Of law obliging you to share a bed.
Use tender sweet-talk, make her ears hum
With the language of love, so she’s glad you’ve come.
I’m not addressing the rich; the wooer with gifts
At his fingertips doesn’t need my shifts.
Whoever can say, whenever he likes, with a gallant
Gesture, “Please accept this” has his own talent.
To him I resign
Pride of place: his ploys will work better than mine.
I’m the poor man’s poet, I loved when poor, and gave
Words since I couldn’t give presents. Poor lovers must behave
Carefully, watch their tongues and bear
A lot that a millionaire
Wouldn’t put up with. I pulled a girl’s hair
In anger once, I remember, and my temper cost
Me, oh, how many days of her company lost!
I don’t think—at least I never noticed—I tore her dress,
But she swore yes,
And the damage was paid for at my expense.
If you have any sense,
You’ll avoid your teacher’s blunders and never commit
A mistake like mine, one where you pay for it.
Fight Parthians, not civilised girls. Play, laugh,
Do anything for peace on love’s behalf.
[LATIN: Si nec blanda…]
If she’s cool and unwilling to be wooed,
Just take it, don’t weaken; in time she’ll soften her mood.
Bending a bough the right way, gently, makes
It easy; use brute force, and it breaks.
With swimming rivers it’s the same—
Go with, not against, the current. Patient methods tame
Lions and tigers, and that, too, is how
Bulls gradually come to tolerate the plough.
Who could have been more intractable than
Atalanta? Yet that fierce girl lost to a man
In the running race—to Milanion.
They say that, earlier on,
Ranging the woods with her, he often rued
Her cruelty and his servitude,
Her nets on his back all day, he spearing wild boars
Obediently. Hylaeus the centaur’s
Bow hurt him badly, but we know
His worst wound came from a more famous bow—
Cupid’s. I’m not advising you to go
Scrambling through Greek thickets, hunters and mountaineers,
Lugging nets and carrying spears,
Or to bare your chests to whizzing arrows—none of that stuff:
A cautious lover will find my programme easy enough.
If she resists, yield; surrender, and you’ll win.
Play any role she wants to cast you in.
Criticise when she’s critical, enthuse when she enthuses,
Echo her view, whatever line she chooses;
If she laughs, laugh; if she cries, remember to do the same:
Your face must obey her rules. If you’re playing a game,
Throw the dice clumsily, make a careless move;
If it’s knucklebones, let her off a forfeit if you prove
The winner, and see to it that you roll low scores;
If it’s “robbers,” let her glass man capture yours.
Don’t be too proud
To hold her sunshade and make room for her through the crowd.
Don’t feel a fool
Placing a footstool
For her pretty feet by the couch and easing
Her slippers on or off. If she’s cold, though you’re freezing
Warm her hand on your heart. And don’t think it a disgrace
To hold, with your freeborn hand, her mirror to her face—
You may look like a slave, but you’re sure to please.
When Juno tired of testing Hercules
With monsters, the hero who’d shouldered the sky and won
A place there did a stint, they say, as one
Of Omphale’s Lydian maids, held baskets, spun
Wool among them. If Jupiter’s son
Obeyed his mistress’s orders, so can you.
Go and endure what he went through!
Told to meet her in the Forum, arrive for the date
Good and early, wait,
And don’t leave unless she’s badly late.
If she summons you somewhere, drop everything, run along,
Barging and shoving your way through the throng.
At night, if she sends you a message at a party’s end,
Like her slave your job’s to attend
Her person all the way home.
The same applies if she’s away from Rome.
Love hates a lazy man. If wheels can’t be had,
Travel on foot, and no matter if the weather’s bad,
If there’s a heatwave or it’s snowed,
Don’t get held up on the road.
[LATIN: Militiae species amor…]
Love is a kind of war. Faint hearts, you’re debarred—
These standards aren’t for timid men to guard!
Love may be soft, but serving him is hard:
You’re in for suffering, hard work, long marches, all-night
Duty in winter, you’ll have to fight
Downpours and then, half-drowned,
Bed down on the bare ground.
When he herded cattle for King Admetus, it’s said
That the sun-god had to huddle in a shed;
So why shouldn’t a man follow
The example of divine Apollo?
Do you want love to last? Then dump your pride.
If safe and easy access is denied
And the door’s bolted, find a way in
Head-first through the skylight, or shin
Like a thief through a window of the upper storey.
She’ll be thrilled, you’ll have the glory
Of risking your neck for her, and it’ll prove
The authenticity of your love.
(Leander, though you could have borne the loss
Of Hero’s company, yet you swam across
To show how much you loved her.)
[LATIN: Nec pudor ancillas…]
Win over the maids,
Taking into account their different grades,
And the house-slaves too. Greet each (it costs nothing) by name,
Clasp their humble hands, it’s all part of the game:
A man with a plan need feel no shame.
On Fortune’s Day, if even a slave asks, offer
A present—it won’t drain your coffer;
And do the same for the maids on their day,
For the Gauls, fooled by girls disguised as matrons, had to pay
The penalty. Make friends, I say,
With the menials—and with none more
Than the janitor and the slave outside her bedroom door.
When it comes to her presents, I wouldn’t be wasteful:
Make them small, well-chosen and tasteful.
At harvest-time, when fruit weighs the branches down,
Send a boy round with an “out-of-town”
Basketful—say it’s the crop
From your country estate, though it came from a Rome shop.
Send grapes, or the chestnuts “my Amaryllis adored”*
(Though nowadays Amaryllises are bored
By chestnuts); send a thrush, a pigeon, a pheasant,
To show her she’s always present
In your thoughts. (Gifts sent to buy
The hope that when childless old people die
The donors will feature in the will
Are vile. Death to all those whose gifts are given so ill!)
[LATIN: Quid tibi praecipiam…]
What about sending a love poem? Would that be nice?
Verses, I fear, don’t cut much ice.
Poems are praised, but gifts are valued more;
Provided
he’s rich, even a slob can score
With presents. This is the new Age of Gold
When love is bought, high office sold.
Homer, if you returned again
With all the Muses in your train,
But empty-handed, there’d soon be a shout
Of “Throw Homer out!”
There is, I grant you—though it’s small—a set
Of cultured women, and one mustn’t forget
The ones who are not
But would like to be. With either lot,
Write poems in praise of them, and then recite them,
Rubbish or not, con amore. You’ll delight them.
Lines dedicated to her, by a lover,
That he’s sweated all night over,
Blue-stocking or peasant
She’ll treat them as a little token “present.”
Whatever you’ve planned already and suits you best,
Make that appear your mistress’s request.
If you’ve promised one of your slaves manumission,
See that he begs her for her permission;
If you let one off a punishment or chains,
Put her in your debt for your “mercy”—the gain’s
All yours, the credit hers; never let slip
A chance for her to play Her Ladyship.
If you’re anxious to keep her, it’s your duty
To make her think you’re staggered by her beauty.
Notice her clothes.
Tyrian purple? Praise that. Coan silks? Praise those.
A gold-embroidered dress? Make it clear
That the gold is far less dear
Than the wearer. An outfit in wool?
Exclaim, “Wonderful!”
If she stands beside you in her slip, shout, “Fire!”
But at the same time, in a shy voice, enquire,
“Don’t you feel the cold?” If the girl’s
Changed her hair-style, applaud the new curls
Or the switched parting. Admire her charms—
Her voice when she sings, when she dances her arms—
And when she stops clamour for more.
When making love, you should “madly adore”
Her sensuousness and expertise,
And tell her in words the delicious things that please
You specially. She may be as rough and wild
As Medusa in bed, but for you she’s “sweet and mild.”
While serving up these compliments
Don’t for a moment ruin the pretence
By your expression. Hiding art is the name of the game:
Detection brings embarrassment and shame
And—serve you right—an eternity of blame.
[LATIN: Saepe sub autumnum…]
In early autumn, of all seasons the most sweet,
When grapes grow purple and juice-replete,
When one day we’re gripped by cold and the next limp with heat,
And the weather’s changeable mood
Brings on lassitude,
May your girl keep well. But if she does fall ill
And takes to bed with a fever or a chill
Caught from the morbid air,
Now is the time to show your loving care.
Be a shrewd cultivator—
Sow now, and you’ll reap a bumper harvest later.
If the invalid’s peevish, don’t let it upset you;
Do for her with your own hands whatever she’ll let you.
Weep in front of her, kiss her again and again,
Let the rain
Of your tearful grief
Bring her parched lips and mouth relief.
Make vows for her recovery—aloud so she can hear,
Tell her your dreams when she feels like listening—ones of good cheer,
Hire an old witch with tottery legs
And trembling hands to bring round sulphur and eggs
To purify the room and the bed.
All this will prove your willing love (it’s a route that’s led
To many legacies!). Zeal, though, should keep its bounds:
Don’t fuss, or your ministrations may become the grounds
Of her displeasure. Never ban food, and never concoct her
Bitter medicines. Leave rivals to play doctor.
[LATIN: Sed non cui…]
The wind that spread your sails just offshore
Won’t serve you any more
In the open sea. Young, toddling love gains strength
Through exercise. Nourish it well, and at length
It’ll prove sturdy. The bull you fear, you used to stroke
As a calf; you stretch out under an oak
That was a sapling once; a river begins
From frail, small origins,
But it gathers power as it flows,
Acquiring tributaries. See that your girl grows
Used to you: habit’s the master key,
Daily familiarity.
If boredom’s the price, then pay. Hang around, in her sight,
Chat to her, show your face day and night;
And when you’re strong and confident, when you know
She’ll feel your absence, really miss you, go—
Give her a rest.
A field pays best
If trusted to lie fallow, dry terrain
More eagerly drinks up the rain.
Phyllis was lukewarm while Demophoön was there—
It was his sailing caused her love to flare;
When clever Ulysses left, his wife was on the rack;
And you, Laodamia, longed for your husband back.
But brief partings are safest: affection grows slack
With lapse of time, and it’s not long before
The old love fades and the new comes through the door.
When Menelaus was abroad,
Helen, being bored
And lonely at night, found warmth on the breast
Of her husband’s foreign guest.
O Menelaus, I can’t help wondering whether
You were sane to go off, leaving them together
In the same house. Madman, do you trust doves to a kite?
Or a full sheepfold to a wolf at night?
Neither Helen nor the adulterer carries blame:
You or any man would have done the same.
By offering time and place you almost force
Adultery; if you map out the course,
Menelaus, far from you,
With a stylish stranger around, frightened and lonely
In an empty bed? Think hard. You were the only
Culprit. In my view Helen doesn’t bear
The blame for the affair—
Her husband was complaisant, Paris there.
[LATIN: Sed neque fulvus…]
As fierce as the tawny boar in a rage, when he rounds
With flashing tusks on the maddened hounds
And tosses them sideways, no less
Ferocious than a lioness
Suckling unweaned cubs, even madder
Than a carelessly stepped-on adder,
Is the woman who finds a rival in the bed she shares.
Her face declares
Everything, the flames of jealousy scorch.
She reaches wildly for a dagger, a torch,
She throws dignity to the wind,
She’s a maenad, she goes clean out of her mind.
When Jason broke his marriage vow, barbarous Medea slew
Her own children. Think, too,
Of Procne, now our swallow, another
Savage, unnatural mother,
Whose crime is still to this day expressed
By the blood-red mark on her breast.
These are the sort of outrages that shake
The closest, firmest friendships; for his own sake,
A prudent man steers clear of them.
My moral rule, though,
doesn’t condemn
You (heaven forbid!) to one woman all your life—
That’s beyond the hope even of a young wife.
Play around, but discreetly, decently hiding,
Not smugly advertising, your back-sliding.
Never give one a present the other might recognise.
An element of surprise
In the times of your secret rendezvous
Is essential; also don’t choose
The same well-known retreat
For all your girl-friends—you may, the three of you, meet.
And whenever you write one a letter,
You had better
Check the tablets for traces of a previous note:
Many a woman reads what her lover never wrote
To her. Venus, when she’s sore,
Hurls back the weapon in all-out, righteous war
And hits you where it hurts, as she was hit before.
So long as Agamemnon hadn’t disgraced
His marriage, Clytemnestra remained chaste:
It was his beastly conduct that made her a beast.
She’d heard all—reports of Chryses the priest,
Fillet on head, laurel in hand, begging in vain
For his daughter back again,
Of Briseis and her grief,
Stolen from Achilles, Agamemnon the thief,
And of action shamefully deferred,
The war prolonged. All this she’d heard,
But Cassandra she saw, and once she’d been
Eye-witness of the scene—
The conqueror enslaved, enraptured
By the princess he’d captured—
She took Aegisthus to her heart and bed
And brought down vengeance on her husband’s head.
[LATIN: Quae bene celaris…]
If you’re caught out, if your carefully concealed sin
Comes to light, still lie through thick and thin.
Don’t be extra nice to her, and don’t feebly wilt:
Both are sure signs of guilt.
Take her to bed—all peace is made on the pillow—
And with all you’ve got disprove your peccadillo.
Some recommend the use
Of aphrodisiacs such as savory juice
(Believe me, it harms you and it’s vile),
Or pepper mixed with nettle-seed, or camomile
Blended with vintage wine;
But the goddess worshipped at the shrine
On Eryx’s high and leafy hill
Isn’t drummed to her pleasures by man’s will.
Eat white onions from Megara, the hot,
Sexy rocket from your garden plot,
Hymettus honey, eggs, the nuts that fall
From the needled pine…
[LATIN: Docta, quid ad…]
But, learned Muse, why all