Welcome back to Love Is a Rhythmical Art! (If you missed the first issue, check the archive.) Ovid’s goal today can be summed up in three words: location, location, location. You need to figure out where to find your next partner, and Ovid can help. It’s no use looking for love in all the wrong places (thanks, Johnny Lee), so you may as well start where the action already is.

Of course, his historically situated GPS coordinates won’t be yours — or anyone else’s. Ovid’s ancient Rome is not the Rome of today, and it’s not really the Rome of his contemporaries either. He wrote during the reign of the emperor Augustus, when Rome enjoyed a period of relative peace and prosperity, but Ovid turns the hub of a military empire into shopping mall for lovers. One of the great pleasures of reading his poetry is the chance to appreciate how he reconsiders his own society, how he reframes his glorious city through the lens of erotic attraction.

Ovid also guides us today on his first narrative detour. Every lecture needs anecdotes, and Love Is a Rhythmical Art is dotted with stories taken from myth and history, even though the connection between these stories and Ovid’s erotic advice isn’t always clear. Today’s narrative comes from the tales told about the founding of Rome, when Romulus (Rome’s first king) dealt with a lack of women by inviting the neighboring Sabines to a theatrical event and then capturing the Sabine women to be brides of the Romans. It’s an unsettling story, and ancient Romans themselves were unsettled by it; who wants their society to be founded on deceit and assault?

Ovid is a master at combining sympathy with heartlessness. He imagines the scene from the viewpoint of the Sabine women, taking time to individualize them, and in his telling the Roman men come off as callous and unfeeling. But he also can’t pass up the opportunity to make jokes at the expense of the Sabine women. Scenes like this will happen throughout the poem, where Ovid attends to individual suffering and at the same time expresses himself through cold-blooded comedy. If you need your poets to unflinchingly support the cause of the downtrodden, Ovid is not your poet. If you like your poets brilliant and flawed, read on.

(If you’re following along in the Latin, here are lines 41-134 of Book 1.)

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While your view is still checked by no frame,
Choose someone to whom you can claim,
    “You’re the one that I love.”
   She won’t drop from above;
Use your eyes, find a suitable dame.

The hunter unfailingly knows
Where to wait for the bucks and the does.
   The birder knows best
   Where to look for a nest
And the fisher where every fish goes,

And you want a love that will last,
So discover where ladies are massed.
   You can stay where you are;
   Don’t load up the car,
And cover no distances vast;

Though Perseus and Paris were noble,
For love they were forced to be mobile.
   But Rome is aswim in
   Such beautiful women,
You’ll say that its assets are global.

Beyond number: Fort Knox’s gold bars,
Or the fish in the sea, or the stars
   In the heavenly dome,
   Or the women of Rome,
Where they’ve never booed wars or boudoirs.

If teenagers truly entice,
The city will surely suffice.
   Rome also has plenty
   Of girls over twenty –
You’ll break your own vows in a trice.

Do you yearn for what’s older and wiser?
There’s no need to lower your visor.
   Just trust what I tell you,
   And all will be well – you
Will not be an amorous miser.

(Ovid now gives us a list
Of buildings that used to exist.
   Though he morally garbles
   Augustus’s marbles,
You’ll probably pick up the gist.)

Simply stroll under Pompey’s pavilion
When the sun’s in Alcides’ pampilion,
   Or the one for Marcellus
   On which, as they tell us,
The marble façade cost ten million.

To another location be privy – a
Lovely portico sponsored by Livia,
   Or where gals by the dozens
   Dispatch their own cousins
(You’ll pardon my mythical trivia).

Put the shrine of Adonis to use,
And in synagogues don’t be obtuse.
   Let the Nile add its emphasis:
   Isis of Memphis is
Known for her knowledge of Zeus.

Believe it or not, but the courts
Are also where Venus cavorts.
   She won’t go to jail if
   She knows that the bailiff
Will mix up his tarts and his torts.

The god of the feminine gender
Stands next to a watery splendor.
   By this beautiful fountain
   Our Venus will mount an
Attack on the public defender.

The lawyer is now in the dock,
And his tongue’s had a terrible shock.
   The roles are reversed –
   The last shall be first –
And Venus is happy to mock.

And what is the theater for
If not to meet ladies galore?
   Your chances are great
   Of landing a date
For a dinner, an evening, or more.

Like an infinite column of ants
Who gather their food in advance,
   Or as bees hover over
   The sweet-scented clover
Performing their flowery dance,

So women will flock to a show
In such hordes that your choice will be slow.
   In coming, they mean
   To see and be seen,
But to practice their chastity?  No.

There once was a ruler named Romulus;
Before him, the shows had been traumaless,
   But given the shape
   Of his kingdom, the Rape
Of the Sabines was hardly anomalous.

His theater lacked any class:
No awnings, no marble, no brass.
   The Palatine’s greenery
   Was turned into scenery,
And citizens sat on the grass.

The music, performed by a Tuscan,
And the rhythms, stamped out in a buskin,
   And the cheers of the crowd
   Were lusty and loud
But not fit to be praised by John Ruskin.

On a woman each man sets his eyes,
And amid all the noise and the cries,
   The king gives the cue.
   They know what to do:
They jump up and lay hands on their prize.

It’s time for another comparison.
As Crusaders were scared of the Saracen,
   Or as kids of the night,
   So these women took fright
At that lawless and ladyless garrison.

Though their faces show equal dismay,
Each responds in a different way:
   Some passive, some violent;
   Some frenzied, some silent;
Some try to escape, and some stay.

They’re beautiful, fretful, and fearful;
The men say, “No need to be tearful!
   Married life’s not so bad;
   You play mom, I’ll play dad —
Now give me a matronly earful.”

Romulus certainly knew
How to give soldiers their due.
   If the army today
   Had equivalent pay,
I’d soldier with Romulus too.

The city of Rome is the heir
Of that violent but vivid affair.
   The shows that we see
   Are still festive and free,
But the beautiful have to beware.

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In the next issue: chariot races, gladiators, and military parades. Stay tuned.