Princeton (2024) h/b 148pp £14.99 (ISBN 9780691220307)
This is the latest in the series of ‘Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers’. It comprises the complete Latin text of Ovid’s Remedia Amoris (‘Remedies for Love’) with an English prose translation on the facing page. F., a Professor of Classics at Cornell University, has also included an Introduction, a separate ‘Quick Start Guide to Remedies for Love’, two appendices, various notes and a bibliography.
In his Introduction F. explains how Ovid is still relevant as a relationship counsellor, ‘… no different from his counterparts today, citing case histories and dispensing lightly medicalized advice to help cure us of unrequited love.’ He explains that Remedia Amoris is the sequel to Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (‘The Art of Love’): in the first, the poet saw love as desirable and good, in this one, love is a force of ill, indeed illness. ‘It is an emotional wound that requires an antidote, like a snakebite, or a disease that requires medical treatment.’ Ovid prescribes thirty-eight practical suggestions for dealing with a broken heart and speaks in the voice of a former addict, notwithstanding that his text is often humorous. F. also explores the influences on Ovid’s work, citing Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations and the writings of Hellenistic philosophers.
F.’s translation of the poem itself is excellent. It strikes just the right light and humorous tone, for example (lines 493-8): ‘Act like you’re totally fine. Play it cool. And should something really bother you, don’t let her see. Laugh when you are ready to cry. ...Act like you are what you aren’t and pretend the insane crush is over. That’s how you’ll actually make something you’re trying to fake.’
Unlike some other similar volumes, F. is almost invariably and very helpfully rigorous about maintaining the Latin and English on facing pages, with no overruns. Occasionally, he interrupts his translation with his own italicised clarification, as in an explanatory reference to Lucretius, whose work has clearly influenced Ovid’s poem.
Appendix 1 pithily summarises Ovid’s ‘Thirty-Eight Remedies for Love’. In Appendix 2, F. prints the Latin text and translates lines 360-399, which he had earlier omitted. He sees it as the poet’s manifesto and defence against charges of obscenity, something which is better discussed separately from the main body of the poem.
This is a very amusing and well-written volume, accessible both to those with knowledge of Latin and the Classics and those with none. It skilfully demonstrates how Ovid’s Remedia Amoris is as thought provoking and relevant today as it was some 2,000 years ago.
Marion Gibbs