''Remedia Amoris'' (''Love's Remedy'' or ''The Cure for Love'')
. 2 ADis an 814-line poem in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
by
Roman poet
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
.
In this companion poem to ''
The Art of Love'',
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
offers advice and strategies to avoid being hurt by
love
Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of meanings is that the love o ...
feelings, or to fall out of love, with a
stoic
Stoic may refer to:
* An adherent of Stoicism; one whose moral quality is associated with that school of philosophy
* STOIC, a programming language
* ''Stoic'' (film), a 2009 film by Uwe Boll
* ''Stoic'' (mixtape), a 2012 mixtape by rapper T-Pain
* ...
overtone.
Genre
''Remedia Amoris'' fell into the Hellenistic category of
didactic poetry, often carried out on mock-solemn subjects.
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
Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), in 814 BC.
In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (t ...
or
Medea
In Greek mythology, Medea (; grc, Μήδεια, ''Mēdeia'', perhaps implying "planner / schemer") is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, a niece of Circe and the granddaughter of the sun god Helios. Medea figures in the myth of Jason an ...
.
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.
Critical reactions
*
Alexander Neckam
Alexander Neckam (8 September 115731 March 1217) was an English magnetician, poet, theologian, and writer. He was an abbot of Cirencester Abbey from 1213 until his death.
Early life
Born on 8 September 1157 in St Albans, Alexander shared his b ...
in the Middle Ages thought that ''De Remedio Amoris'' was ''the'' most important book of Ovid's for scholars to read.
*Victorian views, seen for example in the work of
Oskar Seyffert, generally adjudged ''The Cure for Love'' to be "as frivolous as it is original and elaborate...and no less offensive in substance and tone".
*The 20th Century generally took a more positive view,
H J Rose calling Ovid's instructions both frank and ingenious; while from a different discipline
Eric Berne commended their continuing (metropolitan) practicality.
[E Berne, ''Sex in Human Loving'' (Penguin 1970) p. 226]
See also
References
External links
English translation of ''Remedia Amoris''*
Side-by-side Latin/English translation of ''Remedia Amoris''
{{Authority control
1st-century Latin books
Poetry by Ovid