Really sexy

My only issue is a minor nitpick with the translations. The translator occasionally uses more modern and obscure terms when simpler and more widely recognized ones, or even the original phrase would suffice. Case in point, he uses the term "Halma" two or three times to denote a board game of strategy. "Know how to play board-games, to roll the bones - And skillfully, planning her throws in advance, deciding at which point to hazard a piece, just when to huff. The contest of halma should find her cunning rather than reckless" (The Art of Love: Book 3, lines 354-358, pg 224).


Had to look this one up, because Halma was apparently a now obscure game, created in the 19th century, similar to Chess. So, why not just say Chess? Why choose a game that has little or no widespread appeal and is relatively new, over one that has over a thousand years of experience and notoriety attached to it? Or why not just use the original name which Ovid used, and which is still at least somewhat familiar today, Ludus latrunculorum? The text is already hard enough to understand for laymen who aren't fully familiar with all the stories involved in Greek and Roman mythology (Ovid uses A LOT of allusions). Why muddy the waters further with a term that has absolutely nothing to do with Rome, but which most of us will assume does because we don't know it either. Perhaps the game itself is a more accurate representation of the original Roman game (I can't say for sure not being a scholar on these things), but it seems like if your reader can't make the connection, then that accuracy loses its purpose.

Otherwise, I enjoyed the translation. It was almost lyrical in parts, and was usually clear enough to make a quick read, if one is familiar with the stories. There were still quite a few proper names of other poets and places to look up, but it doesn't really detract, I think, from the reading because the content was quite enjoyable and often humorous.

I’m not really a poetry girly but I did once take a class called Latin Literature in English Translation. Which turned out to be Roman Love Elegies. Which introduced me to Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, and finally Ovid. It was a surprisingly fun class and I especially appreciate being able to go into depth about some of the current events going on at that time, along with breaking down various lines of poetry.

Revisiting this book and getting to see past notes made for a good time and I don’t think I would have fully appreciated this otherwise. Green’s translations are very modern and that can be rather off-putting if that’s not what you’re expecting. I’m not sure if it’s the best translation but it does make for entertaining reading (though anyone who reads this as anything other than Ovid taking the piss is missing the point).

My favorite of the poems are Ovid complaining about being a broke bitch, pouting that his honey bunny can’t drop by one particular day, and the standard paraklausithyron - cause who doesn’t love a good this-motherfucking-DOOR-is-keeping-me-from-my-beloved!! poem?

Also love the line, “but only a crusty misogynist, surely, would stand for girls getting up at dawn?” It’s so real and valid. Let the girlies sleep in!!

...

popsugar 2024 challenge: (48) a collection of at least 24 poems

Some things obviously never change. Some of the greatest love poetry ever written was some of the earliest recorded

Not really "erotic poetry" as we would think of it in these times.

More like "A Playa's Guide On How To Be A Playa". Still, it can be amusing at times, and I can easily imagine how this amused and/or outraged Ovid's readers and contemporaries. Definitely quite a bit here that would be offensive/problematic by the standards of the 2020's.

I would normally give 4 stars for the text itself, as it is well-written in the original Latin and an interesting look into sexual mores (or lack thereof) and behaviors at the time. This translation, though, is more of a 2-star effort. I realize translation always involves give-and-take, but I didn't like some of the decisions made by the translator, and I think there are better English language versions out there.

I was expecting these poems to feel ancient. And I mean REALLY ancient. And yet, there was something almost contemporary about them, as Ovid's language and tone was surprisingly fresh, wry and ironic. Maybe that's what disappointed me a little, is the fact I was hoping Ovid would transport me back to the ancient world, but it didn't feel like that at all. What didn't surprise is that he was a sly old devil when it came to women, and through his poems we see that he was clearly blighted by jealousies and obsessions as he struggled through the pleasures and pains of love.
I guess whether roaming about in ancient sandals or modern sneakers, love and desire is one thing that hasn't changed much over the oceans of time that has passed by.

Great translation all things considering, but I'd query the layout of this version, although maybe that's just how it was supposed to be.

Ars amatoria, a manual of seduction and intrigue for the man about town. The lover’s quarry, in that work, is ostensibly to be sought in the demimonde (i.e., among women on the fringes of respectable society who are supported by wealthy lovers), and Ovid explicitly disclaims the intention of teaching adultery; but all of his teaching could in fact be applied to the seduction of married women. Such a work constituted a challenge, no less effective for being flippant, to Augustus’s cherished moral reforms, and it included a number of references, in that context tactless if not indeed provocative, to symbols of the emperor’s personal prestige. The first two books, addressed to men, were the original extent of the work; a third, in response to popular demand, was added for women. For many modern readers the Ars amatoria is Ovid’s masterpiece, a brilliant medley of social and personal satire, vignettes of Roman life and manners, and charming mythological digressions. It was followed by a mock recantation, the Remedia amoris, also a burlesque of an established genre, which can have done little to make amends for the Ars. The possibilities for exploiting love-elegy were now effectively exhausted, and Ovid turned to new types of poetry in which he could use his supreme narrative and descriptive gifts.

The thing to learn about Ovid is while he's a poet to be read seriously, he isn't to be taken seriously. He wraps himself in blankets of irony to where if there were any less he would be taken as an ill tempered cynic rather than the really fun and considered character he can be. Take III.8 in the Amores for example which at one point turns into a seemingly embittered social critique:

n  "Not food but gold we dig for;
For money soldiers shed their blood and fight.
The Senate's shut to poor men; wealth gives honors,
Wealth makes a solemn judge, a haughty knight."n

But then a few verses later he reminds you of what the poem is about, which is a poet who is upset that women won't fuck him because poets don't pay the bills. This is a pattern, he commits far greater political blasphemies in other poems of which he is perfectly content with undermining by making them ridiculous and ironic.

The poems in here work pretty coherently together and the general gag running through everything is this rendering ridiculous of poetry, mythology, and general relatable human experience. If a myth is invoked, and myths are always invoked, it is a punchline which goes both ways, such as comparing Scylla and Charybdis to places you used to hang out with your ex, or invoking the delphic mandate "know thyself" to advise the ladies to figure out which positions make them look best while getting railed. It trivializes the myths and grand tragedies, and creates a sarcastic reverence for the genuinely trivial stuff, since "The tragic style is grand; rage suits its buskins;/And daily life's the stuff of comedy." Nobody escapes except Ovid himself, who still wrings out great poetry in spite of his best efforts. You can be sure the Art of Love isn't a genuine instruction manual for love, nor is its "professor of love" anything but a wry Ovidian character. It's a sarcastic joke to be sure, but in it is a genuine poetic expression of the human efforts to attempt to rule themselves systematically by reason, which always spectacularly crumbles when the passions take over. The tips are cynical and calculated, but the implication is that if you genuinely fall in love then all that is impossible to keep up. To be sure, the goofs and gags have a purpose.

Some of this prefigures the Metamorphoses as there are some truly rich and vivid recreations of myths, such as the rich Daedalus and Icarus retelling (which is told in the context of advice to keep your lover from leaving you.) And a lot of this prefigures the middle ages' ribald tales and poetry; yes there is cucking. There is a poem in the Amores where a man rejects his cheating wife, but then takes her back because her beauty convinces him, which is funny in the context of an earlier poem which claims beauty makes a woman licentious. On that note Ovid has some pretty positive views of women compared to his contemporaries; he sure doesn't like to show it, but that's part of the joke. Painting men as predatory as he does and writing a book for the women's side of things is pretty progressive for 2 AD. He just won't shy from really ostentatious shock humor; if he's going to retell the rape of the Sabine women as a way to mock both the Emperor and pick up artists he's going to do it. You take what you can get.

I read this edition alongside the Penguin edition of The Erotic Poems, and this edition has the better poetry, the other is far more loose and colloquial than it really should be. It was still useful as a means of triangulating where the original might be coming from. Also some jokes are Latin exclusive, if you can read it that way you shouldn't even be here. It also helps to have wikipedia or a mythology handbook nearby because his references are so wide and consistent that even I had to look up quite a few names despite being very familiar with Greek texts. While Ovid pleads you not to take him seriously, this is a collection of works which I'd really advise anyone not to overlook in favor of jumping straight into Metamorphoses as his singular contribution. It's a fun read and there's more depth here than you might expect. Strong Recommendation.

I enjoyed the content of the poems - almost a plot, or plots really - but the translation, the dodgy rhyming poetry, did my head in. So much must have been lost in the process of making this rhyme in English - the example that sticks in my head was the translation of ‘herbs’ as ‘shampoo.’
I’m reading these kinds of books, gleaning information - essentially, insight into Roman thought, habits, behaviour. A “bad” translation like this makes any insight I might gain highly dubious.
I would rather read a translation in prose, or have voluminous notes, rather than lose the nuance of the Latin - but you need only look at the fabulous translation of Juvenal’s Sixteen Satires (Penguin) by Peter Green to see that neither of these options is really necessary.

Green perfectly captures the wit of the original Latin in this compelling collection of one of Rome's greatest poets.

the erotic poems: 3/5

great, but horribly boring.

Ars amatoria. Will submit later after find my notes. In any case, don't expect that Ovid will tell you anything more about the art of love than you already know, and some of it's rather useless.