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REMEDIA A MORIS;

or,

THE REMEDY OF LOVE.

By Ovid

Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes, by Henry T. Riley


1885


REMEDIA A MORIS; or, THE REMEDY OF LOVE.


|The God of Love had read the title and the name of this treatise,
when he said, "War, I see, war is being meditated against me." Forbear,
Cupid, to accuse thy Poet of such a crime; me, who so oft have borne
thy standards with thee for my leader. I am no son of Tydeus, wounded by
whom, [1201] thy mother returned into the yielding air with the steeds of
Mars. Other youths full oft grow cool; I have ever loved; and shouldst
thou inquire what I am doing even now, I am still in love. Besides,
I have taught by what arts thou mayst be won; and that which is now a
system, was an impulse before. Neither thee do I betray, sweet Boy, nor
yet my own arts; nor has my more recent Muse unravelled her former work.

If any one loves an object which he delights to love, enraptured, in his
happiness, let him rejoice, and let him sail with prospering gales. But
if any one impatiently endures the sway of some cruel fair, that he
may not be undone, let him experience relief from my skill. Why has
one person, tying up his neck [1202] by the tightened halter, hung, a
sad burden, from the lofty beam? Why, with the hard iron, has another
pierced his own entrails? Lover of peace, thou dost bear the blame
of their deaths. He, who, unless he desists, is about to perish by a
wretched passion, let him desist; and then thou wilt prove the cause of
death to none. Besides, thou art a boy; and it becomes thee not to do
aught but play. Play on; a sportive sway befits thy years. Far thou
mayst use thy arrows, when drawn from the quiver for warfare; but thy
weapons are free from deadly blood.

Let thy stepfather Mars wage war both with the sword and the sharp
lance; and let him go, as victor, blood-stained with plenteous
slaughter. Do thou cherish thy mother's arts, which, in safety, we
pursue; and by the fault of which no parent he comes bereft. Do thou
cause the portals to be burst open in the broils of the night; and
let many a chaplet cover the decorated doors. Cause the youths and the
bashful damsels to meet in secret; and by any contrivance they can, let
them deceive their watchful husbands. And at one moment, let the
lover utter blandishments, at another, rebukes, against the obdurate
door-posts; and, shut out, let him sing some doleful ditty. Contented
with these tears, thou wilt be without the imputation of any death. Thy
torch is not deserving to be applied to the consuming pile.

These words said I. Beauteous Love waved his resplendent wings, and
said to me, "Complete the work that thou dost design." Come, then, ye
deceived youths, for my precepts; ye whom your passion has deceived in
every way. By him, through whom you have learned how to love, learn
how to be cured; for you, the same hand shall cause the wound and the
remedy. The earth nourishes wholesome plants, and the same produces
injurious ones; and full oft is the nettle the neighbour of the rose.
That lance which once made a wound in the enemy, the son of Hercules,
afforded a remedy [1203] for that wound. But whatever is addressed to the
men, believe, ye fair, to be said to you as well; to both sides am I
giving arms. If of these any are not suited to your use, still by
their example they may afford much instruction. My useful purpose is to
extinguish the raging flames, and not to have the mind the slave of its
own imperfections. Phyllis would have survived, if she had employed me
as her teacher; and along that road, by which nine times she went,[1204] she would have gone oftener still. And Dido, dying, would not have
beheld from the summit of her tower the Dardanian ships giving their
sails to the wind.

Grief, too, would not have armed Medea, the mother against her own
offspring; she who took vengeance on her husband, by the shedding of
their united blood. Through my skill, Tereus, although Philomela did
captivate him, would not, through his crimes, have been deserving to
become a bird. [1204]

Give me Pasiphaë for a pupil, at once she shall lay aside her passion
for the bull; give me Phædra, the shocking passion of Phædra shall
depart. Bring Paris back to us; Menelaus shall possess his Helen, and
Pergamus shall not fall, conquered by Grecian hands. If impious Scylla
had read my treatise, the purple lock, Nisus, would have remained
upon thy head. With me for your guide, ye men, repress your pernicious
anxieties; and onward let the bark proceed with the companions, me the
pilot. At the time when you were learning how to love, Naso was to be
studied; now, too, will the same Naso have to be studied by you. An
universal assertor [1206] of liberty