Welcome to issue #8 of Love Is a Rhythmical Art! (For issues #1-#7, check the archive.) Today’s issue is all about timing: when should you make your move? Fortunately, the ancient world had their own versions of a Farmers' Almanac, with advice on when to sow your oats, plough your fields, and other agricultural advice that can easily be turned into apt erotic metaphors.

Even better, some of those ancient almanacs were written as poetry, and Ovid knows that his readers know (and now you know) that he’s writing in that same tradition. Nowadays we don’t tend to associate long poems with educational lectures, but Greeks and Romans alike put all sorts of teaching into poetic format, and they did so on all sorts of topics, starting with the Greek poet Hesiod (8^th or 7^th century BC), who wrote about farming in his Works and Days. But he was hardly alone in the genre of didactic poetry; if you want your teacher to be a poetic preacher, try the works of Nicander (bees, medical prescriptions), Aratus (astronomy), Ennius (food), Lucretius (Epicurean philosophy), Vergil (farming), Aemilius Macer (birds), Valgius Rufus (herbs), Terentianus Maurus (poetic meters), and more.

But the right time has to come at the right price, and for Ovid, the right price is $0.00. Your interest in winning a woman, he says, must be balanced by your interest in keeping your cash; erotic economics mean that your bank account has to come first, so keep your expenditures to a minimum. (His chronology is a little confusing here—is he talking about the very first encounter or a relationship that has already begun? It seems to be a bit of both.)

Of course some days are more associated with gifts than others, and Ovid refers to a number of dates in the Roman calendar when folks might assume that gifts would be given; I’ve replaced his days with similar elements in our modern calendars, like Valentine’s Day or Diwali. Likewise, Ovid lists a few days that the Roman associated with historical tragedies, and I’ve updated those as well with references to modern instances of national disasters. You won't need to buy her pearls on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor!

Heartless? Of course, and not for the last time.

(For those of you following along in the original Latin, here are lines 399-436 of Book 1.)

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Can the farmer who brings home the bacon
And the sailor who slips past the kraken
   Be alone in their need
   To pay calendars heed?
If that’s what you think, you’re mistaken.

There are days when no farmer should sow;
There are days when no sailor should go;
   There are days when a swain
   Will hunt women in vain,
But on others his chances will grow.

In seasons of gift-giving folly,
When decking your hall with bright holly,
   Or on Valentine’s feast, or
   Her birthday, or Easter,
Or Hanukkah, Eid, or Diwali,

It’s a terrible time to begin;
It’s a terrible day to jump in;
   It’s a terrible start
   To your amorous art;
It’s a terrible way not to win.

Make use of an opening buffer,
A day that made all of us suffer:
   September eleventh,
   December the seventh—
Or Sundays, when shopping is rougher.

And her birthday’s a day of great wrath,
When a man giveth all that he hath.
   Though you’ll try to dissent,
   There’s no way to prevent
Your own wallet from taking a bath.

It’s a chronic condition that ails men:
The visits of traveling salesmen.
   When they set out their wares
   In your ladyfriends’ lairs,
Your bank account never prevails, men.

You’ll have to pretend you find thrilling
The baubles that get the top billing,
   And after she’s kissed you
   It’s then she’ll insist you
Fork over your very last shilling.

She claims if you grant her this boon
She’ll be happy for many a moon;
   She needs you to pay
   ‘Cause she needs it today
And the price will be going up soon.

You allege that your wallet’s too light,
That it seems to have dropped out of sight?
   No problem! Just sign
   Your name on this line
(Then rue that you learned how to write).

Now get ready with gifts and good cheer:
It’s her twentieth birthday—this year!
   As she pleases, she makes
   Up her dates and her cakes;
She’s a born-again bluffer, it’s clear.

Now get ready with cash and compassion:
She feigns, with a face that is ashen,
   That her earrings are lost,
   And whatever the cost,
You have to refurbish her fashion.

You have items she’s hoping to borrow,
And she says she’ll return them tomorrow,
   But she won’t. Your red ink
   Will be worse than you think,
For you’ll get no goodwill, only sorrow.

If I tried to recount the whole list
Of the prostitutes’ tricks that exist,
   I would need sixty tongues
   And five dozen lungs,
And still there’d be some that I missed.  

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In the next issue: How to write right. Stay tuned.