Book 3, Letter 5: To Ovid, on Love

Book 3, letter 5, part 1 of 2

To Ovid, on love.

Dear Ovid, (Publius Ovidus Naso)

I finally decided to take a look

at your poem, though it really is a book,

of love advice for both women and men.

I sat down in a shady glen

to read and take note

as around me the beautiful song-birds float,

now words and rhymes through my mind run

your poem really is a lot of fun.

Ok...enough of that, You are the poet, Ovid, and while imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, I could only fall short of my intended goal in writing to you, which is, of course, to praise. Although, I suppose that I am also writing to your modern translator, James Michie. I will have to send this letter to him as well.

Ovid, more than anyone else I have read from ancient Rome (other than Cicero perhaps), you show that the nature of the human heart has not changed. Some social attitudes have developed, and for that I am grateful, but your poem, 'The Art of Love' reveals something essential about the tragic comedy that is the pursuit of romantic affairs. I suppose these days we just call it, 'the game'.

I've made notes all through my copy of your book, thinking as I read it of which sections I would like to quote in my letter to you. I read some sections to my partner in bed this morning, and I thought that you would be like to know that she was delighted to hear them. Poetry it seems, still serves us in love, as it did two thousand years ago.

*

"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."

*

So while you bemoan the fact that love is too often bought with gold, rather that with sincere affection, you do not entirely denounce the value of poetry in the wooing of a lady.

"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.”

It is easy, I think, for us in the modern world to consider the ancients as being true believers in the Gods, but it is a mistake to look back upon the religious expressions of the past and assume that there was no scepticism, no atheism, no intellectual questioning of the de-facto truth of the Priests' assertions. I have read of court cases in ancient Greece and Rome, over issues of religious doctrine, and people were sent into exile, or even executed for atheism.

"I won't pretend that I'm inspired by you, Apollo:

The hoot of an owl, the flight of a swallow,

have taught me nothing; awake or asleep,

I have never had a vision of the muses tending sheep

in pastoral valleys. This poem springs

from experience. Listen, your poet sings

of what he knows, he tells no lies.

Venus, mother of Love, assist my enterprise!"

*

Yet, further on in the book, you deliver this tongue-in-cheek tale of a visitation from the very God whom you professed to have never inspired you. I love feeling the sense of this whole poem being performed live, recited before an audience who laughed at your jokes or who sagely nodded at the allegories you include to illustrate a point, whether tragic or romantic.

"While I was writing this, I saw Apollo coming

towards me with his golden lyre, thumb strumming

the strings, bays in hand, bays on his head,

prophet and poet made manifest. “You,” he said,

“Professor of Love's Affairs,

lead your pupils to my temple – there's

a world famous inscription on it which goes,

Know yourself. Only the man who knows

himself can be intelligent in love

and use his gifts to best effect to further every move.

If you're good-looking, then dazzle all beholders;

if your skin's fine then lounge back with bare shoulders.

Let the man with a good voice sing, the clever talker break

awkward silences, the connoisseur take

pleasure in wine. But one caveat's vital:

no 'inspired' poet should give a recital,

no “brilliant” speaker deliver an oration

in the middle of dinner-table conversation.”

That was Apollo's advice. I'd heed it if I were you:

What comes from a god's mouth must be true."

Were you too bold, Ovid, with your book? You were exiled by Emperor Augustus, and as harsh a punishment as that was, it testifies to the power of poetry, and to your popularity and influence as a writer and public figure. Hakim Bey (a modern anarchist writer) said something along the lines of, 'In some countries, poets are imprisoned or exiled for their works, but here in America, poets are punished much more harshly, by being ignored.' On my shelf, Ovid, your book will sit beside Homer and Sophocles, although perhaps you would be better placed with the other modern poets, Mary Oliver, Charles Bukowski, Ivan Rehorek and Peach Klimkiewicz.