Advice for would-be Lovers

Question 1

Themes

Answer 1

> Natural Imagery
> Love
> The stories of early Rome
> Ancient theatre
> Ovid's humour and personality.

Question 2

Lines 1-5

Answer 2

Hunting Imagery- Lovers must be like hunters.

Question 3

‘… apta puella tuis’

A suitable girl has to be searched for with your eyes.

Answer 3

‘tuis’ is at the end of the line to impose responsibility on the recipient.

Question 4

‘longo amori’

lasting love

Answer 4

Short love affairs were preferred by the poets at the time- Ovid is making a statement that the love he can find them will be different.

Question 5

‘ANTE frequens quo sit DISCE puella loco’

First must learn the places where there are numerous girls.

Answer 5

Direct and forceful tone emphasised by the hyperbaton (unnatural word order) with ante being separated from disce.

Question 6

‘puella’

Answer 6

Uses singular even though he means plural to fit the structure.

Question 7

‘tot tibi tamque’

give you so many

Answer 7

Alliteration of ‘t’ sounds emphasises the abundance of girls.

Question 8

‘haec habet quicquid in orge fuit’

Here has whatever there has been in the world.

Answer 8

‘fuit’ in the past tense emphasises how Rome in current day has as many girls as the entirety of the ancient world.

Question 9

‘quot…quot…quot…quot…tot’

Answer 9

Anaphora emphasises number of women. Balanced by the tot.

Question 10

‘stellas’ ‘puellas’

stars, women

Answer 10

Uses disyllabic rhyming (each word is two syllables) to strengthen the comparison between stars and women.

Question 11

‘iuvenes, iuvenes’

young girls

Answer 11

Polyptoton.

Means young girls, even though the word is masculine, to add stylistic flair to the poem.

Question 12

‘fertiliora’

fertile

Answer 12

Farming Imagery- common in Ovid’s didactic poems

Question 13

‘illic invenies quod ames, quod ludere possis, quodque semel tangas, quodque tenere velis.’
There you will find one to love, one you can play with, one to touch once, and one you might want to hold on to.

Answer 13

> Uses an anaphora to again emphasise the amount of girls available.
‘quod’ is used for the same reason.
four phrases are arranged chiastically: love - lust, then lust - love

Question 14

Ants- Bees- Women

Answer 14

Compares women to these insects.

Very stylistic arrangement with two lines for each.

Question 15

‘copia iudicum saepe morata meum est’

My judgement is often hindered by abundance

Answer 15

Pretends to be perplexed by richness of choice.

Erotic sense to ‘copia’

Question 16

‘spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsae’

They come to watch, they come to be watched themselves

Answer 16

Chiasmus.

Word arrangement enforces Ovid’s claim that there will be a loss of virtue at the theatre.

Question 17

‘casti’ and ‘pudoris’

chaste and modesty

Answer 17

Using two words where one would be enough (pleonasm) to force the point that the theatre destroys morals.

Question 18

Meaning of the Sabine’s story in this poem.

Answer 18

If Romulus could take women from the theatre, so could he and his audience.

Question 19

‘Romule’

Romulus

Answer 19

Addressing a character in this new story immediately turns the reader’s attention to the new subject.

Question 20

‘simpliciter’

simply

Answer 20

Very unpoetic word- emphasises the primitiveness of the theatre.

Question 21

What effect does the use of the Historic Present Tense have?

Answer 21

Gives a feeling of immediacy in the audiences minds.

Question 22

‘virginibas cupidas iniciuntque manus’

and lay their desirous hands on the young women.

Answer 22

The -que is postponed from the beginning of the sentence to make other words more emphatic and to add drama.

Question 23

What were doves often associated with in the Roman world?

Answer 23

Cowardice.

Question 24

‘pars laniat crines, pars sine mente sedet’
Some tear at their hair, some sit with all will lost.
‘altera maesta silet, frustra vocat altera matrem.’
One is mournful in silence, another calls out for her mother in vain.
‘haec queritur, stupet haec, haec manet, illa fugit’
This one protests, this one is stunned, this one stays, that one flees.

Answer 24

> Contrasting reactions displayed through opposite pairs.
Middle two phrases use chiastic word order. First and fourth do not.
This makes the whole four part phrase chiastic as well.
All of this makes the passage stand out- it is the climax of the drama.

Question 25

‘sine mente’

without their minds/ with all will lost

Answer 25

The girls are so overcome by fear as to be incapable of thought.
Presents women as overcome with sensibility.

Question 26

‘… praeda, puellae’

reward, girls

Answer 26

placing these word next to each other makes it clear that the girls are the prize.

Question 27

use of ‘genitals’ (merry)

Answer 27

A word associated with weddings, so poignant in the case of the Sabine women.

Question 28

Many made even fear itself look fitting.

Answer 28

Paradoxical- Ovid points this out.