Remedia amoris

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. Tate, Nahum, translator. New York: Calvin Blanchard, 1855.

  1. The title of this book when Cupid spied,[*](The author endeavors, in this treatise, to make amends for the hurt he did in the former and proposes several remedies in the case of love; some of which are very good and useful as there are others very trivial, and not fit to be put in practice. Ovid begins this treatise as agreeably as he has done the others, and, indeed, his invention is so fruitful that he never wants grace. Cupid seems frightened at the title of it, apprehending he is declaring war against him.)
  2. "Treason! a plot against our state," he cried.
  3. Why should you thus your loyal poet wrong,[*](No man understood the affairs of gallantry better than Ovid.)
  4. Who in your war has serv'd so well and long?
  5. So savage and ill-bred I ne'er can prove,
  6. Like Diomede, to wound the queen of love.
  7. Others by fits have felt your am'rous flame,
  8. I still have been, and still your martyr am;
  9. Rules for your vot'ries I did late impart.
  10. Refining passion, and made love an art.
  11. Nor do I now of that or thee take leave,
  12. Nor does the muse her former web unweave.
  13. Let him who loves, where love success may find,
  14. Spread all his sails before the prosp'rous wind;
  15. But let poor youths who female scorn endure,
  16. And hopeless burn, repair to me for cure:
  17. For why should any worthy youth destroy
  18. Himself, because some worthless nymph is coy?
  19. Love should be nature's friend; let hemp and steel
  20. Hangmen and heroes use, whose trade's to kill.
  21. Where fatal it would prove, let passion cease;
  22. Nor love destroy, who should our race increase.
  23. A child you are, and like a child should play;
  24. And gentle as your years should be your sway.
  25. Keen arrows, and to wound the hardest hearts,
  26. You are permitted-but no mortal darts.
  27. Let your step-father, Mars,[*](The fable of Mars and Venus being caught in a net is elegantly told in the Art of Love ((2.561 ff).) on sword and spear,
  28. The crimson stains of cruel conquest wear;
  29. You should your mother's milder laws observe,
  30. Who ne'er did childless parent's curse deserve;
  31. Or if you must employ your wanton pow'r,
  32. Teach youths by night to force their mistress' door:
  33. How lovers safe and secretly may meet,
  34. And subtle wives the cautious husband cheat.
  35. Let now th' excluded youth the gate caress,
  36. A thousand wheedling soothing plaints express;
  37. Then on th' ill-natur'd timber vent his spite,
  38. And to some doleful tune weep out the night.
  39. For tears, not blood, love's altar should require:
  40. Love's torch, design'd to kindle kind desire,
  41. Must seem profan'd to light a fun'ral fire."
  42. Thus I. —— The god his purple wings display'd.
  43. And, "Forward, finish your design," he said.