Book I

Book I Part I: His Task

Should anyone here not know the art of love,

read this, and learn by reading how to love.

By art the boat’s set gliding, with oar and sail,

by art the chariot’s swift: love’s ruled by art.

Automedon was skilled with Achilles’ chariot reins,

Tiphys in Thessaly was steersman of the Argo,

Venus appointed me as guide to gentle Love:

I’ll be known as Love’s Tiphys, and Automedon.

It’s true Love’s wild, and one who often flouts me:

but he’s a child of tender years, fit to be ruled.

Chiron made the young Achilles perfect at the lyre,

and tempered his wild spirits through peaceful art.

He, who so terrified his enemies and friends,

they say he greatly feared the aged Centaur.

That hand that Hector was destined to know,

was held out, at his master’s orders, to be flogged.

I am Love’s teacher as Chiron was Achilles’,

both wild boys, both children of a goddess.

Yet the bullock’s neck is bowed beneath the yoke,

and the spirited horse’s teeth worn by the bit.

And Love will yield to me, though with his bow

he wounds my heart, shakes at me his burning torch.

The more he pierces me, the more violently he burns me,

so much the fitter am I to avenge the wounds.

Nor will I falsely say you gave me the art, Apollo,

no voice from a heavenly bird gives me advice,

I never caught sight of Clio or Clio’s sisters

while herding the flocks, Ascra, in your valleys:

Experience prompts this work: listen to the expert poet:

I sing true: Venus, help my venture!

Far away from here, you badges of modesty,

the thin headband, the ankle-covering dress.

I sing of safe love, permissible intrigue,

and there’ll be nothing sinful in my song.

Now the first task for you who come as a raw recruit

is to find out who you might wish to love.

The next task is to make sure that she likes you:

the third, to see to it that the love will last.

That’s my aim, that’s the ground my chariot will cover:

that’s the post my thundering wheels will scrape.

Book I Part II: How to Find Her

While you’re still free, and can roam on a loose rein,

pick one to whom you could say: ‘You alone please me.’

She won’t come falling for you out of thin air:

the right girl has to be searched for: use your eyes.

The hunter knows where to spread nets for the stag,

he knows what valleys hide the angry boar:

the wild-fowler knows the woods: the fisherman

knows the waters where the most fish spawn:

You too, who search for the essence of lasting love,

must be taught the places that the girls frequent.

I don’t demand you set your sails, and search,

or wear out some long road to discover them.

Perseus brought Andromeda from darkest India,

and Trojan Paris snatched his girl from Greece,

Rome will grant you lots of such lovely girls,

you’ll say: ‘Here’s everything the world has had.’

Your Rome’s as many girls as Gargara’s sheaves,

as Methymna’s grapes, as fishes in the sea,

as birds in the hidden branches, stars in the sky:

Venus, Aeneas’s mother, haunts his city.

If you’d catch them very young and not yet grown,

real child-brides will come before your eyes:

if it’s young girls you want, thousands will please you.

You’ll be forced to be unsure of your desires:

if you delight greatly in older wiser years,

here too, believe me, there’s an even greater crowd.

Book I Part III: Search while you’re out Walking

Just walk slowly under Pompey’s shady colonnade,

when the sun’s in Leo, on the back of Hercules’s lion:

or where Octavia added to her dead son Marcellus’s gifts,

with those rich works of foreign marble.

Don’t miss the Portico that takes its name

from Livia its creator, full of old masters:

or where the daring Danaids prepare to murder their poor husbands,

and their fierce father stands, with out-stretched sword.

And don’t forget the shrine of Adonis, Venus wept for,

and the sacred Sabbath rites of the Syrian Jews.

Don’t skip the Memphite temple of the linen-clad heifer:

she makes many a girl what she herself was to Jove.

And the law-courts (who’d believe it?) they suit love:

a flame is often found in the noisy courts:

where the Appian waters pulse into the air,

from under Venus’s temple, made of marble,

there the lawyer’s often caught by love,

and he who guides others, fails to guide himself:

in that place of eloquence often his words desert him,

and a new case starts, his own cause is the brief.

There Venus, from her neighbouring temples, laughs:

he, who was once the counsel, now wants to be the client.

Book I Part IV: Or at the Theatre

But hunt for them, especially, at the tiered theatre:

that place is the most fruitful for your needs.

There you’ll find one to love, or one you can play with,

one to be with just once, or one you might wish to keep.

As ants return home often in long processions,

carrying their favourite food in their mouths,

or as the bees buzz through the flowers and thyme,

among their pastures and fragrant chosen meadows,

so our fashionable ladies crowd to the famous shows:

my choice is often constrained by such richness.

They come to see, they come to be seen as well:

the place is fatal to chaste modesty.

These shows were first made troublesome by Romulus,

when the raped Sabines delighted unmarried men.

Then no awnings hung from the marble theatre,

the stage wasn’t stained with saffron perfumes:

Then what the shady Palatine provided, leaves

simply placed, was all the artless scene:

The audience sat on tiers made from turf,

and covered their shaggy hair, as best they could, with leaves.

They watched, and each with his eye observed the girl

he wanted, and trembled greatly in his silent heart.

While, to the measure of the homely Etruscan flute,

the dancer, with triple beat, struck the levelled earth,

amongst the applause (applause that was never artful then)

the king gave the watched-for signal for the rape.

They sprang up straightaway, showing their intent by shouting,

and eagerly took possession of the women.

As doves flee the eagle, in a frightened crowd,

as the new-born lamb runs from the hostile wolf:

so they fled in panic from the lawless men,

and not one showed the colour she had before.

Now they all fear as one, but not with one face of fear:

Some tear their hair: some sit there, all will lost:

one mourns silently, another cries for her mother in vain:

one moans, one faints: one stays, while that one runs:

the captive girls were led away, a joyful prize,

and many made even fear itself look fitting.

Whoever showed too much fight, and denied her lover,

he held her clasped high to his loving heart,

and said to her: ‘Why mar your tender cheeks with tears?

as your father to your mother, I’ll be to you.’

Romulus, alone, knew what was fitting for soldiers:

I’ll be a soldier, if you give me what suits me.

From that I suppose came the theatres’ usual customs:

now too they remain a snare for the beautiful.

Book I Part V: Or at the Races, or the Circus

Don’t forget the races, those noble stallions:

the Circus holds room for a vast obliging crowd.

No need here for fingers to give secret messages,

nor a nod of the head to tell you she accepts:

You can sit by your lady: nothing’s forbidden,

press your thigh to hers, as you can do, all the time:

and it’s good the rows force you close, even if you don’t like it,

since the girl is touched through the rules of the place.

Now find your reason for friendly conversation,

and first of all engage in casual talk.

Make earnest enquiry whose those horses are:

and rush to back her favourite, whatever it is.

When the crowded procession of ivory gods goes by,

you clap fervently for Lady Venus:

if by chance a speck of dust falls in the girl’s lap,

as it may, let it be flicked away by your fingers:

and if there’s nothing, flick away the nothing:

let anything be a reason for you to serve her.

If her skirt is trailing too near the ground,

lift it, and raise it carefully from the dusty earth:

Straightaway, the prize for service, if she allows it,

is that your eyes catch a glimpse of her legs.

Don’t forget to look at who’s sitting behind you,

that he doesn’t press her sweet back with his knee.

Small things please light minds: it’s very helpful

to puff up her cushion with a dextrous touch.

And it’s good to raise a breeze with a light fan,

and set a hollow stool beneath her tender feet.

And the Circus brings assistance to new love,

and the scattered sand of the gladiator’s ring.

Venus’ boy often fights in that sand,

and who see wounds, themselves receive a wound.

While talking, touching hands, checking the programme,

and asking, having bet, which one will win,

wounded he groans, and feels the winged dart,

and himself becomes a part of the show he sees.

When, lately, Caesar, in mock naval battle,

exhibited the Greek and Persian fleets,

surely young men and girls came from either coast,

and all the peoples of the world were in the City?

Who did not find one he might love in that crowd?

Ah, how many were tortured by an alien love!

Book I Part VI: Triumphs are Good too!

Behold, now Caesar’s planning to add to our rule

what’s left of earth: now the far East will be ours.

Parthia, we’ll have vengeance: Crassus’s bust will cheer,

and those standards wickedly laid low by barbarians.

The avenger’s here, the leader, proclaimed, of tender years,

and a boy wages war’s un-boy-like agenda.

Cowards, don’t count the birthdays of the gods:

a Caesar’s courage flowers before its time.

Divine genius grows faster than its years,

and suffers as harmful evils the cowardly delays.

Hercules was a child when he crushed two serpents

in both his hands, already worthy of Jupiter in his cradle.

How old were you, Bacchus, who are still a boy,

when conquered India trembled to your rod?

Your father’s years and powers arm you, boy,

and with your father’s powers and years you’ll win:

though your first beginnings must be in debt to such a name,

now prince of the young, but one day prince of the old:

Your brothers are with you, avenge your brothers’ wounds:

your father is with you, keep your father’s laws.

Your and your country’s father endowed you with arms:

the enemy stole his kingship from an unwilling parent:

You hold a pious shaft, he a wicked arrow:

Justice and piety stick to your standard.

Let Parthia’s cause be lost: and their armies:

let my leader add Eastern wealth to Latium.

Both your fathers, Mars and Caesar, grant you power:

Through you one is a god, and one will be.

See, I augur your triumph: I’ll reply with a votive song,

and you’ll be greatly celebrated on my lips.

You’ll stand and exhort your troops with my words:

O let my words not lack your courage!

I’ll speak of Parthian backs and Roman fronts,

and shafts the enemy hurl from flying horses.

If you flee, to win, Parthia, what’s left for you in defeat?

Mars already has your evil eye.

So the day will be, when you, beautiful one,

golden, will go by, drawn by four snowy horses.

The generals will go before you, necks weighed down with chains,

lest they flee to safety as they did before.

The happy crowd of youths and girls will watch,

that day will gladden every heart.

And if she, among them, asks the name of a king,

what place, what mountains, and what stream’s displayed,

you can reply to all, and more if she asks:

and what you don’t know, reply as memory prompts.

That’s Euphrates, his brow crowned with reeds:

that’ll be Tigris with the long green hair.

I make those Armenians, that’s Persia’s Danaan crown:

that was a town in the hills of Achaemenia.

Him and him, they’re generals: and say what names they have,

if you can, the true ones, if not the most fitting.

Book I Part VII: There’s always the Dinner-Table

The table laid for a feast also gives you an opening:

There’s something more than wine you can look for there.

Often rosy Love has clasped Bacchus’s horns,

drawing him to his gentle arms, as he lay there.

And when wine has soaked Cupid’s drunken wings,

he’s stayed, weighed down, a captive of the place.

It’s true he quickly shakes out his damp feathers:

though still the heart that’s sprinkled by love is hurt.

Wine rouses courage and is fit for passion:
care flies, and deep drinking dilutes it.

Then laughter comes, the poor man dons the horns,

then pain and sorrow leave, and wrinkled brows.

Then what’s rarest in our age appears to our minds,

Simplicity: all art dispelled by the god.

Often at that time girls captivated men’s wits,

and Venus was in the vine, flame in the fire.

Don’t trust the treacherous lamplight overmuch:

night and wine can harm your view of beauty.

Paris saw the goddesses in the light, a cloudless heaven,

when he said to Venus: ‘Venus, you win, over them both.’

Faults are hidden at night: every blemish is forgiven,

and the hour makes whichever girl you like beautiful.

Judge jewellery, and fabric stained with purple,

judge a face, or a figure, in the light.

Book I Part VIII: And Finally There’s the Beach

Why enumerate every female meeting place fit for the hunter?

The grains of sand give way before the number.

Why speak of Baiae, its shore splendid with sails,

where the waters steam with sulphurous heat?

Here one returning, his heart wounded, said:

‘That water’s not as healthy as they claim.’

Behold the suburban woodland temple of Diana,

and the kingdom murder rules with guilty hand.

She, who is virgin, who hates Cupid’s darts,

gives people many wounds, has many to give.

Book I Part IX: How To Win Her

So far, riding her unequal wheels, the Muse has taught you

where you might choose your love, where to set your nets.

Now I’ll undertake to tell you what pleases her,

by what arts she’s caught, itself a work of highest art.

Whoever you are, lovers everywhere, attend, with humble minds,

and you, masses, show you support me: use your thumbs.

First let faith enter into your mind: every one of them

can be won: you’ll win her, if you only set your snares.

Birds will sooner be silent in the Spring, cicadas in summer,

an Arcadian hound turn his back on a hare,

than a woman refuse a young man’s flattering words:

Even she you might think dislikes it, will like it.

Secret love’s just as pleasing to women as men.

Men pretend badly: she hides her desire.

If it was proper for men not to be the first to ask,

woman’s role would be to take the part of the asker.

The cow lows to the bull in gentle pastures:

the mare whinnies to the hoofed stallion.

Desire in us is milder and less frantic:

the male fire has its lawful limits.

Remember Byblis, who burned with incestuous love,

for her brother, and bravely punished herself with the noose?

Myrrha loved her father, but not as a daughter should,

and then was hidden by the covering bark:

oozing those tears, that pour from the tree as fragrance,

and whose droplets take their name from the girl.

Once, in the shady valleys of wooded Ida

there was a white bull, glory of the herd,

one small black mark set between his horns:

it the sole blemish, the rest was milky-white.

The heifers of Cnossos and Cydon longed

to have him mount up on their backs.

Pasiphae joyed in adultery with the bull:

she hated the handsome heifers with jealousy.

I sing what is well-known: not even Crete, the hundred-citied,

can deny it, however much Cretans lie.

They say that, with unpractised hands, she plucked

fresh leaves and tenderest grasses for the bull.

She went as one of the herd, unhindered by any care

for that husband of hers: Minos was ousted by a bull.

Why put on your finest clothes, Pasiphae?

Your lover can appreciate none of your wealth.

Why have a mirror with you, when you seek highland cattle?

Why continually smooth your hair, you foolish woman?

But believe the mirror that denies you’re a heifer.

How you wish that brow of yours could bear horns!

If you’d please Minos, don’t seek out adulterers:

If you want to cheat your husband, cheat with a man!

The queen left her marriage bed for woods and fields,

like a Maenad roused by the Boeotian god, they say.

Ah, how often, with angry face, she spied a cow,

and said: ‘Now, how can she please my lord?

Look, how she frisks before him in the tender grass:

doubtless the foolish thing thinks that she’s lovely.’

She spoke, and straightaway had her led from the vast herd,

the innocent thing dragged under the arching yoke,

or felled before the altar, forced to be a false sacrifice,

and, delighted, held her rival’s entrails in her hand.

The number of times she killed rivals to please the gods,

and said, holding the entrails: ‘Go, and please him for me!’

Now she claims to be Io, and now Europa,

one who’s a heifer, the other borne by the bull.

Yet he filled her, the king of the herd, deceived

by a wooden cow, and their offspring betrayed its breeding.

If Cretan Aerope had spurned Thyestes’s love

(and isn’t it hard to forego even one man?),

the Sun would not have veered from his course mid-way,

and turned back his chariot and horses towards Dawn.

The daughter who savaged Nisus’s purple lock

presses rabid dogs down with her thighs and groin.

Agamemnon who escaped Mars on land, Neptune at sea,

became the victim of his murderous wife.

Who would not weep at Corinthian Creusa’s flames,

and that mother bloodstained by her children’s murder?

Phoenix, Amyntor’s son wept out of sightless eyes:

Hippolytus was torn by his fear-maddened horses.

Phineus, why blind your innocent sons?

That punishment will return on your own head.

All these things were driven by woman’s lust:

it’s more fierce than ours, and more frenzied.

So, on, and never hesitate in hoping for any woman:

there’s hardly one among them who’ll deny you.

Whether they give or not, they’re delighted to be asked:

And even if you fail, you’ll escape unharmed.

But why fail, when there’s pleasure in new delights

and the more foreign the more they capture the heart?

The seed’s often more fertile in foreign fields,

and a neighbour’s herd always has richer milk.

Book I Part X: First Secure the Maid

But to get to know your desired-one’s maid

is your first care: she’ll smooth your way.

See if she’s close to her mistress’s thoughts,

and has plenty of true knowledge of her secret jests.

Corrupt her with promises, and with prayers:

you’ll easily get what you want, if she wishes.

She’ll tell the time (the doctors would know it too)

when her mistress’s mind is receptive, fit for love.

Her mind will be fit for love when she luxuriates

in fertility, like the crop on some rich soil.

When hearts are glad, and nothing sad constrains them,

they’re open: Venus steals in then with seductive art.

So Troy was defended with sorrowful conflict:

in joy, the Horse, pregnant with soldiers, was received.

She’s also to be tried when she’s wounded, pained by a rival:

make it your task then to see that she’s avenged.

The maid can rouse her, when she combs her hair in the morning,

and add her oar to the work of your sails,

and, sighing to herself in a low murmur, say:

‘But I doubt that you’ll be able to make her pay.’

Then she should speak of you, and add persuasive words,

and swear you’re dying, crazed with love.

But hurry, lest the sails fall and the breeze dies:

anger melts away, with time, like fragile ice.

You ask perhaps if one should take the maid herself?

Such a plan brings the greatest risk with it.

In one case, fresh from bed, she’ll get busy, in another be tardy,

in one case you’re a prize for her mistress, in the other herself.

There’s chance in it: even if it favours the idea,

my advice nevertheless is to abstain.

I don’t pick my way over sharp peaks and precipices,

no youth will be caught out being lead by me.

Still, while she’s giving and taking messages,

if her body pleases you as much as her zeal,

make the lady your first priority, her companion the next:

Love should never be begun with a servant.

I warn you of this, if art’s skill is to be believed,

and don’t let the wind blow my words out to sea:

follow the thing through or don’t attempt it:

she’ll endure the whispers once she’s guilty herself.

It’s no help if the bird escapes when its wings are limed:

it’s no good if the boar gets free from a loosened net.

Hold fast to the stricken fish you’ve caught on the hook:

press home the attempt, don’t leave off till you’ve won.

She’ll not give you away, sharing the guilt for the crime,

and you’ll know whatever your lady’s done, and said.

But hide it well: if the informer’s well hidden,

you’ll always secretly know your mistress’s mind.

Book I Part XI: Don’t Forget Her Birthday!

It’s a mistake to think that only farmers working the fields,

and sailors, need to keep an eye on the season:

Seed can’t always be trusted to the furrow,

or a hollow ship to the wine-dark sea,

It’s not always safe to capture tender girls:

often the time itself makes for success.

If her birthday’s here, or the April Kalends,

that delight in joining months, Venus’s to Mars,

or if the Circus is decorated, not as before

with clay figurines but with the wealth of kings,

delay the thing: then winter’s harsh, the Pleiades are here,

then the tender Kid is merged with the ocean wave:

it’s best to hold off then: then he who trusts the deep,

can scarcely save the wreckage of his mangled boat.

It’s fine to start on that day of tears when the Allia

flowed with the blood poured from Roman wounds,

or when the Sabbath day returns, the holy day

of the Syrian Jews, less suitable for buying things.

Let your mistress’s birthday be one of great terror to you:

that’s a black day when anything has to be given.

However much you avoid it, she’ll still win: it’s

a woman’s skill, to strip wealth from an ardent lover.

A loose-robed pedlar comes to your lady: she likes to buy:

and explains his prices while you’re sitting there.

She’ll ask you to look, because you know what to look for:

then kiss you: then ask you to buy her something there.

She swears that she’ll be happy with it, for years,

but she needs it now, now the price is right.

If you say you haven’t the money in the house, she’ll ask

for a note of hand – and you’re sorry you learnt to write.

Why - she asks doesn’t she for money as if it’s her birthday,

just for the cake, and how often it is her birthday, if she’s in need?

Why - she weeps doesn’t she, mournfully, for a sham loss,

that imaginary gem that fell from her pierced ear?

They many times ask for gifts, they never give in return:

you lose, and you’ll get no thanks for your loss.

And ten mouths with as many tongues wouldn’t be enough

for me to describe the wicked tricks of whores.

Book I Part XII: Write and Make Promises

Try wax to pave the way, pour it out on scraped tablets:

let wax be your mind’s true confidante.

Bring her your flattering words and play the lover:

and, whoever you are, add a humble prayer.

Achilles was moved by prayer to grant Hector’s body to Priam:

a god’s anger’s deflected by the voice of prayer.

Make promises: what harm can a promise do?

Anyone can be rich in promises.

Hope lasts, if she’s once believed in,

a useful, though deceptive, goddess.

If you’ve given, you can quite reasonably be forgotten:

she carried it off, and now she’s nothing to lose.

But if you don’t give, always appear about to:

like barren fields that always cheat the farmer,

like the gambler who goes on losing, lest he’s finally lost,

and calls the dice back endlessly into his eager hand.

This is the work, the labour, to have her without giving first:

and she’ll go on giving, lest she lose what she’s freely given.

So go on, and send your letter’s flattering words,

try her intention, test the road out first.

Cydippe was deceived by the message the apple brought,

and unaware the girl by her own words was caught.

I warn you, youths of Rome, learn the noble arts,

not just to defend some trembling client:

like the crowd, the grave judge, the elected senate,

a woman will give her hand, won by eloquence.

But let your powers be hidden, don’t display your eloquence:

let irksome words vanish from your speech.

Who, but a mindless fool, declaims to his sweet friend?

A strong letter often causes her displeasure.

Let your speech be credible, use ordinary words,

flattering though, speak as if you were present.

If she won’t receive the letter, returns it un-read,

stick to your plan, and hope she’ll read it later.

In time stubborn oxen come to the plough,

in time the horse learns to suffer the bridle:

constant use wears away an iron ring,

the curved plough’s lost to the endless furrow.

What’s harder than stone, softer than water?

Yet soft water carves the hardest stone.

Once steadfast you’ll conquer Penelope herself in time:

you’ll see Troy captive, though it’s captured late.

She reads and won’t reply? Don’t press her:

just let her keep on reading your flattery.

If she wants to read, she’ll want to answer what she’s read:

such things proceed by number and by measure.

Perhaps at first a cool letter comes to you,

asking: would you please not trouble her.

What she asks, she fears: what she doesn’t ask, she wants,

that you go on: do it, and you’ll soon get what you wish.

Book I Part XIII: Be Where She Is

Meanwhile, if she’s being carried, reclining on her bed,

secretly approach your lady’s litter,

and to avoid offering your words to odious ears,

hide what you can with skill and ambiguous gestures.

If she’s wandering at leisure in the spacious Colonnade,

you join here there also, lingering, as a friend:

now make as if to lead the way, now drop behind,

now go on quickly, and now take it slow:

don’t be ashamed to slip amongst the columns,

a while, then move along side by side:

don’t let her sit all beautiful in the theatre row without you:

what you’ll look at is the way she holds her arms.

Gaze at her, to admire her is fine:

and to speak with gestures and with glances.

And applaud, the man who dances the girl’s part:

and favour anyone who plays a lover.

When she rises, rise: while she’s sitting, sit:

pass the time at your lady’s whim.

Book I Part XIV: Look Presentable

Don’t delight in curling your hair with tongs,

don’t smooth your legs with sharp pumice stone.

Leave that to those who celebrate Cybele the Mother,

howling wildly in the Phrygian manner.

Male beauty’s better for neglect: Theseus

carried off Ariadne, without a single pin in his hair.

Phaedra loved Hippolytus: he was unsophisticated:

Adonis was dear to the goddess, and fit for the woods.

Neatness pleases, a body tanned from exercise:

a well fitting and spotless toga’s good:

no stiff shoe-thongs, your buckles free of rust,

no sloppy feet for you, swimming in loose hide:

don’t mar your neat hair with an evil haircut:

let an expert hand trim your head and beard.

And no long nails, and make sure they’re dirt-free:

and no hairs please, sprouting from your nostrils.

No bad breath exhaled from unwholesome mouth:

don’t offend the nose like a herdsman or his flock.

Leave the rest for impudent women to do,

or whoever’s the sort of man who needs a man.

Book I Part XV: At Dinner Be Bold

Ah, Bacchus calls to his poet: he helps lovers too,

and supports the fire with which he is inflamed.

The frantic Cretan girl wandered the unknown sands,

that the waters of tiny sea-borne Dia showed.

Just as she was, from sleep, veiled by her loose robe,

barefoot, with her yellow hair unbound,

she called, for cruel Theseus, to the unhearing waves,

her gentle cheeks wet with tears of shame.

She called, and wept as well, but both became her,

she was made no less beautiful by her tears.

Now striking her sweet breast with her hands, again and again,

she cried: ‘That faithless man’s gone: what of me, now?

What will happen to me?’ she cried: and the whole shore

echoed to the sound of cymbals and frenzied drums.

She fainted in terror, her next words were stifled:

no sign of blood in her almost lifeless body.

Behold! The Bacchantes with loose streaming hair:

Behold! The wanton Satyrs, a crowd before the god:

Behold! Old Silenus, barely astride his swaybacked mule,

clutching tightly to its mane in front.

While he pursues the Bacchae, the Bacchae flee and return,

as the rascal urges the mount on with his staff.

He slips from his long-eared mule and falls headfirst:

the Satyrs cry: ‘Rise again, father, rise,’

Now the God in his chariot, wreathed with vines,

curbing his team of tigers, with golden reins:

the girl’s voice and colour and Theseus all lost:

three times she tried to run, three times fear held her back.

She shook, like a slender stalk of wheat stirred by the wind,

and trembled like a light reed in a marshy pool.

To whom the god said: ‘See, I come, more faithful in love:

have no fear: Cretan, you’ll be bride to Bacchus.

Take the heavens for dowry: be seen as heavenly stars:

and guide the anxious sailor often to your Cretan Crown.’

He spoke, and leapt from the chariot, lest she feared

his tigers: the sand yielded under his feet:

clasped in his arms (she had no power to struggle),

he carried her away: all’s easily possible to a god.

Some sing ‘O Hymenaeus’, some ‘Bacchus, euhoe!’

So on the sacred bed the god and his bride meet.

When Bacchus’s gifts are set before you then,

and you find a girl sharing your couch,

pray to the father of feasts and nocturnal rites

to command the wine to bring your head no harm.

It’s alright here to speak many secret things,

with hidden words she’ll feel were spoken for her alone:

and write sweet nothings in the film of wine,

so your girl can read them herself on the table:

and gaze in her eyes with eyes confessing fire:

you should often have silent words and speaking face.

Be the first to snatch the cup that touched her lips,

and where she drank from, that is where you drink:

and whatever food her fingers touch, take that,

and as you take it, touch hers with your hand.

Let it be your wish besides to please the girl’s husband:

it’ll be more useful to you to make friends.

If you cast lots for drinking, give him the better draw:

give him the garland you were crowned with.

Though he’s below you or beside you, let him always be served first:

don’t hesitate to second whatever he says.

It’s a safe well-trodden path to deceive in a friend’s name,

though it’s a safe well-trodden path, it’s a crime.

That way the procurer procures far too much,

and reckons to see to more than he was charged with.

You’ll be given sure limits for drinking by me:

so pay attention to your mind and feet.

Most of all beware of starting a drunken squabble,

and fists far too ready for a rough fight.

Eurytion the Centaur died, made foolish by the wine:

food and drink are fitter for sweet jests.

If you’ve a voice, sing: if your limbs are supple, dance:

and please, with whatever you do that’s pleasing.

And though drunkenness is harmful, it’s useful to pretend:

make your sly tongue stammer with lisping sounds,

then, whatever you say or do that seems too forward,

it will be thought excessive wine’s to blame.

And speak well of your lady, speak well of the one she sleeps with:

but silently in your thoughts wish the man ill.

Then when the table’s cleared, the guests are free,

the throng will give you access to her and room.

Join the crowd, and softly approach her,

let fingers brush her thigh, and foot touch foot.

Now’s the time to speak to her: boorish modesty

fly far from here: Chance and Venus help the daring.

Not from my rules your eloquence will come:

desire her enough, you’ll be fluent yourself.

Your’s to play the lover, imitate wounds with words:

use whatever skill you have to win her belief.

Don’t think it’s hard: each think’s herself desired:

the very worst take’s pleasure in her looks.

Yet often the imitator begins to love in truth,

often, what was once imagined comes to be.

O, be kinder to the ones who feign it, girls:

true love will come, out of what was false.

Now secretly surprise her mind with flatteries,

as clear water undermines the hanging bank.

Never weary of praising her face, her hair,

her elegant fingers, and her slender feet.

Even the chaste like their beauty to be commended:

her form to even the virgin’s pleasing and dear.

Why is losing the contest in the Phrygian woods

a cause of shame to Juno and Pallas still?

Juno’s peacock shows his much-praised plumage:

if you watch in silence, he’ll hide his wealth again.

Race-horses between races on the testing course,

love it when necks are patted, manes are combed.

Book I Part XVI: Promise and Deceive

Don’t be shy of promising: promises entice girls:

add any gods you like as witness to what you swear.

Jupiter on high laughs at lovers’ perjuries,

and orders Aeolus’s winds to carry them into the void.

Jupiter used to swear by the Styx, falsely, to Juno:

now he looks favourably on his own example.

Gods are useful: as they’re useful, let’s think they’re there:

take wine and incense to the ancient altars:

indifferent calm and it’s like, apathy, don’t chain them:

live innocently: the divine is close at hand:

pay what you owe, hold dutifully to agreements:

commit no fraud: let your hands be free from blood.

Delude only women, if you’re wise, with impunity:

where truth’s more to be guarded against than fraud.

Deceive deceivers: for the most part an impious tribe:

let them fall themselves into the traps they’ve set.

They say in Egypt the life-giving waters failed

in the fields: and there were nine years of drought,

then Thrasius came to Busiris, and said that Jove

might be propitiated by shedding a stranger’s blood.

Busiris told him: ‘You become Jove’s first victim,

and you be the stranger to give Egypt water.’

And Phalaris roasted impetuous Perillus’s body

in the brazen bull: the unhappy creator was first to fill his work.

Both cases were just: for there’s no fairer law

than that the murderous maker should perish by his art.

As liars by liars are rightfully deceived,

wounded by their own example, let women grieve.

Book I Part XVII: Tears, Kisses, and Take the Lead

And tears help: tears will move a stone:

let her see your damp cheeks if you can.

If tears (they don’t always come at the right time)

fail you, touch your eyes with a wet hand.

What wise man doesn’t mingle tears with kisses?

Though she might not give, take what isn’t given.

Perhaps she’ll struggle, and then say ‘you’re wicked’:

struggling she still wants, herself, to be conquered.

Only, take care her lips aren’t bruised by snatching,

and that she can’t complain that you were harsh.

Who takes a kiss, and doesn’t take the rest,

deserves to lose all that were granted too.

How much short of your wish are you after that kiss?

Ah me, that was boorishness stopped you not modesty.

Though you call it force: it’s force that pleases girls: what delights

is often to have given what they wanted, against their will.

She who is taken in love’s sudden onslaught

is pleased, and finds wickedness is a tribute.

And she who might have been forced, and escapes unscathed,

will be saddened, though her face pretends delight.

Phoebe was taken by force: force was offered her sister:

and both, when raped, were pleased with those who raped them.

Though the tale’s known, it’s still worth repeating,

how the girl of Scyros mated Achilles the hero.

Now the lovely goddess had given her fatal bribe

to defeat the other two beneath Ida’s slopes:

now a daughter-in-law had come to Priam

from an enemy land: a Greek wife in Trojan walls:

all swore the prescribed oath to the injured husband:

now one man’s grief became a nation’s cause.

Shamefully, though he gave way to a mother’s prayer,

Achilles hid his manhood in women’s clothes.

What’s this, Aeacides? Spinning’s not your work:

your search for fame’s through Pallas’s other arts.

Why the basket? Your arm’s meant to bear a shield:

why does the hand that will slay Hector hold the yarn?

Throw away the spindle wound laboriously with thread!

The spear from Pelion’s to be brandished by this hand.

By chance a royal virgin shared the room:

through her rape she learned he was a man.

That she was truly won by force, we must think:

but she still wanted to be won by force.

She often cried: ‘Stop!’ afterwards, when Achilles hurried on:

now he’d taken up stronger weapons than the distaff.

Where’s that force now? Why do you restrain

the perpetrator of your rape, Deidamia?

No doubt as there’s a sort of shame in having started first,

so it’s pleasant to have what someone else has started.

Ah! The youth has too much faith in his own beauty,

if he waits until she asks him first.

The man must approach first: speak the words of entreaty:

she courteously receives his flattering prayers.

To win her, ask her: she only wants to be asked:

give her the cause and the beginning of your longing.

Jupiter went as a suppliant to the heroines of old:

no woman ever seduced great Jupiter.

If you find she disdains the advent of your prayerful sighs,

leave off what you’ve begun, retrace your steps.

What shuns them, they desire the more: they hate what’s there:

remove her loathing by pursuing less.

The hoped-for love should not always be declared:

introduce desire hidden in the name of friendship.

I’ve seen the most severe of women fooled this way:

he who once was a worshipper, became a lover.

Book I Part XVIII: Be Pale: Be Wary of Your Friends

A pale colour would shame a sailor on the ocean wave,

who’s blackened by the rays of the sun:

and shame the farmer who turns the soil with curved plough

and heavy harrow, underneath the heavens.

And you who seek the athlete’s crown, you too

would be ashamed if all your body was white.

Let all lovers be pale: it’s the colour fitting for love:

it suits, though fools have thought it of no value.

Orion wandered pale, for Side, in the woods,

Daphnis was pale for his reluctant Naiad.

Let your leanness show your heart: don’t think it a shame

to slip a cape over your shining hair:

Let youthful limbs be worn away by sleepless nights

and care, and the grief of a great love.

To gain your desire, be miserable,

and those who see you can say ‘You’re in love.’

Should I lament, warn you perhaps that right and wrong

are confused by all? Friendship and loyalty empty words.

Ah me, it’s not safe to praise your love to a friend:

if he believes your praise, he’ll steal her himself.

But Patroclus never disgraced Achilles’s bed:

and how modest Phaedra was with Pirithous.

Pylades loved Hermione, just as Phoebus Pallas,

or as Castor was twin to you Pollux.

Who hopes for that, hopes for apple-bearing tamarisks,

and looks for honey in the middle of the stream.

All delight in what’s shameful: care only for their pleasures,

and are pleased too when trouble comes to others.

Ah it’s a crime! It’s not their rivals that lovers fear:

flee those you think are friends, and you’ll be safe.

Beware of brothers, relatives, and dear friends:

that crowd offers you true cause for fear.

Book I Part XIX: Be Flexible

I’ve done, but there’s diversity in women’s

hearts: a thousand minds require a thousand methods.

One soil doesn’t bear all crops: vines here

are good, olives there: this teems with healthy wheat.

There are as many manners of heart as kinds of face:

a wise man will adapt to many forms,

and like Proteus now, melt into the smooth waters,

now be a tree, now a lion, now a bristling boar.

These fish are speared, those caught on a hook:

others trawled in billowing nets with straining ropes.

One mode won’t suit you for every age-group:

the older hinds spot a trap from further off.

If the simple find you cunning, and the modest crude,

the poor things will straightaway mistrust themselves.

So it happens that she who fears to trust an honest man,

falls to the embrace of some low rascal.

Part of my task is left: part of the labour’s done.

Moor my boat here to the anchor-chains.

End of Book I

Book II

Book II Part I: His Task

Sing out the Paean: sing out the Paean twice!

The prize I searched for falls into my net.

Delighted lovers grant my songs the palm,

I’m preferred to Hesiod and old Homer.

So Paris the stranger sailed, from hostile Amyclae’s shore,

under white sheets, with his ravished bride:

such was Pelops who brought you home Hippodamia,

borne on the foreign wheels of his conquering car.

What’s your hurry, young man? Your boat’s mid ocean,

and the harbour I search for is far away.

It’s not enough the girl’s come to you, through me, the poet:

she’s captured by my art, she’s to be kept by my art too.

There’s no less virtue in keeping than in finding.

There’s chance in the latter: the first’s a work of art.

Now aid me, your follower, Venus, and the Boy,

and Erato, Muse, now you have love’s name too.

Great my task as I try to tell what arts can make Love stay:

that boy who wanders so, through the vast world.

And he’s flighty, and has two wings on which he vanishes:

it’s a tricky job to pin him down.

Minos blocked every road of flight for his guest:

but Daedalus devised a bold winged path.

When he’d imprisoned the offspring of its mother’s sin,

the man half-bull, the bull who was half-man,

he said: ‘Minos, the Just, let my exile end:

let my native land receive my ashes.

And since I couldn’t live in my own country,

driven from it by cruel fate, still let me die there.

Give my boy freedom, if the father’s service was worthless:

or if power will not spare the child, let it spare the old.’

He spoke the words, but they, and so many others, were in vain:

his freedom was still denied him by the king.

When he realised this, he said: ‘Now, now, O Daedalus,

you have an object for your skilfulness.

Minos rules the earth and the waves:

neither land or sea is open for my flight.

The sky road still remains: we’ll try the heavens.

Jupiter, on high, favour my plan:

I don’t aspire to touch the starry spheres:

there is no way to flee the king but this.

I’d swim the Stygian waves, if Styx offered me a path:

through my nature new laws are mine.’

Trouble often sharpens the wits: who would think

any man could travel by the air-roads?

He lays out oar-like wings with lines of feathers,

and ties the fragile work with fastenings of string,

and glues the ends with beeswax melted in the flames,

and now the work of this new art’s complete.

Laughing, his son handled the wax and feathers

not knowing they were being readied for his own shoulders.

His father said of them: ‘This is the art that will take us home,

by this creation we’ll escape from Minos.

Minos bars all other ways but cannot close the skies:

as is fitting, my invention cleaves the air.

But don’t gaze at the Bear, that Arcadian girl,

or Bootes’s companion, Orion with his sword:

Fly behind me with the wings I give you: I’ll go in front:

your job’s to follow: you’ll be safe where I lead.

For if we go near the sun through the airy aether,

the wax will not endure the heat:

if our humble wings glide close to ocean,

the breaking salt waves will drench our feathers.

Fly between the two: and fear the breeze as well,

spread your wings and follow, as the winds allow.’

As he warns, he fits the wings to his child, shows

how they move, as a bird teaches her young nestlings.

Then he fastened the wings he’d fashioned to his own shoulders,

and poised his anxious body for the strange path.

Now, about to fly, he gave the small boy a kiss,

and the tears ran down the father’s cheeks.

A small hill, no mountain, higher than the level plain:

there their two bodies were given to the luckless flight.

And Daedalus moved his wings, and watched his son’s,

and all the time kept to his own course.

Now Icarus delights in the strange journey,

and, fear forgotten, he flies more swiftly, with daring art.

A man catching fish, with quivering rod, saw them,

and the task he’d started dropped from his hand.

Now Samos was to the left (Naxos was far behind

and Paros, and Delos beloved by Phoebus the god)

Lebinthos lay to the right, and shady-wooded Calymne,

and Astypalaea ringed by rich fishing grounds,

when the boy, too rash, with youth’s carelessness,

soared higher, and left his father far behind.

The knots give way, and the wax melts near the sun,

his flailing arms can’t clutch at thin air.

Fearful, from heaven’s heights he gazes at the deep:

terrified, darkness, born of fear, clouds his eyes.

The wax dissolves: he thrashes with naked arms,

and flutters there with nothing to support him.

He falls, and falling cries: ‘Father, O father, I’m lost!’

the salt-green sea closes over his open lips.

But now the unhappy father, his father, calls, ‘Icarus!

Where are you Icarus, where under the sky?

Calling ‘Icarus’, he saw the feathers on the waves.

Earth holds his bones: the waters take his name.

Book II Part II: You Need Gifts of Mind

Minos could not hold back those mortal wings:

I’m setting out to check the winged god himself.

He who has recourse to Thracian magic, fails,

to what the foal yields, torn from its new-born brow,

Medea’s herbs can’t keep love alive,

nor Marsian dirges mingled with magic chants.

If incantations only could enslave love, Ulysses

would have been tied to Circe, Jason to the Colchian.

It’s no use giving girls pale drugs:

drugs hurt the mind, have power to cause madness.

Away with such evils: to be loved be lovable:

something face and form alone won’t give you.

Though you’re Nireus loved by Homer of old,

or sweet Hylas ravished by the Naiades’ crime,

to keep your love, and not to find her leave you,

add gifts of mind to grace of body.

A sweet form is fragile, what’s added to its years

lessen it, and time itself eats it away.

Violets and open lilies do not flower forever,

and thorns are left stiffening on the blown rose.

And white hair will come to find you, lovely lad,

soon wrinkles will come, furrowing your skin.

Then nourish mind, which lasts, and adds to beauty:

it alone will stay till the funeral pyre.

Cultivate your thoughts with the noble arts,

more than a little, and learn two languages.

Ulysses wasn’t handsome, but he was eloquent,

and still racked the sea-goddesses with love.

How often Calypso mourned his haste,

and denied the waves were fit for oars!

She asked him again and again about the fall of Troy:

He grew used to retelling it often, differently.

They walked the beach: there, lovely Calypso too

demanded the gory tale of King Rhesus’s fate.

He, with a rod (a rod perhaps he already had)

illustrated what she asked in the thick sand.

‘This’ he said, ‘is Troy’ (drawing the walls in the sand):

‘This your Simois: imagine this is our camp.

This is the field,’ (he drew the field), ‘that was dyed

with Dolon’s blood, while he spied on Achilles’s horses.

here were the tents of Thracian Rhesus:

here am I riding back the captured horses at night.’

And he was drawing more, when suddenly a wave

washed away Troy, and Rhesus, and his camp.

Then the goddess said ‘Do you see what you place your trust in

for your voyage, waves that have destroyed such mighty names?’

So listen, whoever you are, fear to rely on treacherous beauty

or own to something more than just the flesh.

Book II Part III: Be Gentle and Good Tempered

Gentleness especially impresses minds favourably:

harshness creates hatred and fierce wars.

We hate the hawk that lives its life in battle,

and the wolf whose custom is to raid the timid flocks.

But the swallow, for its gentleness, is free from human snares,

and Chaonian doves have dovecotes to live in.

Away with disputes and the battle of bitter tongues:

sweet love must feed on gentle words.

Let married men and married women be checked by rebuffs,

and think in turn things always are against them:

that’s proper for wives: quarrelling’s the marriage dowry:

but a mistress should always hear the longed-for cooing.

No law orders you to come together in one bed:

in your rules it’s love provides the entertainment.

Approach her with gentle flatteries and words to delight

her ear, so that your arrival makes her glad.

I don’t come as a teacher of love for the rich:

he who can give has no need of my art:

He has genius who can say: ‘Take this’ when he pleases:

I submit: he delights more than my inventions.

I’m the poor man’s poet, who was poor when I loved:

when I could give no gifts, I gave them words.

The poor must love warily: the poor fear to speak amiss,

and suffer much that the rich would not.

I remember mussing my lady’s hair in anger:

how many days that anger cost me!

I don’t think I tore her dress, I didn’t feel it: but she

said so, and my reward was to replace it.

But you, if you’re wise, avoid your teacher’s faults,

and fear the harm that came from my offence.

Make war with the Parthians, peace with a civilised friend,

and laughter, and whatever engenders love.

Book II Part IV: Be Patient and Comply

If she’s not charming or courteous enough, at your loving,

endure it and persist: she’ll soon be kinder.

You can get a curved branch to bend on the tree by patience:

you’ll break it, if you try out your full strength.

With patience you can cross the water: you’ll not

conquer the river by sailing against the flow.

Patience tames tigers and Numidian lions:

the farmer in time bows the ox to the plough.

Who was fiercer than Arcadian Atalanta?

Wild as she was she still surrendered to male kindness.

Often Milanion wept among the trees

at his plight and at the girl’s harsh acts:

often at her orders his shoulders carried the nets,

often he pierced wild boars with his deadly spear:

and he felt the pain of Hylaeus’s tense bow:

but that of another bow was still more familiar.

I don’t order you to climb in Maenalian woods,

holding a weapon, or carrying nets on your back:

I don’t order you to bare your chest to flying darts:

the tender commands of my arts are safe.

Yield to opposition: by yielding you’ll end as victor:

Only play the part she commands you to.

Condemn what she condemns: what she approves, approve:

say what she says: deny what she denies.

She laughs, you laugh: remember to cry, if she cries:

she’ll set the rules according to your expression.

If she plays, tossing the ivory dice in her hand,

throw them wrong, and concede on your bad throw:

If you play knucklebones, no prize if you win,

make out that often the ruinous low Dogs fell to you.

And if it’s draughts, the draughtsmen mercenaries,

let your champion be swept away by your glass foe.

Yourself, hold your girl’s sunshade outspread,

yourself, make a place for her in the crowd.

Quickly bring up a footstool to her elegant couch,

and slip the sandal on or off her sweet foot.

Often, even though you’re shivering yourself,

her hand must be warmed at your neglected breast.

Don’t think it shameful (though it’s shameful, you’ll like it),

to hold the mirror for her in your noble hands.

When his stepmother, Juno, was tired of sending him monsters,

Hercules, it’s said, who reached the heavens he’d shouldered,

held a basket, among the Lydian girls, and spun raw wool.

The hero of Tiryns complied with his girl’s orders:

go now, and endure the misgivings he endured.

Ordered to appear in town, make sure you arrive

before time, and don’t leave unless it’s late.

She tells you to be elsewhere: drop everything, run,

don’t let the crowd in the way stop you trying.

She’s returning home from another party at night:

when she calls for her slave you come too.

She’s in the country, says: ‘come’: Love hates a laggard:

if you’ve no wheels, travel the road on foot.

Don’t let bad weather, or parching Dog-days, stall you,

or the roads whitened by falling snow.

Book II Part V: Don’t be Faint-Hearted

Love is a kind of warfare. Slackers, dismiss!

There are no cowards guarding this standard.

Night and winter, long roads and cruel sorrows,

and every kind of labour are found on love’s campaigns.

You’ll often endure rain pouring from heavenly clouds,

and frozen, lie there on the naked earth.

They say that Phoebus grazed Admetus’s cattle,

and found shelter in a humble hut.

Who can’t suit what suited Phoebus? Lose your pride,

you who’d have love’s sorrows tamed.

If you’re denied a safe and level road,

and the door barred with a bolt against you,

then drop down head-first through the open roof:

a high window too offers a secret way.

She’ll be glad, knowing the chase itself is risky for you:

that will be sure proof to the lady of your love.

You might often have been parted from your girl, Leander:

you swam across so she could know your heart.

Book II Part VI: Win Over the Servants

Nor is it shameful to you to cultivate her maids,

according to their grades, and the serving men.

Greet them by their names (it costs you nothing)

clasp humble hands with yours, in your ambition.

And even offer the servant, who asks, a little something

on Fortune’s Day (it’s little enough to pay):

and the maid, on that day when the hand of punishment fell

on the Gauls, they deluded by maids in mistress’s clothes.

Trust me, make the people yours: especially the gatekeeper,

and whoever lies in front of her bedroom doors.

Book II Part VII: Give Her Little Tasteful Gifts

I don’t tell you to give your mistress expensive gifts:

give little but of that little, skilfully, give what’s fitting.

When the field is full of riches, when the branches bend

with the weight, let the boy bring a gift in a rustic basket.

You can say it was sent from your country villa,

even though it was bought on the Via Sacra.

Send grapes, or those nuts Amaryllis loved,

chestnuts, but she doesn’t love them now.

Why even thrushes are fine, and the gift of a dove,

to witness your remembrance of your mistress.

Shameful to send them hoping for the death of some childless

old man. Ah, perish those who make giving a crime!

Do I also teach that you send tender verses?

Ah me, poems are not honoured much.

Songs are praised, but its gifts they really want:

barbarians themselves are pleasing, so long as they’re rich.

Truly now it is the Age of Gold: the greatest honours

come with gold: love’s won by gold.

Even if you came, Homer, with the Muses as companions,

if you brought nothing with you, Homer, you’d be out.

Still there are cultured girls, the rarest set:

and another set who aren’t, but would like to be.

Praise either in song: and they’ll commend

the reader whatever his voice’s sweetness:

So sing your midnight song to one and the other,

perhaps it will figure as a trifling gift.

Book II Part VIII: Favour Her and Compliment Her

Then what you’re about to do, and think is useful,

always get your lover to ask you to do it.

You promised liberty to one of your slaves:

still let him seek the fact of it from your girl:

if you stay a punishment, forgo the use of cruel chains,

let her be thankful to you, for what you did:

the advantage is yours: the title ‘giver’ is your lover’s:

you lose nothing, she plays the mistress’s part.

But whoever you are, who want to keep your girl,

she must think that you’re inspired by her beauty.

If she’s dressed in Tyrian robes, praise Tyrian:

if she’s in Coan silk, consider Coan fitting.

She’s in gold-thread? She’s more precious than gold:

She wears wool, approve the wool she’s wearing.

She leaves off her tunic, cry: ‘You set me on fire’,

but request her anxiously to beware of chills.

She’s parted her hair: praise the parting:

she waves her hair: be pleased with the waves.

Admire her limbs as she dances, her voice when she sings,

and when it finishes, grieve that it’s finished in words.

It’s fine if you tell her what delights, and what gives joy

about her lovemaking, her skill in bed.

Though she’s more violent than fierce Medusa,

she’ll be ‘kind and gentle’ to her lover.

But make sure of this: don’t let your expression

give your speech the lie, lest you seem a deceiver with words.

Art works when its hidden: discovery brings shame,

and time destroys faith in everything of merit.

Book II Part IX: Comfort Her in Sickness

Often in autumn, when the season’s loveliest,

and the ripe grape’s dyed with purple juice,

when now we’re frozen solid, now drenched with heat,

the body’s listless in the changing air.

Your girl’s well in fact: but if she’s lying sick,

feels ill because of the unhealthy weather,

then let love and devotion be obvious to your girl,

then sow what you’ll reap later with full sickle.

Don’t be put off by the fretfulness of the patient,

let yours be the hand that does what she allows.

And be seen weeping, and don’t shrink from kisses,

let her parched mouth drink from your tears.

Pray a lot, but all aloud: and, as often as she lets you,

tell her happy dreams that you remembered.

And let the old woman come who cleanses room and bed,

bringing sulphur and eggs in her trembling hands.

The signs of a welcome devotion are in all this:

by these means into wills many have made their way.

But don’t let dislike for your attentions rise from illness,

only be charming, in your earnestness:

don’t prohibit food, or hand her cups of bitter stuff:

let your rival mix all that for her.

Book II Part X: Let Her Miss You: But Not For Long

But the winds that filled your sails and blew offshore,

are no use when you’re in the open sea.

While young love’s wandering, it gathers strength by use:

if you nourish it well, it will be strong in time.

The bull you fear’s the calf you used to stroke:

the tree you lie beneath was a sapling:

the river’s tiny when born, but gathers riches in its flow,

and collects the many waters that come to it.

Make her accustomed to you: nothing’s greater than habit:

while you’re captivating her, avoid no boredom.

Let her always be seeing you: always giving you ear:

show your face, at night and in the day.

When you’ve more confidence that you’ll be missed,

when your absence far away will cause her worry,

give her a rest: the fields when rested repay the loan,

and parched earth drinks the heavenly rain.

Phyllis burnt less for Demophoon in his presence:

she blazed more fiercely when he sailed away.

Penelope was tormented by the loss of cunning Ulysses:

you, Laodamia, by absent Protesilaus.

But brief delays are best: fondness fades with time,

love vanishes with absence, and new love appears.

When Menelaus left, Helen did not lie alone,

Paris, the guest, at night, was taken to her warm breast.

What craziness was that, Menelaus? You left

wife and guest alone under the same roof.

Madman, would you trust timid doves to a hawk?

Would you trust the full fold to a mountain wolf?

Helen did not sin: her lover committed none:

what you, what anyone would do, he did.

You forced adultery by giving time and place:

What did the girl employ but your counsel?

What should she do? Her man away, a cultivated guest,

and she afraid to sleep alone in an empty bed.

Let Atrides appear: I acquit Helen of crime:

she took advantage of her husband’s courtesy.

Book II Part XI: Have Other Friends: But Be Careful

But the red-haired boar is not so fierce in mid-anger.

when he turns and threatens the rabid pack,

or the lioness giving suck to un-weaned cubs,

or the tiny viper crushed by a careless foot,

as a woman when a rival’s caught in her lover’s bed:

she blazes, her face the colour of her heart.

She storms with fire and flame, all restraint forgot,

as if struck, as they say, by the horns of the Boeotian god.

Wronged by her husband, her marriage violated,

savage Medea avenged herself through her children.

Another fatal mother was that swallow, you see there:

look, her breast carries the stain of blood.

Well-founded and firm loves have been dissolved so:

these are crimes to make cautious men afraid.

Not that my censure condemns you to only one girl:

the gods forbid! A wife could hardly expect that.

Indulge, but secretly veil your sins, with restraint:

it’s no glory to you to be seeking out wrongdoing.

Don’t give gifts another girl could spot,

or have set times for your assignations.

And lest a girl catch you out in your favourite haunts

don’t meet all of them in one place.

And always look closely at your wax tablets, whenever you write:

lest much more is read there than you sent.

Wounded, Venus takes up just arms, and hurls her dart,

and makes you lament, as she is lamenting.

While Agamemnon was satisfied with one woman, Clytemnestra

was chaste: evil was done through the man’s fault.

She had heard how Chryses, with sacred head-bands,

and laurel in his hand, failed to win back his daughter:

she had heard of your sorrows, captive Briseis,

and how scandalous delays had prolonged the war.

She heard all this: She saw Cassandra for herself:

the victor the shameful prize of his own prize.

Then she took Thyestes to her heart and bed,

and wrongfully avenged the Atrides’s crime.

Even if the acts, you’ve well hidden, become known,

though they’re known, still always deny them.

Don’t be subdued, or more fond than usual:

those are the signs of many guilty thoughts.

But don’t forgo sex: all peace is in that one thing.

The act it is that disproves a prior union.

Book II Part XII: Aphrodisiacs?

There are those who prescribe eating a dish of savory,

a noxious herb, my judgement is its poisonous:

or mix pepper with the seeds of stinging nettles,

or crush yellow camomile in well-aged wine:

But the goddess who holds high Eryx, beneath the shaded hill,

doesn’t force you to suffer like this for her delights.

White onions brought from Megara, Alcathous’s city,

and rocket, herba salax, the kind that comes from gardens,

eat those, and eggs, eat honey from Hymettus,

and seeds from the cones of sharp-needled pines.

Book II Part XIII: Stir her Jealousy

Wise Erato, why turn to magic arts?

My chariot’s scraping the inside post.

You who just hid your crimes on my advice,

change course, and on my advice reveal your secrets.

I’m not guilty of fickleness: the curved prow

is not always blown onwards by the same wind.

Now we run to a Thracian northerly, an easterly now,

sometimes a west wind fills our sails, sometimes a south.

Look how the charioteer now slacks the reins,

then skilfully restrains the galloping team.

There are those who don’t like being served with shy kindness:

while love fades if there’s no rival around.

Generally heads are swollen with success,

it’s not easy to be content with the good times.

As a fire with little power, gradually consumed,

hides itself, ashes whitening on its surface,

but the doused flames will flare with a pinch of sulphur,

and the brightness, that was there before, returns:

so when hearts are numbed by slack dullness and security,

love is aroused by some sharp stimulus.

Make her fearful for you: warm her tepid mind:

let her grow pale at evidence of your guilt:

O four times happy, times impossible to count,

is he for whom his wounded girl grieves.

That, when his sins reach her unwilling ears, she’s lost,

and voice and colour flee the unhappy girl.

Let me be him, whose hair the angry woman tears:

let me be him, whose tender cheeks nails seek,

him whom she sees with tears, turns on him tortured eyes,

whom though she can’t live without, she wishes she could.

If you ask how long you should let her lament her hurt,

keep it brief, lest a long delay kindles anger’s force:

Throw your arms straightaway around her snow-white neck,

and let the weeping girl fall on your chest.

Kiss her who weeps, make sweet love to her who weeps,

there’ll be peace: this is the one way anger’s dissolved.

When she’s truly raging, when she seems fixed on war,

then sue for peace in bed, she’ll be gentle.

There Harmony dwells with grounded arms:

there, trust me, is the place where grace is born.

Doves that once fought, now bill and coo,

whose murmur is of caressing words.

At first all things were confused mass without form,

heaven and earth and sea were created one:

soon sky was set above land, earth circled by water,

and random chaos split into its parts:

Forests allowed the creatures a home: air the birds:

fish took shelter in the running streams.

Then the human race wandered the empty wilds,

a thing of naked strength and brutish body:

woods were its home, grass its food, leaves its bed:

and for a long time no man knew another.

They say sweet delights softened savage spirits:

when man and woman rested in one place:

they had no teacher to show them what to do:

Venus did her work without sweet art.

Birds have mates to love: in the midst of waters

a fish will find another to share her joy:

hind follows stag, snake will bind with snake,

bitch clings entwined with some adulterous dog:

ewes delight in being covered: bulls delight in heifers, too,

the snub-nosed she-goat supports her rank mate:

Mares driven to frenzy follow their stallion,

through distant places beyond the branching river.

So act, and offer strong medicine to your angry one:

only this will bring peace to her unhappiness:

this medicine beats Machaon’s drugs:

this will reinstate you when you’ve sinned.

Book II Part XIV: Be Wise and Suffer

While I was writing this, Apollo suddenly appeared

plucking the strings of his lyre with his thumb.

Laurel was in his hand, laurel wreathing his hair:

he appears to poets looking like that.

‘Professor of Wanton Love,’ he said to me,

‘go lead your disciples to my temple,

it’s where the famous words, celebrated throughout the world,

command everyone to “Know Yourself”.

He alone will be wise, who’s well-known to himself,

and carries out each work that suits his powers.

Whom nature’s given beauty, let it be seen by her:

whose skin is lustrous, lie there often with bare shoulders:

who delights by talking, avoid taciturn silence:

who sings with art, then sing: who drinks with art, then drink.

but the eloquent should never declaim mid-speech

nor the crazy poet ever read his poems!’

So Phoebus warned: take note of Phoebus’s warning:

truth’s surely on the sacred lips of that god.

To bring us back to earth: who loves wisely wins,

and by my skill will bring off what he seeks.

It’s not often the furrow repays the loan with interest,

not often the winds aid the boat in trouble:

What delights a lover is little, what pains him more:

many sufferings declare themselves to his heart.

As many as hares on Athos, the bees that graze on Hybla,

as many as the olives the grey-green branches carry,

or the sea-shells on the shore, are the pains of love:

the thorns we suffer from are drenched in gall.

They’ll say she’s gone out: very likely she’s to be seen inside:

think that she has gone out, and your vision lied.

The door will be shut the night she promised you:

endure it, lay your body on the dusty ground.

And perhaps the lying maid with scornful face,

will say: ‘Why’s he hanging round our door?’

Still, a suppliant, coax the doorposts, and your harsh mistress,

and hang the roses, from your head, outside.

Come if she wishes: when she shuns you, go:

it’s unbecoming to a noble man to bore her.

Why let your lover say: ‘There’s no escaping him’?

Her feelings won’t always be against you.

Don’t think it a disgrace to suffer curses or blows

from the girl, or plant kisses on her tender feet.

Book II Part XV: Respect Her Freedom

Why waste time on trifles? Greater themes arise:

I sing great things: pay attention, people.

We labour hard, but virtue’s nothing if not hard:

hard labour’s what my art demands.

Be patient with your rival, victory rests with you:

you’ll be victor on Great Jupiter’s hill.

Believe me, it’s no man says this, but Chaonia’s sacred oaks:

my art contains nothing more profound than this.

If she flirts, endure it: if she writes, don’t touch the wax:

let her come from where she wishes: and go where she pleases, too.

This husbands allow their lawfully married wives,

when you come, gentle sleep, to play your part, as well.

I’m not perfect in this art, I confess:

What can I do? I’m less than my own instructions.

What, shall I let some man signal openly to my girl,

and bear it, and not show anger if I wish?

I remember her husband kissed her: I grieved

at the kiss he gave: my love’s full of barbarities.

Not a few times this fault has hurt me: he’s wiser

who’s reconciled to other mens’ coming.

But it was better to know nothing: let intrigues

be hidden, lest her shameless mouth revealed untruths.

How much better, O young men, to avoid surprising them:

let girls sin, and think, while sinning, that they’ve fooled you.

Love grows with being caught: who are twinned by fortune

persist to the end in the cause that ruined them.

The story’s well known through all the heavens,

of Mars and Venus caught by Vulcan’s craft.

Mars stirred by mad desire for Venus

was turned from grim warrior to lover.

And Venus was not coy or resistant to Mar’s pleas

(for there’s no more loving goddess than her).

Ah how often the wanton laughed at her husband’s limp,

they say, or his hands hardened by his fiery art.

She’d openly imitate Vulcan then, to Mars: it became her:

great beauty was mingled there with charm.

But they used to hide their adultery at first.

It was a sin, filled with the blush of shame.

The Sun’s tale (who can evade the Sun?)

made known to Vulcan what his spouse had done.

What a poor example, Sun, you set! Seek a gift from her,

and you, if you’re quiet, can have what she can give.

Vulcan set a hidden net, over and round the bed:

it’s a piece of work that deceives the eye.

Pretends he’s off to Lemnos: the lovers come

to their assignation: and both lie naked in the net.

He calls the gods: the captives are displayed:

Venus they think can scarcely restrain her tears.

They can’t hide their faces, are even unable

to cover their sexes with their hands.

Then someone laughed and said: ‘Let me have the chains,

Mars, if they’re an embarrassment to you!’

Their captive bodies are, with difficulty, freed, at your plea,

Neptune: Venus runs to Paphos: Mars heads for Thrace.

This you achieved, Vulcan: what they hid before,

now all shame is gone, they indulge in freely:

Now maddened you often confess the thing was foolish,

and suffer regret for your cunning.

It’s forbidden you: Venus once tricked forbids

traps to be set, like the one that she endured.

Lay out no snares for rivals: don’t intercept

those secret hand-written messages.

Let husbands trap them, if they think they indeed need trapping,

husbands to whom the ceremony of fire and water gives the right.

Look, I swear again: there’s nothing here except what’s played within the law: no virtuous woman’s caught up in my jests.

Book II Part XVI: Keep It Secret

Who’d dare reveal to the impious the secret rites of Ceres,

or uncover the high mysteries of Samothrace?

There’s little virtue in keeping silent:

but speaking of what’s kept secret’s a heinous crime.

O it’s good if that babbler Tantalus, clutching at fruit in vain,

thirsts in the very middle of the waters!

Venus, above all, orders you to be silent about her rites:

I warn you, let no idle chatterers come near her.

Though the mysteries of Venus are not buried in a box,

nor echo in the wide air to the clash of cymbals,

but are busily enjoyed so, by us all,

they still wish to be concealed among us.

Venus, herself, when she takes off her clothes,

covers her sex with the half-turned palm of her left hand.

Beasts couple indiscriminately in full view: from this sight

girls of course turn aside their faces, too.

Bedrooms and locked doors suit our intrigues,

and shameful things are hidden under the sheets:

and if not darkness, we seek some veiling shadow,

and something less exposed than the light of day.

Even back then, when roofs kept out neither rain nor sun,

and the oak-tree provided food and shelter,

pleasure was had in woods and caves, not under the heavens:

such care the native peoples had for their modesty.

but now we advertise our nocturnal acts,

and nothing’s bought if it can’t be boasted of!

No doubt you’ll look out every girl, whatever,

to say to whom you please: ‘She too was mine,’

and there’ll be no lack of those you can point out,

so for each that’s mentioned there’s a shameful tale?

Little to cry at: some invent, what they’d deny if true,

and claim there isn’t one they haven’t slept with.

If not their bodies, they touch what they can, their names,

and the reputation’s gone, though the body’s chaste.

  Odious watchman, go close the girl’s door, now,

  too late, locked with a hundred heavy bars!

What’s safe, when adulterers give out her name,

and want what never happened to be believed?

I’m wary even of professing to genuine passions,

and, trust me, my secret affairs are wholly hidden.

Book II Part XVII: Don’t Mention Her Faults

Above all beware of reproaching girls for their faults,

it’s useful to ignore so many things.

Andromeda’s dark complexion was not criticised

by Perseus, who was borne aloft by wings on his feet.

Andromache by all was rightly thought too tall:

Hector was the only one who spoke of her as small.

Grow accustomed to what’s called bad, you’ll call it good:

Time heals much: new love feels everything.

While a new-grafted twig’s growing in the green bark,

struck by the lightest breeze, it may fall:

Later, hardened by time, it resists the winds,

and the strong tree will bear adopted wealth.

Time itself erases all faults from the flesh,

and what was a flaw, ceases to make you pause.

A new ox-hide makes nostrils recoil:

tamed by familiarity, the odour fades.

An evil may be sweetened by its name: let her be ‘dark’

whose pigment’s blacker than Illyrian pitch:

if she squints, she’s like Venus: if she’s grey, Minerva:

let her be ‘slender’, who’s truly emaciated:

call her ‘trim’, who’s tiny, ‘full-bodied’ if she’s gross,

and hide the fault behind the nearest virtue.

Book II Part XVIII: Don’t Ask About Her Age

Don’t ask how old she is, or who was Consul when

she was born, that’s strictly the Censor’s duty:

Especially if she’s past bloom, and the good times gone,

and now she plucks the odd grey hair.

There’s value, O youth, in this or a greater age:

this will bear seed, this is a field to sow.

Besides, they’ve more knowledge of the thing,

and have that practice that alone makes the artist:

With elegance they repair the marks of time,

and take good care that they don’t appear old.

As you wish, they’ll perform in a thousand positions:

no painting’s ever contrived to show more ways.

They don’t have to be aroused to pleasure:

man and woman equally deliver what delights.

I hate sex that doesn’t provide release for both:

that’s why the touch of boys is less desirable.

I hate a girl who gives because she has to,

and, arid herself, thinks only of her spinning.

Pleasure’s no joy to me that’s given out of duty:

let no girl be dutiful to me.

I like to hear a voice confessing to her rapture,

which begs me to hold back, and keep on going.

I gaze at the dazed eyes of my frantic mistress:

she’s exhausted, and won’t let herself be touched for ages.

Nature doesn’t give those joys to raw youths,

that often come so easily beyond thirty-five.

The hasty drink the new and unfermented: pour a vintage wine

for me, matured in the cask, from an ancient consulship.

Not till it’s grown can the plane tree bear the sun,

and naked feet destroy a new-laid lawn.

I suppose you’d prefer Hermione to Helen,

and was Medusa any better than her mother?

Then, he who wants to come to his love late,

earns a valuable prize, if he’ll only wait.

Book II Part XIX: Don’t Rush

See, the knowing bed receives two lovers:

halt, Muse, at the closed doors of the room.

Flowing words will be said, by themselves, without you:

and that left hand won’t lie idle on the bed.

Fingers will find what will arouse those parts,

where love’s dart is dipped in secrecy.

Hector did it once with vigour, for Andromache,

and wasn’t only useful in the wars.

And great Achilles did it for his captive maid,

when he lay in his sweet bed, weary from the fight.

You let yourself be touched by hands, Briseis,

that were still dyed with Trojan blood.

And was that what overjoyed you, lascivious girl,

those conquering fingers approaching your body?

Trust me, love’s pleasure’s not to be hurried,

but to be felt enticingly with lingering delays.

When you’ve reached the place, where a girl loves to be touched,

don’t let modesty prevent you touching her.

You’ll see her eyes flickering with tremulous brightness,

as sunlight often flashes from running water.

Moans and loving murmurs will arise,

and sweet sighs, and playful and fitting words.

But don’t desert your mistress by cramming on more sail,

or let her overtake you in your race:

hasten to the goal together: that’s the fullness of pleasure,

when man and woman lie there equally spent.

This is the pace you should indulge in, when you’re given

time for leisure, and fear does not urge on the secret work.

When delay’s not safe, lean usefully on the oar,

and plunge your spur into the galloping horse.

While strength and years allow, sustain the work:

bent age comes soon enough on silent feet.

Plough the earth with the blade, the sea with oars,

take a cruel weapon in your warring hands,

or spend your body, and strength, and time, on girls:

this is warlike service too, this too earns plenty.

Book II Part XX: The Task’s Complete...But Now...

The end of the work’s at hand: grateful youth grant me the palm,

and set the wreathe of myrtle on my perfumed hair.

As Podalirius with his art of medicine, among the Greeks,

was great, Achilles with his right hand, Nestor his wisdom,

Calchas great as a prophet, Ajax in arms,

Automedon as a charioteer, so am I in love.

Celebrate me as a poet, men, speak my praises,

let my name be sung throughout the world.

I’ve given you weapons: Vulcan gave Achilles his:

excel with the gifts you’re given, as he excelled.

But whoever overcomes an Amazon with my sword,

write on the spoils ‘Ovid was my master.’

Behold, you tender girls ask for rules for yourselves:

well yours then will be the next task for my pen!

End of Book II

Book III