Love and Relationships Quotes

The poor wren, most diminutive of all birds, will fight the owl, her offspring in the nest

Shakespeare,

The great poet of female suffering

Michael Wood - Ovid about the Heroides

A man to whom women are, fundamentally, sexual objects

Peter Green - Ovid and sexual objects

Stylised assault on the whole marital condition

Peter Green - Ovid and marriage

The immortal is turned to the immoral

Michael Wood - imm/imm

A scathing in-dept appraisal of Augustan society

Peter Green - Ovid and Augustan society

Worrying erotic violence

Sharrock - worrying

Ovid’s most outre argument

Green - Ovid’s description of the vagina as ‘infinitely elastic’

Predatory view of sex

Wood - Ovid as predatory

Bastion of misogyny

Christine de Pizan in ‘The Book of the City of Ladies’

Men often cheat; it’s seldom tender girls

Ovid’s opinion of infidelity

Let my loyalty be to treacherous betrayal… Adhere to my religion, and deceive!

Ovid as a deceiver

Excessively irksome care of a harsh husband

Ovid’s description of the trials of marriage

Ariadne, left all alone… The woods, weeping, shed a tear for Phyllis

Ovid showing rare sympathy towards women through his use of the myths of Ariadne and Phyllis

Rankness of the wild goat under your armpits… hornless cows are ugly… like a mangy ass braying

Ovid’s Comparison of women to animals

Dumb mass

Ovid insults the intelligence of women by collectively labelling them a

Leave your maid alone: I hate those who scratch her face with their nails, or prick the arm they’ve snatched at with a pin

Ovid’s image of women as violent also suggests that he is likely writing for married women as infames were unlikely to have maids

Laughing would be a fatal error

Ovid’s warning against laughter. It is melodramatic, as it will not cause death, and negative as laughter is needed for comedy and liberation. Aphrodite is described by Homer as ‘laughter-loving’

The field’s exhausted by continual harvest

Ovid uses fertility and agrarian imagery to counsel against children by showing the effects of childbirth

Don’t deny your delights to loving men

Ovid encourages women to have sex with men

Dark-grey suited Briseis: when she was carried off

Ovid’s description of Briseis shows a predatory and controlling view of sex and relationships

Penelope was faithful to her husband for all ten years of his waging war, and his ten years wandering

Even Ovid appears to praise Penelope’s fidelity, though perhaps with a touch of scorn

Only playful passions will be learnt from me

Ovid describes what his poem will teach women

Stesichorus who spoke against Helen’s unchastity, soon sang her praises in a happier key

Ovid encourages adultery by discussing the more forgiving attitudes towards Helen

Pluck the flower, which, if not plucked, will of itself shamefully fall

Ovid uses flower imagery to encourage women to have sex, encouraging a carpe diem lifestyle against Augustan teachings

Girls go to the goddesses for your examples

Ovid looks to the goddesses as proof that women should have as much sex as they want

Though he may be famed for his piety, Aeneas, our guest, supplied the sword, Dido, and the reason for your death

Ovid’s negative description of Aeneas disparages the Roman name

Seek your orders here, those that modesty, principles, and your rules allow

Ovid references Roman principles and laws snidely, and appears to act as a general of sorts

155

The number of imperatives used by Ovid appears to present him asa general rather than a teacher

There was crude simplicity before: now Rome is golden

Ovid’s version of ‘I found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble’

What destroyed you all, I ask? Not knowing how to love

Ovid says that not knowing ow to love is the cause of women’s destruction

Stood Venus herself, and ordered me to teach you

Ovid’s claim that Venus ordered him to teach women about love may be seen as an attempt to absolve himself from blame. It is also similar to the evocation of the muse found in epic

Armed men to battle with naked girls… an unarmed crowd betrayed to well-armed men

Ovid’s claims of love as warfare

Woman, feel love, melted to your very bones, and let both delight equally in the thing

Ovid tells women to feel love

There’s no prize for a face that truly lacks a witness… a pretty girl, if never balled, won’t get pregnant

Two different translations of a line where Ovid encourages women to go outside (the second is Peter Green)

Woman, what can you do with a man more delicate than you, and one perhaps who has more [male?] lovers than you?

Ovid’s possible homophobia here, seen more clearly in Peter Green’s translation

Waiting always arouses love

Ovid encourages ‘playing hard to get’

We hate sad girls too

Ovid counsels even women’s emotions, using Tecmessa and Andromache (spear-won brides) as examples

No rider rules a horse that’s lately known the reins with the same bit as one that’s truly mastered

Empowered women riding and dominating men as if horses in Ovid

Your older warrior loves sensibly and wisely… like wet straw… [the younger will] break the door down, burn it with cruel fire

Ovid’s description of older vs younger lovers

The only thing I am faithful to is my infidelity

Tennyson - Lancelot and Guinevere

To guard a wife is right: it’s fitting, it’s decreed by law, the courts, and modesty

Ovid seemingly recognising the Lex Julia

You to whom nature denies sexual feeling, pretend to sweet delight with artful sound

Ovid tells women to pretend to enjoy sex as the message of deceit climaxes (8 lines vs 4)

Ovid was my master

What Ovid instructs girls to inscribe on their trophies

Though a thousand use it, nothing’s lost that way

Ovid’s ‘most outre argument’ that the vagina will not be won down

Bitter sweetness characterises Sappho’s erotic songs

Poochigian - Sappho’s bittersweetness

Especially powerful symbol of female sexuality in classic poetry

Freeman - roses and sexuality

An amazing openness to youthful sexuality

Freeman - ‘Sweet Mother’ is perhaps ‘too shocking’ for male ears

[Eros’] predation is both pleasant and painful

Poochigan - Eros’ predation

Intensely personal interaction between Sappho and the goddess

Freeman - the divine intervention in Loeb 1 (perhaps reminiscent of Homer?)

She gives a fully human voice to female desire for the first time in West literature

Poochigan - female desire in Western literature

Sex-crazed whore who sings of her own wantonness

Tatian

What’s more wanton?

Ovid’s description of Sappho

The experience is perhaps more ambivalent than the unqualified festivity would suggest

Lyn Wilson - marriage for the virgin brides

Crucial intertext

Bar - influence of Homer on Sappho

Be my ally

Love as warfare, intimate goddess-mortal relationship in Loeb 1

Anguish…despairing…great distress

Love as distressing in Loeb 1

Whom do you want me to bring back to you this time/ help me as you helped me in the past

Familiarity with goddesses and Sappho as a victim of love with Aphrodite in Loeb 1 and Hera in Loeb 17

The most beautiful sight in the whole world is, according to some, a group of cavalry, others say infantry, I think it is the one you love

The priamel at the beginning of Loeb 16 disputes Homeric love for kleos and hints at Helen

Whore war

Tony Harrison’s translation of Aeschylus’ ‘Agamemnon’

Abandoned her husband…without a thought for her daughter or her dear parents

Loeb 16 demonstrates how love can be destructive to the family unit

Desire again circles you

Loeb 22 uses hunting metaphors to describe desire

Your bride, adorned with violets

Loeb 30 uses the purple flower imagery like the hyacinths

Clear-voiced nightingale/ piercing moans

Poochigian’s alternate translation of the line creates a more ambivalent emotion

A delicate fire runs beneath my skin

Sappho uses fire imagery similar to Seneca

I think that I am on the point of death

La petite mort in Loeb 31

He seems to me equal to a god

Divine elevation of men shows jealousy, but the man is then erased and the focus shifts to women

I am greener than grass

Although modern connotations evoke a sense of jealousy, Sappho is in fact referring to her fertility in Loeb 31

Around the beautiful moon the stars hide away

Bridesmaids are outshone by the bride on her wedding day? Full moons are also associated with fertility

Who gave their works and made me honoured

Loeb 32 links to Plato’s ideas of mental children

Love shook my soul like a wind buffeting oak trees on a mountain

Love is natural but takes charge; there is phallic imagery; it is similar to Homeric military similes (Loeb 47)

A handsome man is only good to look at, a good man will become handsome

The patriarchy in full effect - there are lots of ways for men to be attractive, and moral character matters

I want to die

Loeb 94 presents love as death

On a soft bed… you satisfied your desire

Loeb 94 is possibly Sappho encouraging sex

Longing consume her

Love is presented as overwhelming and controlling in Loeb 96

If her hair was more yellow than a flaming torch, Then she should wear garlands

Loeb 98a - xanthe (yellow) was the colour used by Homer to describe Odysseus and Achilles. Here Sappho is looking to her mother for guidance and possibly advice

I cannot weave my web

Loeb 102 presents a reversal from traditional female nature as she cannot perform household duties. Comparison to Penelope who weaves a ‘great web’

Smitten by a boy because of slender Aphrodite

Love is divine and inflicted by the gods in Loeb 102. Sappho says ‘pais’ (youth) in the original, so it is more genderfluid

Like the sweet apple reddening at the highest height

The sweet apple of Loeb 105a may be the maidenly blush of a virgin who is out of reach of the ‘pickers’ (note the plural). Apples are traditionally a symbol of Aphrodite

Like the hyacinth on a mountain

Yonic and phallic imagery intertwine in this poem, perhaps suggesting a loss of virginity

The doorkeeper has size twenty-seven feet

Fertility is suggested in Loeb 110 through the urban myth

Like Ares

The description of the bridegroom in Loeb 111 perhaps suggests a sense of conflict in married life, as Ares is the god of war and part of an infamous affair, and he is usually depicted carrying a phallic sword or spear. Despite the joyous shouts of ‘Hymenaeus!’ it may create anxiety for the bride

Virginity where have you gone?

The loss of virginity is lamented by women - there is a sense of irrevocable loss in Loeb 114

Bitter-sweet, invincible creature

Ambivalent personification of love in Loeb 130

I have a beautiful daughter, who resembles the sight of golden flowers

Sappho’s love for her daughter is clear with the rich imagery she uses to describe her in Loeb 132

Wealth without virtue can be a harmful neighbour

Sappho does not warn against wealth in the same way that Seneca does, but rather warns against a lack of virtue (Loeb 148)

Most evidence points to a predominantly heterosexual society

James Davidson - heterosexual

Happiness is the ultimate goal of all desire

Anthony Price - his assessment of desire for Socrates

First great theoriser of love in the Western tradition

F.C.C. Sheffield - theoriser of love

Erotic relationships provided a context in Plato’s day for the development of friendships

F.C.C. Sheffield - erotic relationships and friendships

Desire to achieve self-immortalisation through procreation

Christopher Gill - the aim of both Erixymachus and Socrates’ speeches

The highest type of pregnancy and childbirth are located within the male-male erotic educational relationships

Christopher Gill - Pregnancy in homoerotic relationships

Male dominated character of Greek social life

Christopher Gill - the nature of ‘Symposum’ reflects

Romantic and erotic love are discussed entirely in homoerotic terms, and women are not considered, or brought in only as an inferior or rejected opinion

Annas - Romantic relationships and women

A greatly annoying figure in Athens

Pello - contemporary view of Socrates

There would be nothing very shocking to Greek sentiment in the suggestion of infanticide

Desmond Lee - infanticide

Potent force for moral behaviour

Waterfield - love in ‘Symposium’

Desire is, in fact, a beneficial kind of madness

Sheffield - ‘Phaedrus’

Sophisticated plea for pederasty

Plass - pederasty

Female weakness of mind

The woman’s mind is presented as weaker in ‘Consolation to Marcia’