Ovid quotes Flashcards
Purpose and intended audience
‘Go equal to the fight’
‘i’ve not come to teach semele or leda…or helen’
‘you who have any anxiety to please men’
‘she who asks fondly for a gift after love’s delights’
Social context
‘now Rome is golden, and owns the vast wealth of the conquered world’
‘to guard a wife is right: it’s fitting, it’s decreed by law’
Didactic style
‘What destroyed you all, I ask? Not knowing how to love… before my eyes, stood Venus herself, and ordered me to teach you’
‘Seek your orders here girls’
Mythology
- story of procris and cephalus
- the sirens
- helen, paris and menelaus
- odysseus and penelope
Humour
‘like a mangy ass braying’
‘one girl will distort her face by perversely guffawing’
Love
‘playing often brings on love’ (knowledge of games)
‘make him fear and hope together’
‘love is attracted to friendly eyes’
‘love and power don’t last long when they’re shared’ (don’t flaunt other lovers in front of a younger man)
‘you older warrior loves sensibly and wisely, suffers much that the beginner won’t endure’
‘let him think… later let his sense’
‘i don’t love unless i’m hurt’
‘safe loving should be mixed with fright’ (in use jealousy and fear)
‘whatever wrong’s occurred, be lightly troubled’
Desire
‘we’re captivated by elegance’
‘laugh modestly… let something soft and feminine ring out’
‘one moves her hips with art’
‘i want to kiss your shoulder, as far as it’s shown’
‘for many your voice is a better procuress than your looks’
‘so great’s the gracefulness of their agility’
(youth)- ‘the time of strong desire’
Men
‘there are many things it’s right men shouldn’t know’ (keep cosmetics hidden)
‘avoid those men who profess in looks and culture, who keep their hair carefully in place’
‘they’re guilty of deceiving many lovers… don’t let the door be opened to lying men’
Women
‘Have fun while its allowed, while your years are in their prime’
‘if girls of old didn’t cultivate their bodies in that way, well they had no cultivated men in those days’
‘conceal your faults, and hide your bodies defects as best you may’
(a drunk woman)- ‘she’s worthy of sleeping with anyone who’ll have her’
Men versus women
(women) ‘an unarmed crowd betrayed to well-armed men’
‘women, what can you do with a man more delicate than you’
Sex
‘give it me back! the girls who’s robbed will often cry’
‘she might as well put out the sleepless virgil’s fire… than deny him sex if she’s received his gifts’
‘even if you’re plain, with drink you’ll seem beautiful’
‘let both delight equally in the thing’
‘unhappy girl, for whom that sluggish place is numb’
Marriage
‘Penelope was faithful to her husband for all ten years’
‘To guard a wife is right: it’s fitting, it’s decreed by law’
‘For you too be guarded, scarcely released from prison, who could bear it!’
‘I nearly forgot the skilful ways by which you can elude a husband’
