ovid
Ovidius
Books by Ovid (sorted by popularity)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Metamorphoses of Ovid, by Publius Ovidius Naso
Translated by Henry T. Riley
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21765/21765-h/21765-h.htm
Publius Ovidius Naso
Publius Ovidius Naso (Latin: [ˈpuːbliʊs ɔˈwɪdiʊs ˈnaːso(ː)]; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid (/ˈɒvɪd/ OV-id),[2][3] was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists.[4] Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis, the capital of the newly-organised province of Moesia, on the Black Sea, where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a "poem and a mistake", but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars.
Ovid is most famous for the Metamorphoses, a continuous mythological narrative in fifteen books written in dactylic hexameters. He is also known for works in elegiac couplets such as Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love") and Fasti. His poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and greatly influenced Western art and literature. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology today.[5]
The Amores; or, Amours by Ovid
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Amores; or, Amours
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47676/pg47676-images.html
Title: The Amores; or, Amours
Author: Ovid
Translator: Henry T. Riley
Release date: December 16, 2014 [eBook #47676]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive
The Ars amatoria (The Art of Love) is an instructional elegy series in three books by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. It was written in 2 AD.
Book one of Ars amatoria was written to show a man how to find a woman. In book two, Ovid shows how to keep her. The third book, written two years after the first books were published, gives women advice on how to win and keep the love of a man ("I have just armed the Greeks against the Amazons; now, Penthesilea, it remains for me to arm thee against the Greeks...")..
Content
The first two books, aimed at men, contain sections which cover such topics as 'not forgetting her birthday', 'letting her miss you - but not for long' and 'not asking about her age'. The third gives similar advice to women, sample themes include: 'making up, but in private', 'being wary of false lovers' and 'trying young and older lovers'. Although the book was finished around 2 AD, much of the advice he gives is applicable to any day and age. His intent is often more profound than the brilliance of the surface suggests. In connection with the revelation that the theatre is a good place to meet girls, for instance, Ovid, the classically educated trickster, refers to the story of the rape of the Sabine women. It has been argued that this passage represents a radical attempt to redefine relationships between men and women in Roman society, advocating a move away from paradigms of force and possession, towards concepts of mutual fulfilment.[1]
The end of the second book deals with the pleasures of simultaneous orgasm. Somewhat atypically for a Roman, the poet confesses, Odi concubitus, qui non utrumque resolvunt. Hoc est, cur pueri tangar amore minus[3] ('I don't like intercourse that doesn't make both lovers come. That's why I'm less into the love of boys.').
At the end of the third part, as in the Kama Sutra, the sexual positions are 'declined', and from them women are exhorted to choose the most suitable, taking the proportions of their own bodies into careful consideration. Ovid's tongue is again discovered in his cheek when his recommendation that tall women should not straddle their lovers is exemplified at the expense of the tallest hero of the Trojan Wars: Quod erat longissima, numquam Thebais Hectoreo nupta resedit equo[4] ('Since she was very tall, the daughter of Thebes (Andromache) as wife never mounted Hector as horse').
However, the word ars in the title is not to be translated coldly as 'technique', or as 'art' in the sense of civilized refinement, but as "textbook", the literal and antique definition of the word.
Appropriately for its subject, the Ars amatoria is composed in elegiac couplets, rather than the dactylic hexameters, which are more usually associated with the didactic poem.
Ars Amatoria; or, The Art Of Love by Ovid
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ars Amatoria; or, The Art Of Love
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47677/pg47677-images.html
Title: Ars Amatoria; or, The Art Of Love
Author: Ovid
Translator: Henry T. Riley
Release date: December 16, 2014 [eBook #47677]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicamina_Faciei_Femineae
Medicamina Faciei Femineae (Cosmetics for the Female Face, also known as The Art of Beauty) is a didactic poem written in elegiac couplets by the Roman poet Ovid. In the hundred extant verses, Ovid defends the use of cosmetics by Roman women and provides five recipes for facial treatments. Other writers at the time condemned women's usage of cosmetics.
In this companion poem to The Art of Love, Ovid offers advice and strategies to avoid being hurt by love feelings, or to fall out of love, with a stoic overtone.
Goal and methods
Ovid's goal was to provide, for men and women alike, advice on how to escape safely from an unhappy love affair - emotional bondage - without falling into the tragic ends of such legendary figures as Dido or Medea.[2]
Among the techniques he suggested were: keeping busy; travelling; avoiding wine and love poetry (!); and concentrating on the beloved's defects rather than their strong points.[3]
Alexander Neckam in the Middle Ages thought that De Remedio Amoris was the most important book of Ovid's for scholars to read.[4]
The 20th Century generally took a more positive view, H J Rose calling Ovid's instructions both frank and ingenious;[6] while from a different discipline Eric Berne commended their continuing (metropolitan) practicality.[7]
Remedia Amoris; or, The Remedy of Love by Ovid
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Remedia Amoris; or, The Remedy of Love
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47678/pg47678-images.html
Title: Remedia Amoris; or, The Remedy of Love
Author: Ovid
Translator: Henry T. Riley
Release date: December 16, 2014 [eBook #47678]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive
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