Love and Relationships Quotes

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

Shakespeare - wren

Lust does not concern god

Seneca has a separate definition of love than the Olympians

A slave of lust and gluttony

What Seneca considers to be the worst of the vices that ‘fester’ the soul, used to criticise slave owners

If you want to be loved, then love

Seneca’s idea of love as a reciprocal thing

Tyrannodidaskalos

Seneca’s role as tyrant teacher, known by a Greek phrase

Tota vita discendum est mori

The Stoical belief that you should spend your life learning to die

Milanion bore Atalanta’s legs on his shoulders

Ovid uses a known mythological example for his catalogue of sexual positions

Why add venom to the snake

Ovid here seems to acknowledge the power and threat of women

Legal nonentities… excluded from any participation

William O’Neal - women’s legal status

Any animal fights better in the presence of its young

Plato shows the benefits of children on the battlefield in ‘Republic’

One sex is much better at everything than the other

Although Plato’s arguments in ‘Republic’ risk stirring up a ‘hornet’s nest’, they do reinforce patriarchal standards

Defective offspring… will be quietly and secretly disposed of

Platos’ eugenics programme in ‘Republic

My fingers itch for untouchable things

Euripides’ ‘Alkestis

The whole soul throbs and palpitates

In ‘Phaedrus’, sexual desire links clearly to sexual arousal

Produce epidemics and abnormal diseases

Erixymachus’ speech mirrors Seneca’s later warnings relating to disease

Nothing of the female in her

The benefits of Uranian Aphrodite for a patriarchal society

Most ashamed

Phaedrus argues that homoerotic relationships encourage them to behave in an admirable way to avoid feeling

Cocktail of his children’s blood… entrails ripped from the living bellies

Visceral imagery in ‘Thyestes’

Is there any more accurate depiction of Hitler or Stalin than Plato

Halliwell - comparison to Hitler

The woman who first invented the ripping out of tender fetuses deserved to die by her own violent art

Ovid’s damning view of abortions

A woman who leaves her house ought to have reached that stage of life when those who see her don’t ask who’s wife she is but whose mother she is

Hyperides - a woman

We have our wives for the running of our household and breeding of legitimate children… we have courtesans for pleasure

Apollodorus - wives and courtesans

Children were the centre of a woman’s life

Freeman - children to a woman

Greatness threatened to last for only one generation

Livy - Rome without the rape of the Sabine women

If woman didn’t exist, human life would be rid of all its miseries

Jason’s view of women in ‘Medea’

I would rather stand three times with a shield in battle than give birth once

Medea’s view of childbirth

History’s most notable example of a man who failed to live up to his own principles

Campbell - Seneca in history

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-depth 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

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

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

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

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

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 consumes her

Love is presented as overwhelming and controlling in Loeb 96

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