How to win a woman....

Ovid's love poetry is full of ideas and suggestions of how to woo and seduce a woman, and it provides a delightful read on many levels. To enjoy the experience fully, one needs to read it in its Latin original and to get the full benefit of the nuances of word choices and placement, but since not everyone is able to read Latin, I thought I would give a brief taste of Ovid in English here. The poem I have decided to look at is Amores 3.2, (currently on the OCR AS Latin syllabus). In this poem, Ovid tells us that he has come to the chariot races. The chariot races were enormously popular at the time and so it is not unusual that Ovid has chosen to visit them; however, he is not there for the purpose of entertainment or gambling - rather, as he tells us, he is there to win over a girl who has caught his eye. According to Ovid, the races are an excellent spot to meet and seduce women (Ars Amatoria 1.135 - 163) - the seats are close together and so one might find oneself pressed up close to a woman, the shared focus of the races provides a convenient excuse for talking to the woman, a man can endear himself to the woman by ensuring that she is comfortable by, for example, asking the people behind her to be careful not to prod her with their knees). Now in Amores 3.2, we see Ovid put his own advice in to practice.

He starts by telling the girl that she is the focus of his interest. Unlike most men, he is not actually interested in the races – he states this quite clearly in the first line, starting the poem with an emphatic non to make it clear that the races are not at all what he is interested in. What he is interested in is the girl, and so he shows her that she is far more appealing to him than the charioteers and their skill. Perhaps one could equate this nowadays to a man at a football match giving his full attention to the lady with him?

However, while he may not be interested in the races, he sees that the girl is, and so he tells her that he wants the charioteer that she supports (and perhaps has betted on) to win; and so he pretends to share a common interest and to want what she wants (cui tamen ipsa faves, vincat ut ille, precor). Later, when her charioteer begins to lose, Ovid pretends to be sad for her and curses the charioteer for the ineptitude and cowardice which has led to his love-interest being upset (quid facis, infelix! perdis bona vota puellae.) We know he is not really upset when the charioteer begins to lose. He is there to win over the girl - his apparent interest in the race and its outcome is all a fabrication to win her over by suggesting a common interest and by seeming to be concerned about things that could potentially make her happy or sad.

Ovid shows a similar concern for the girl’s happiness and wellbeing elsewhere in the poem. For example, he apparently worries that her dress might become dusty and offers to lift up the trailing material (no doubt a convenient excuse for a much more physical interest), defends her against other spectators who are apparently encroaching on her space, asks her if she is hot and would like him to fan her, wonders if she would like to rest her legs by propping them up, suggests that she might want to bury her head in his lap when a draft threatens to dishevel her hair, and so forth. He expresses a concern for her comfort in an attempt to show that he cares about her. One might also note that all these seemingly selfless offers also allow Ovid far greater proximity to the girl.

Furthermore, Ovid flatters the girl by comparing her to mythological characters – for example, the beautiful Atalanta, a famous runner from mythology; he even goes so far as to suggest that her legs are like the goddess Diana’s and that the girl is greater than even Venus, goddess of love and beauty. His flattery also takes a more physical level – while comparing the girl to these famous icons of beauty, he often becomes distracted by the girl’s physical attributes – for example her legs which her clothing selfishly conceals according to some strong personification used by Ovid (invida vestis erat!)

His mythological exempla are particularly well-chosen; Hippodameia and Atalanta are both women who posed great challenges to the men who wanted them – Atalanta did not want a husband and any prospective suitor would have to beat her in a foot race in order to win her hand, while prospective suitors of Hippodameia would have to compete in a race that would end in their death if they lost. Both these women were apparently worthy of the effort and risk and the implication suggested by Ovid is that his girl is worthy of his efforts too (although one could note that attending a race to win over a girl and watching someone else race is hardly a similar effort to taking part in a life and death competition as both Milanion and Pelops did!). However, both women, although seemingly unattainable, were eventually won over by their suitors and Ovid implies that his girl too will be won over – so she might as well give in now!

One last nod to flattery comes in Ovid’s deference to the girl as his domina – she is his mistress and he is her slave. This is a common ploy in Roman love poetry, whereby the man professes to be so hopelessly in love with the girl, that he has lost all pride, self-interest and control. We have already seen Ovid flatter her by comparing her to great figures of beauty, express common interests and claim to be concerned about her comfort – all this is apparently because he is in thrall to her – what girl could resist the charms of Ovid!

And does all this work? Well, apparently so; at the end of the poem, the girl smiles at Ovid (risit) - this is the same girl who tried to wriggle away from him earlier in the poem (quid refugis?) and Ovid ends the poem by telling his reader that's all he is going to say or do at this venue - the rest will have to happen elsewhere (hoc satis est, alio cetera redde loco) and so we can assume that he has been successful.

Tell us about yourself...

There is a common interview technique that asks the hopeful candidate to describe themselves in terms of an animal - 'if you were an animal, what would you be and why?' - which elicits a varied response depending on the candidate and the position for which they are applying:

- I am like an eagle as I aspire to reach new heights and soar over my competition;
- I am a swan, calm and graceful on the outside but with feet frantically kicking as I take on a multitude of tasks;
- a piranha, ruthless and always on the look-out for new opportunities;
- a labrador, loyal to my employer....

The answers are intended to sum up and convey some essential aspect of the candidate, the key characteristic that they consider the most important. The interviewer uses these questions to try to get some sense of who the candidate is, what their strengths (and possibly weaknesses) are and what they value.

So what would our heroes of Greek tragedy have answered to an interview question like this and what can we learn from them? Obviously we don't have a transcript of any such fictional interviews...but we do have their words from their plays...

In Euripides' Medea, when faced with Medea's hostile accusations, Jason states:

'I shall have to show myself a clever speaker. This hurricane of recrimination and abuse calls for good seamanship: I'll furl but an inch of sail and ride it out.'

Jason's point of reference is the sea and man's domination over the waves. He calls Medea's verbal abuse a 'hurricane' and determines to respond to it by stowing the sail and thus leaving less sail to be meet the force of Medea's storm. It makes sense that Jason would use shipping imagery to refer to himself. His fame comes from his conquest of the oceans, his journey in his ship, the Argo, to Iolcus, to retrieve the Golden Fleece. This was what brought him his heroic status, this is where he was a true hero, and it is this comfortable ground to which he harks back when faced with Medea's fury. He seems out of his depth in a verbal battle of wits with Medea, and so he determines to face up to her using the thing that he is best at. (How ironic it is, therefore, that he will be killed by his own ship later in life!). Presumably then, if faced with the above question in interview, Jason would answer, 'I am the captain of a ship, weathering fearsome storms with courage and skill'; what a pity his sea-faring experience benefitted him not at all when he met Medea's storm.

In the Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Clytemnestra (albeit somewhat duplicitously) refers to Agamemnon as:

'the watchdog of the fold, the main royal, saving stay of the vessel, rooted oak that thrusts the roof sky-high...Land at dawn to the shipwrecked past all hope, light of the morning burning off the night of storm, the cold clear spring to the parched horseman'.

We must remember that these are Clytemnestra's words, not Agamemnon's, and that she is most likely exaggerating Agamemnon's importance in order to draw down the anger of the jealous gods on him. However, Agamemnon does not seem to correct her or to object; he does later object (somewhat weakly) to her insistence that he step on the red tapestry and take the 'tributes of the gods' but he does not repudiate Clytemnestra's descriptions of him as the watchdog, mast, and so on. Perhaps he agrees with her assessment of him as the thing that offers support and comfort. All the images that Clytemnestra uses are of strength and support - a dog that protects the flocks, the mast that supports the sail, the column that holds the roof of a house, the sight of land for the shipwrecked sailor, the dawn after a night of storm, water in a time of thirst. Clytemnestra (and indirectly through his failure to object to these terms, Agamemnon) describes him as supportive and life-giving, a rescue to others in times of danger. Perhaps this is how Agamemnon, as leader of the Greeks in the mission to Troy, would see himself - he brought honour back to the Greeks, as well as plunder and the growth of the nation. (Of course, Iphigenia, the daughter he sacrificed in order to achieve this, would be unlikely to share this image of Agamemnon!) One wonders what Agamemnon would answer in an interview - which of these many attributes would he choose to be his own key characteristic?

Finally, I turn to Sophocles' Ajax, the tragic hero who, faced with humiliation, chooses to kill himself instead of living with the public obliteration of his honour. In a society with shame-culture values, the loss of honour is unbearable and Ajax's solitary suicide is a clear manifestation of this. After his wife, Tecmessa, begs Ajax not to kill himself, in his famous deception speech, Ajax describes his apparent change of heart - although the speech is much-disputed, Ajax seems to suggest that he has changed his mind and now will not kill himself after all. The words that he uses are revealing:

'A will of iron may bend. A little while ago, I was tough-tempered as the hardest iron; but now my edge is blunted by a woman's soft persuasion.'

Ajax, the greatest Greek warrior, second only to Achilles, describes himself as a weapon. His will is 'iron', a common material for weapons, he was 'tough-tempered', a reference to the process used to harden weapons, but now, his 'edge' is 'softened'. It is interesting that when he is thinking about not killing himself for the sake of his honour, when he is thinking of putting his honour second to his loved ones, he refers to himself as a blunted weapon. When he is a ferocious warrior, he is 'tough-tempered as the hardest iron' but when he decides not to kill himself for the sake of his honour, he is 'blunted' or weak and useless as a weapon. Ajax sees himself as the embodiment of all that is valuable to him  - he is famous for one thing only, being a supreme force on the battlefield, and so he is the weapon.

Three heroes, three types of men, and each refers to himself (or allows a reference to him) in a different way. Ajax is a warrior known only for his fighting prowess - his point of reference is a weapon. Agamemnon is a leader of men - his comparisons are those that offer support and shelter. Jason is a hero who ventured over the ocean beyond the known boundaries of the world - he refers to himself as a sailor facing a storm. Perhaps this gives us some idea of how they would answer in an interview situation. But what would be the job for which each would apply.....?

Virgil - Aeneid 4

I have been thinking about the beginning of Book 4 of The Aeneid, mainly because I am in the midst of preparing it for my Year 13 Latin class. It struck me that although this is Dido's book in many ways, she is not named for a while...and this got me to musing (instead of preparing my work as I should have been!)


I was looking at the first 8 lines where we get a vivid description of Dido and her emotional turmoil at the time (indeed it is sad that this powerful queen is introduced to us as male sana or 'barely sane'). Virgil has not named Dido at this point. It is not necessary to name her since he has already introduced her to his audience in book 1, so it is obvious who she is. However, it is still somewhat unusual considering that this is the beginning of  a new book (chapter) with two chapters inbetween that did not focus on Dido but on a retelling of the Trojan War and his subsequent wanderings by Aeneas, that Virgil does not remind us of the main character of this book at the start. Why is this? Is it perhaps an attempt to dehumanise her so that we feel less sympathy for her at the end of the book when she kills herself? This would make sense in some ways - after all, to the Roman audience, Dido was not a character to pity; she was a potential obstacle to Aeneas that could have prevented him from laying the seeds of the Roman empire, much like Circe or Calypso in Homer’s Odyssey but with effects that would have been much more widespread. However, although this argument is logical, it contradicts the detailed characterisation that Virgil later gives to Dido, in which he creates a woman who is clearly deserving of our sympathy. Perhaps it is to create suspense in not naming her; but this argument too falls flat as the audience would have known her identity and therefore, would not have been shocked when her name was finally revealed. Perhaps he simply felt he did not need to name her, as the audience would have known who she was, but this feels like a weak argument to use to explain the absence of her name at the beginning of a book that is essentially her book. Perhaps Virgil wanted to focus on her position rather than her name; this would explain why he chose to call her regina in line 1 instead of Dido. By the end of book 4 (her  book) Dido has lost everything; her love for Aeneas even jeapardises her queenly nature and accomplishments as she is willing to give Aeneas half of her rule, and also neglects her growing city, and therefore, her duties as  its ruler, because of her love for Aeneas. Virgil might have chosen to emphasise her character as queen here in contrast to what is later to come. This might also serve the added purpose of showing the audience that it was a queen who fell in love with Aeneas. Aeneas gains the love of no ordinary women, but of a queen, much as Odysseus gains the love of a goddess and a witch. This would emphasise his heroic status and link him clearly to the Homeric hero; this would be appropriate considering the numerous links made between Odysseus and Aeneas elsewhere in The Aeneid. 

Trojan Women - Euripides

I was thinking about this today. What is Euripides' message in this play? He seems to criticise the gods repeatedly throughout. The women of Troy call on the gods at various points and state that the gods have the power to intercede for them and to rescue them from their terrible fate at the hands of the victorious Greeks. But do the gods respond? No. The cries of the Trojan women fall on deaf ears. Even worse, the gods, Athene and Poseidon, open the play showing their power and their awareness of what has been happening in Troy. Poseidon has supported the Trojans and openly admits his fondness for this city. But will he help the Trojans? No. He will, however, harass the Greeks on their way home in order to punish them for their irreverant behaviour in Troy, but he will do nothing to help the Trojans themselves. In this he is not alone. None of the gods will help the Trojans. The Trojans are left alone and bereft and completely at the mercy of the Greeks. The Trojan women at various junctures in the play claim that the gods have abandoned them ... and they are right. What are we to make of this? What was Euripides saying to his Greek audience? Was he suggesting that for them too praying to the gods was futile? When we consider that this play was performed at a religious festival as part of an annual honouring of the gods, this would make such a message highly controversial. Of course, controversy from Euripides is hardly unusual.

Later in the play, Helen, the traditional cause of the Trojan war, claims that she is not to blame. While it is true that she abandoned her Greek husband, Menelaus, for the Trojan prince Paris, she claims that this was ordained by the goddess, Aphrodite, and that as a mere mortal, she, Helen, could hardly oppose the will of the gods. Here, Helen is making reference to the age-old myth, The Judgement of Paris, in which Paris is forced to choose which of three goddesses (Hera, Athene or Aphrodite) is the most beautiful. Each goddess offers him a bribe - Aphrodite offers him the most beautiful woman in the world should he choose her. He does, and Helen is the reward. So, according to accepted mythology (which is very close to religious belief to many of the Greeks) Aphrodite was the reason behind Helen's departure from Greece with Paris, and the resultant Trojan War. However, when Helen argues this in Euripides' play, Hecabe, queen of Troy, counters her arguments by claiming that no such judgement took place. She suggests that for the goddesses to squabble over who was most beautiful would be ludicrous. Is Euripides questioning accepted religious belief here? Note that he does not suggest that the gods do not exist, but rather that they do not behave in the way that their mythology depicts them. And, as said before, this play was performed at a religious festival, making this even more striking. It is hard for us to imagine a modern equivalent. Maybe a play performed in a church in which the stories of the Bible were brought into question?

What was Euripides trying to say? Perhaps we will never know. But the questions that Euripides raises and the controversial points that seem present in nearly all his works are the reasons why Euripides is my favourite playwright.

If you have not read any of his plays, I do urge you to do so. Perhaps start with 'Medea' or 'Hippolytus'. 'Trojan Women' is a fantastic play but it is one of unrelenting misery and not a lot of plot or action, so it might not be an ideal one with which to begin your acquaintance with Euripides.