heaven he views the fatal depths below,
Whilst killing fears prevent the distant blow.
His struggling arms now no resistance find,
Nor poise the body nor receive the wind.
Falling, his father he implores in vain,
To aid his flight, and sinking limbs sustain;
His name invokes, till the expiring sound
Far in the floods with Icarus was drown'd.
The parent mourns, a parent now no more,
And seeks the absent youth on ev'ry shore;
"Where's my lov'd son, my Icarus?" he cries,
"Say in what distant region of the skies,
Or faithless clime the youthful wand'rer flies;"
Then view'd his pinions scatter'd o'er the stream.
The shore his bones received, the waves his name.
Minos with walls attempted to detain
His flying guests, but did attempt in vain;
Yet the wing'd god shall to our rules submit,
And Cupid yield to more prevailing wit.

Thessalian arts in vain rash lovers use,
In vain with drugs the scornful maid abuse;
The skilfull'st potions ineffectual prove.
Useless are magic remedies in love;
Could charms prevail, Circe had prov'd her art,
And fond Medea fix'd her Jason's heart;
Nor tempt with philters the disdainful dame;
They rage inspire, create a frantic flame:
Abstain from guilt, all vicious arts remove,
And make your passion worthy of her love.
Distrust your empty form and boasted face,
The nymph engage a thousand nobler ways;
To fix her vanquish'd heart entirely thine,
Accomplish'd graces to your native join.
Beauty's but frail, a charm that soon decays,
Its lustre fades as rolling years increase,
And age still triumphs o'er the ruin'd face.
This truth the fair but short liv'd-lily shows,
And prickles that survive the faded rose.
Learn, lovely boy, be with instruction wise!
Beauty and youth misspent are past advice.
Then cultivate thy mind with wit and fame,
Those lasting charms survive the funeral flame.
With arts and sciences your breast improve,
Of high import are languages in love:
The fam'd Ulysses was not fair nor young,
But eloquent and charming with his tongue:
And yet with him contented beauties strove,
And ev'ry sea-nymph sought the hero's love.
Calypso mourn'd when he forsook her shores,
And with fond waves detain'd his hasty oars,
Oft she enquir'd of ruin'd Ilium's fate,
Making him oft the wondrous tale relate;
Which with such grace his florid tongue could frame,
The story still was new, tho' still the same.
Now standing on the shores, " Again declare,"
Calypso cried, "your fam'd exploits in war."
lie with a wand, a slender wand he bore,
Delineates ev'ry action on the shore.
"Here's Troy," says he, then draws the walls in sand.
"There Simois flows, here my battalions stand.
A field there was," and then describes the field,
"Where Dolon, with rewards deceiv'd, we kill'd.
Just thus entrench'd imagine Rhesus lies,
And here we make his warlike steeds our prize."
Much he describ'd, when a destructive wave
Wash'd off the slender Troy, and rolling gave
To Rhesus and his tents one common grave.
Long with delight his charming tongue she heard,
The well-rais'd passion in her looks appear'd:
The goddess weeps to view his spreading sails,
So much a soldier with the sex prevails.
Distrust thy form, fond youth, and learn to know,
There's more requir'd in love than empty show.
With just disdain she treats the haughty mind,
'Tis complaisance that makes a beauty kind.
The hawk we hate that always lives in arms,
The raging wolf that ev'ry flock alarms:
But the mild swallow none with toils infest,
And none the soft Chaonian birds molest.[*](The Chaonian bird is a dove. Chaonia is part of Epirus, so called from the fate of Chaon, an Athenian. There wasa temple of Dodonian Jupiter, where doves dispensed the sacred oracles with human voices. In the forest of Dodona, in Epirus, not far from the temple, there were doves thatprophecied. From whence, says Servius, comes the fable that Peliades, in the Thessalian tongue, signifies prophet and dove. Pausanias says that these doves gave answers from the Dodonean oaks. But Herodotus, in his Euterpe, writes, that these doves were prophecying women.)
Debates avoid, and rude contention shun;
A woman's with submissive language won.
Let the wife rail, and injur'd husband swear,
Such freedoms are allow'd the married pair;
Discord and strife to nuptial beds belong,
The portion justifies a clam'rous tongue.
With tender vows the yielding maid endear,
And let her only sighs and wishes hear;
Contrive with words and actions to delight,
Still charm her ear, and still oblige her sight.