Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, or the Art of Love, is the definitive guide for Romans looking for love. Ovid brags that “experience makes my work a truth so tried” and in three books details where to find the girl of your dreams, how to keep her happy, and (in the third book) how a woman can attract and keep a man. (Sorry, Romans into other Romans of the same gender, Ovid was pretty staunchly into women, and doesn’t have much advice for you on that score.)

For anyone who views people in the past as an alien sort of species, devoid of the same feelings and problems that people in the present have, Ars Amatoria is a lesson in the past as a foreign country. The advice, when taken in general, is actually pretty good advice, though many of the specifics may be less relatable. So, as follows, are my favorite pieces of advice from Ovid to men and women looking for love in the modern day.

1. Get out of the house. Ovid suggests that getting out and exploring the city will bring you into the path of eligible people. Rome is full of beautiful places - Ovid suggests the Roman equivalent of a city park (the Portico of Pompey, one of several beautiful public works built by wealthy Romans interested in gaining the electoral support of the Roman public) as well as some of the lovely temples where women tended to go on a regular basis. Or, for a Roman twist, go watch a case being argued at court:

And the law-courts (who’d believe it?) they suit love:
a flame is often found in the noisy courts:
where the Appian waters pulse into the air,
from under Venus’s temple, made of marble,
there the lawyer’s often caught by love,
and he who guides others, fails to guide himself:
in that place of eloquence often his words desert him,
and a new case starts, his own cause is the brief.

Do note, though, that this may not work today. Even in 1907, in one of the commentaries on the work, a skeptical French translator wrote: “This does not very well agree to the practice in our days; and I cannot comprehend how gallant women could frequent the courts of justice : where it is to be supposed, nobody came but such as had business and suits depending.” But hey, go on Judge Judy and see what happens. You never know.

2. Public events are great for looking for a date. Ovid suggests, in particular, the theater - Ovid notes that this in particular “remains a snare for the beautiful” - or spectator sports. Even if it’s dirty and crowded, that’s ok! It lets you get close to a girl you might be interested in without seeming like a creep:

You can sit by your lady: nothing’s forbidden,
press your thigh to hers, as you can do, all the time:
and it’s good the rows force you close, even if you don’t like it,
since the girl is touched through the rules of the place.

And if some other dude is trying the same thing, well, you can call him out on it and seem like you’re defending her:

Don’t forget to look at who’s sitting behind you,
that he doesn’t press her sweet back with his knee.

3. Get interested in what the object of your affection is interested in. Everyone knows that ladies love sports. It’s just a fact. And hey, it’s a great way to start up a conversation with your lady:

Now find your reason for friendly conversation,
and first of all engage in casual talk.
Make earnest enquiry whose those horses are:
and rush to back her favourite, whatever it is.

(Just make sure you’re not trying to do this while the race is actually going on.)

And ladies, you can do this too! Don’t get too wrapped up in sports that you forget how much gentlemen love poetry and dance. I know, I know, it’s great going to a game because he’ll always get you a drink if you’re thirsty and fan you if it gets too hot while you’re cheering on your favorite gladiator, but you know he loves it when you dance with him, so make sure you’re good at that:

Who doubts I’d wish a girl to know how to dance,
and move her limbs as decreed when the wine goes round?
The body’s artistes, the theatre’s spectacle, are loved:
so great’s the gracefulness of their agility.

And if he’s into gaming, you should probably at least learn a few, that way you have something to do together:

There’s a thousand games to be had: it’s shameful for a girl
not to know how to play: playing often brings on love.

...TO BE CONTINUED...

Although I mentioned it fairly recently in another post, Dafydd ap Gwilym goes well here. As Wikipedia states, Dafydd ap Gwilym (c. 1315/1320 – c. 1350/1370), is regarded as one of the leading Welsh poets and amongst the great poets of Europe in the Middle Ages. However, no one seems to have ever heard of him. Partly this is because, since the 1990s at least, scholarship in Britain has seen to compartmentalise study of cultures to their respective nations - Welsh literature can only be studied in Wales. Less menacingly, Dafydd's poetry really has its beauty in the original Welsh - it is notoriously difficult to translate. The verse has a strict metre, alliteration AND rhyme, fantastic to listen to in the original Middle Welsh.

Before Dafydd, Welsh poetry was incredibly conservative, traditionalist and, to most people who haven't studied early medieval Wales, severely lacking in excitement. The majority is praise poetry and death songs, very "Heroic Age" and very un-modern. With the fall of the native Welsh princes in 1283, however, a new style of poetry emerged. Dafydd was at the forefront of this, revitalizing both dedications to nature and to women. They were combined in Dafydd's peculiar idea of the Deildy, a hut constructed out of branches, hidden in the woods, where he would woo his often married maidens.

You splendid poets, [give] blessing to the lovely lass - my matchless golden girl, [who has] the region's loveliness - who welcomed me amongst birch and hazel, the mantles of May, shining in fervent pride above the slope's confines (good place to praise a maiden's countenance) true furnishing of unfrequented citadel: a living-room is better if it grows.

I love "a living-room is better if it grows" (gwell yw ystafell os tyf). There are two women who Dafydd especially dedicates his poems to, Morfudd (pronounced more-vith, with a voiced "th") and Dyddgu (duth-gi, voiced "th"). Both are cheeky, rude and nasty, repeatedly turn away Dafydd's advances, and are apparently married (Morfudd is married to Eiddig, "the jealous one", often called, in a bit of medieval anti-semitism, "the Jew").

Skilled is she in deception, and her wiles exceed all measure - yet she is my dear. At one time my fair girl appears in church and court; another time [like] someone on proud lime-washed castle's battlements bright, sparkling Morfudd disappears, like to the Sun, a vital succour to the land, the one who nurtures and entices warmth.

Dafydd often stands outside a castle or house, pronouncing his poetry up to an uninteresting Morfudd, before "the jealous one" runs out and chases Dafydd back to his woodland retreat. As you can see, humour plays a big part in his verse. In particular, Dafydd penned a number of erotic poems, until recently seen by prudish scholars as not part of his body of work. One technique of Dafydd and his contemporaries was to address an animal in order for it to become a messenger to his beloved. Dafydd turns the theme on its head, and addresses his penis, scolding it for getting him into so much trouble.

By God penis, you must be guarded with eye and hand because of this lawsuit, straight-headed pole, more carefully than ever now. Cunt's net-quill, because of complaint a bridle must be put on your snout to keep you in check so that you are not indicted again, take heed [you] despair of minstrels. To me you are the vilest of rolling pins, scrotum's horn, do not rise up or wave about, gift to the noble ladies of Christendom, nut-pole of the lap's cavity, snare shape, gander sleeping in its yearling plumage, neck with a wet head and milk-giving shaft, tip of a growing shoot, stop your awkward jerking, crooked blunt one, accursed pole, centre pillar of a girl's two halves, head of a stiff conger-eel with a hole in it, blunt barrier like a fresh hazel-pole.

There is something wonderfully "fresh" in Dafydd's verse. If you want to read more, this is a fantastic resource: http://www.dafyddapgwilym.net/. On the site, there is the original Welsh, an English translation and even the poem being read out loud. R. Bromwich's edition, Dafydd ap Gwilym: Poems, is also great.

I posted it to a question which asked about Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his wife Alix. The submitter wanted to know if Nicholas had anything he would say to his wife. I found letters translated to English and it was quite interesting to read.

Original Post:

So I found some great quotes that Nicholas spoke of to Alix/Alexandra his wife throughout his time during World War I. They were in writings of letters from him to the Tsarina back at St. Petersburg. The source for these are in English and found here.

I have however included some direct quotes from some of the early letters. He tended to call her "My Dear Wifey" or "My Dear Sunny." He repeatedly ended his letters with "I embrace you tenderly" or plural for his wife and his children. Finally he always referred to himself as "Always Your Hubby" or with an added "old" for "Always Your Old Hubby"

Below is a few choice quotes I found looking through the letters that I linked above.

"...At 8 p.m. Alix and I went to listen to our favourite opera "Tristan and Isolde" and enjoyed its beautiful music..."

.

"Beloved mine, I kiss you again and again, because just at present I am quite free and have time to think of my Wify and my family. It is strange, but it is so."

.

"Always your old hubby"

Sept 22nd, 1914.

"Good-bye, my sweet, beloved Sunny. May God bless and keep you and the dear children; as for me, I kiss you and them tenderly."

Sept 23, 1914

"MY BELOVED, DARLING SUNNY"

Oct 27, 1914

"May God bless you, my beloved Wify! I kiss you and the children lovingly. Sleep well and try to think that you are not lonely."

Nov, 1914

"My beloved Sunny, I love you with an undying love; as you see, I could call it "un puits d'amour" and this after twenty years. God bless you, my darling! May He guard you and the children. I kiss you all tenderly."

Nov 19, 1914

"Well, good-bye, my beloved Wify-teeny. May God bless you and the children! I kiss you and them affectionately. Give my warm greetings to A.

Always your hubby

Nicky."

Jan 24, 1915

What is interesting is the majority of these letters from Nicholas II to Alix were taking place during the First World War. Another note would be that this was during the time that the rumored happenings between the Tsarina Alix and the Monk Rasputin. Rumors were spread that there was infidelity and if it was true makes the letters a tad more heartbreaking to read. Coupled with the fact that they would both be dead in a few years times makes the letters tragic to read.

In the summer of 1864, John Wilkes Booth was writing to an Isabel Sumner, an eighteen-year-old he had met while touring in Boston.

They are written with such passion.

...Tell me (and from your heart) do you think the least little bit of me; forgive me for asking such a question, but I know the world, and had begun to hate it. I saw you, things seem changed.

And fire.

...I love you, and I feel that in the fountain of my heart a seal is set to keep its waters, pure and bright for thee alone. God bless you...

And insecurity.

Dear Friend I will write no more, but I dare say you think I have written too much already - I start tomorrow for the mountains of Penn... but should you be so kind as to write direct to me here, I will get it. Write soon... Write soon. God bless you. Write soon. Write at once.

Ten months later, he shot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head.

The collection contains only six letters, but they help inform the kind of passion of his character and his ability to get swept up quickly into things. I know I shouldn't take so much from these minor notes, but they do speak to me. Seeing them in his own hand shows a kind of vulnerability that rarely appears in analysis of historic characters.

And then we are all left to wonder what might not have transpired had John's love been fully requited...

Oh! To be young, in love, and about the assassinate the President of the United States!

John Rhodehamel, Louise Taper, eds. "Right or Wrong, God Judge Me": The Writings of John Wilkes Booth." Reports on the acquisition of the letters from the Chicago Tribune.

Marie-Antoinette's habit of befriending older men who she saw as inoffensive led to at least a few unfortunate misunderstandings. Her conservative disposition meant that she was attempting to protect herself against unwanted propositions... but when the Baron de Benseval, a lieutenant-colonel of the Swiss Guard, thought that her favouring of him was an invitation fell on his knees in front of her she rebuked him icily: "Rise, sir, the King shall not be informed of an offence that would disgrace you for ever,".

In a dark night,/ With longings fired in love/ — O happy fate! —/ I went unnoticed,/ While my house was calm.

In darkness, certain,/ By disguised and secret ladder/ — O happy fate! —/ In darkness, concealed,/ While my house was calm.

In happy night,/ In secret, that nobody saw me,/ Nor I anything,/ No light and guide/ But what in my heart was burning.

It guided me/ More surely than the midday light/ To where he waited,/ Who well I knew,/ There where no one appeared.

O guiding night!/ O night more kind than break of day!/ O night that joined/ Love with love,/ Love in her lover transformed!

On my flowering breast/ All kept for him alone —/ Left sleeping there —/ And I gave myself,/ And the cedars gave the air their smell.

The scent of his brow/ When I spread his hair,/ His calm hand/ Hard on my neck,/ And all my senses suspended.

I lost myself,/ I lay my face against my love,/ Everything stopped,/ My cares were left/ Between the lilies all forgotten.

The above translation of the poem Noche oscura del alma from the original Spanish (which is beautiful by the way) is by none other than San Juan de la Cruz, Spanish mystic and Carmelite friar, comparing the soul's pursuit of God to a night time rendezvous between a woman and her lover. Instrumental in the Spanish counter-reformation, San Juan de la Cruz was instrumental in the establishment of reform-minded monasteries throughout Spain. Spanish mysticism focused on the intimate relationship with God rooted in a burning desire to know the divine, and the writing and poetry produced by the Spanish mystics is, personally, some of the most intriguing and beautiful in the history of Spanish literature. In La noche oscura, the author describes the spiritual ecstasy of an experience with the divine by framing it in within the context of all the excitement felt by the narrator during a sexual encounter with her beloved. And it's not just San Juan. His contemporary and fellow reformer, Santa Teresa, in her autobiography, describes an experience of religious ecstasy:

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it... It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.

In fact, when Bernini completed a sculpture depicting the episode around a century later, contemporaries noted the erotic depiction of the saint in a fit of ecstatic pleasure (some folks weren't too happy about it).

Frankly, the poetry produced by both San Juan de la Cruz and Santa Teresa is simply fantastic, and is a solid recommendation for anyone interested in the literary side of the Counter-Reformation and Christian mysticism. They're a staple in medieval/renaissance/baroque literary Spanish courses as well, and as a result, a couple of the big poems have online English translations