In Ovid’s own words:
“Nothing but wanton dalliance is taught by me.” (From Book 3).

I’ve read this book on my kindle because at the time, the bookstore did not carry the book on its store. The notes on the version I’ve read said that it has been suggested that some of the things he is saying in this book caused his exile and even though he tried to retract them and defend himself, his words were too clear to convince Augustus otherwise. Some think that he is sarcastic. However, according to the notes it seems that he had employed himself some of the methods he suggests in The Art of Love, so I think it is arguable and unclear whether he was sarcastic or serious. I lean more on the side of belief that he was serious and obnoxious.

I feel this book is easier if one has read Ovid’s Metamorphoses first because of the several references to those myths. It definitely made me interested in wanting to re-read Metamorphoses.

I had loved Metamorphoses when I’ve read it years ago; however, The Art of Love was hard to get through it as I found it tedious and irritating. I almost gave it up, but the notes were more interesting than Ovid’s thoughts, so I tortured myself in finishing it.

I don’t think it as a waste of time. I still think is worth getting through it for the notes and certain references in Ovid’s words that provide a cultural context and traditions, ways of living during Ovid’s time.

Nevertheless, he was a hard pill to shallow, and I was glad and relieved to see the last page. I was surprised at how extremely annoying and arrogant I found him to be.

I’ll stick with his Metamorphoses, and I think I’ll pretend that I didn’t read what I read him saying.

This was funny though:
“O how indulgent is nature to your beauty, whose blemishes can be atoned for in fashions so numerous! We men, to our misfortune, become bald; and our hair, carried away by time, falls off, like Boreas shaking down the leaves.” (From Book 3).

I think that when reading these types of writing and views from old times, there is also the problem of objective morality/truth versus subjective morality/truth.

For me, Ovid’s views, no matter what the time period or customs were at the time, are still unacceptable because I believe that certain morals/certain truths are objective, not subjective; therefore, they will always be (in past, present, and future) wrong and unjustifiable. Just as we know right from wrong, ancients knew it too. I think customs and time periods are definitely something we ought to take in consideration, and learn from it, not to excuse the wrong and turn it into right for any certain period, but not for ours.

Ovid is extreme.

That been said, I love The Metamorphosis, but I also believe that even The Art of Love is worth reading and it is a valuable book to teach and read, not because it is Ovid’s work, but because it is a work that shows this other human side, the bad side, of that time period that sometimes we might idolized a little. I have rarely, if ever, seen someone’s mind going immediately to someone’s extreme views like Ovid’s, or to the issue of slavery and limited citizenship, etc. We all know about the negative aspects, but the first thing that everyone thinks when these Ancients come to mind is poetry, art, philosophy, democracy, etc.

I feel that no matter how irritating it was, the book was real. Once again, I got to realize that we are not that much different from the ancient ones, and they were not that much different from us. People are and will always be people, everywhere and at all times, with good and bad.

And I think that it is good to see and read and teach that side, that reality of ancient humanity too, but as the ugly reality that was, not as something taken lightly and justified.