Mille facesse iocos!
The Paradigm of Play in Ovid’s Art of Love
Mille facesse iocos ! Le paradigme du jeu dans L’Art d’aimer d’Ovide
p. 147-165
Résumés
A vivid metaphor is pervasive in erotic poetry. The “playful” dimension of love is linked to an “art” of love, that is to say a regulated, tactical and strategic way of enjoying an affair. This is a know-how that one can learn, cultivate and transmit to others. The poets who think the amorous experience in the language of ludere, however, cannot agree on its value. The elegiac lover admits to a chronic failure. Worse, the purpose of a ludus is to deceive others. To all the enemies of love, Ovid will answer with a theoretical rebuttal. “But love”, he says, “is only a child!”. The art of love is the art of ruling a toddler. As soon as Ovid infantilizes love everything becomes possible. Here is an ars, an erotic technique that works. This pleasantly animated climate requires the constant activity of ludus and iocus, from dancing or singing to playing table games, while lovemaking is nothing but ioci. And the poem itself, the Art of Love, is itself a lusus.
Une métaphore vive est omniprésente dans la poésie érotique. La dimension « ludique » de l’amour semble être inextricablement liée à un « art » de l’amour, c’est-à-dire à une manière réglée, tactique et stratégique de vivre une liaison. C’est un savoir-faire que l’on peut apprendre, cultiver et transmettre à d’autres. Les poètes qui pensent l’expérience amoureuse dans le langage du ludere ne peuvent cependant pas s’accorder sur sa valeur. L’amoureux élégiaque avoue un échec chronique. Pire, le but d’un ludus est de tromper les autres. À tous les ennemis de l’amour, Ovide répondra par une réfutation théorique. « Mais l’amour », dit-il, « n’est qu’un enfant ! » L’art d’aimer est l’art de gouverner un bambin. Dès qu’Ovide infantilise l’amour, tout devient possible. Voilà une ars qui fonctionne. Cette atmosphère enjouée exige l’activité constante du ludus et du iocus, qu’il s’agisse de danser ou de chanter ou de se livrer aux jeux de table, tandis que faire l’amour n’est rien d’autre qu’une connivence dans les ioci. Et le poème lui-même, l’Art d’aimer, est lui-même un lusus.
Entrées d’index
Mots-clés : désir, plaisir, érotodidactique
Keywords : desire, pleasure, erotodidactic
Texte intégral
1Play is essential to the erotic experience.1 The richest discourse on such experience is found among poets who, in the first century BCE, shared an intellectual milieu.2 Virgil, Gallus, Catullus and the other elegists exchange ideas and poems, echoes and answers. A proper theory of love emerges from their poems. Love is hurtful, bitter, cruel, disappointing, deceptive, intractable. It is a form of slavery, it is a struggle.3 The god as well as the experience deserve nothing but blame. This is how elegiac–that is to say “plaintive”–discourse gives voice to the pain of love.4 Now, play is essentially pleasure. As Stephen Kidd has argued, “play is a manifestation of pleasure itself, and for this reason there can be no moment during play without pleasure, since play is its defining feature”.5 If this is true, we might wonder whether elegy can reconcile a sorrowful rhythmical mode, a repertoire of woeful topics and, at the same time, the language of playing. The answer is yes. Ludere is indeed an aspect of the amorous scenario as the elegists understand it and, in their sad and “limping” love poetry, it acquires a nasty meaning: to play the lover for a fool, to play tricks on him, to play him false. The person who finds herself in the enjoyable position of being the object of desire, betrays the lover, mocks the husband, takes her guardians for a ride. “It was I myself, oh poor me”, laments Tibullus, “who, taught Delia how to play her guardians” (ipse miser docui quo posset ludere pacto custodes).6 Now, she uses this savoir-faire at his expense.7 “Alas! alas!”, groans the poet, “Now I am the victim of my art” (heu heu nunc premor arte mea).8 The player is a coach, and a loser.
2Elegy is an art of love. It is so for two reasons. Firstly, in the amorous situation, one must learn how to seduce, to please, to entertain and, often, how to cheat.9 Secondly, the blame of love inspires a dissuasive exhortation. “I warn you, avoid this evil!” (hoc moneo: vitate malum!).10 Whoever you are, flee from assiduous allurements! (quisquis es, assiduas tu fuge blanditias!).11 Or, again: “This is what has lost me. But being like them, I will warn gullible lovers that it is not safe to believe in sweet talk” (quis ego nunc pereo, similis moniturus amantes non ullis tutum credere blanditiis)12. Thus, Tibullus and Propertius join a sombre theorist of love: Lucretius. Avoid attachment to one person, flee from simulacra and from anything that nourishes that fixation!13 He who amorem vitat will enjoy sex, by making himself available for the pleasures of the wandering Venus.14
3Likewise, in the On The Nature of Things Lucretius pursues a true erotodidactic program, but a negative one: love is a ludicrous experience to be unmasked and uprooted from one’s life. Sex is natural, but love is a rotting wound; desire becomes an optical illusion; infatuation dictates preposterous hyperboles about the beloved; eroticism itself fails to unite two impenetrable bodies; pleasure is but a fleeting relief from an insatiable craving. All for nothing.15 The vanity of amorous existence culminates with ludi. While a man squanders his life on a woman, duties and reputation are neglected. Wealth dissolves (labitur) into Babylonian carpets, perfumes, beautiful shoes, huge emeralds, purple clothes–and games.16 Likewise, Propertius’ time with Cynthia is often spent playing dice.17 Venus herself, for Lucretius, does nothing but play. If love is doomed to nothingness, it is because desire is insatiable. In a depiction of the lover as a person craving water in the middle of a stream (which Propertius will echo),18 Lucretius makes of Tantalus the icon of Venus’ ludere. As a sleeping man dreams of simulacra of springs, but makes vain efforts (frustraque laborat) and “remains thirsty in the very middle of the torrential river where he is drinking”, so Venus “plays the lovers by the simulacra” (simulacris ludit amantes).19
4In all these dissuasive arts of love, ludere becomes paradigmatic as either trifling idleness or as cruel maneuvering. The very idea of a savoir faire blends with that of a game. Let us see how. Firstly, if love is a game, there must be rules, therefore there must be a trainer, so to speak, in charge of transmitting those rules. This can be the lover himself, as in Tibullus’ poem about his calamitous art of love. Or Amor, or Venus, or Cynthia, or Lycinna, or Priapus or even Elegy personified.20 Love is learned. Secondly, if love is a game, there must be either a happy or an unhappy ending. In the elegiac scenario, whatever may happen, it is always the latter. Ludere brings about fiascos and defeats. Thirdly, a game may well surprise the player, who will become the victim of his own coaching. When Tibullus comes to regret the instruction he has given to Delia, he follows exactly this path. He has taught (docui) her how to conduct an adulterous tryst, namely how to hide the marks of kisses on the skin, how to prevent a door from squeaking–which was a form of ludere. Now, she uses this savoir-faire (artes) at his expense.21 But Tibullus is not alone in the deprecation of his “useless lessons” (vana magisteria).22 Predictably, elegiac poets lament the failure of their pedagogical tools.23 Love is incurable.24
5Elegy is an art of love, but a pointless one. Love is a game, but an unfortunate one. Ludere reveals the height of erotic inanity. Elegiac creativity is indeed the way of life of a gloomy, wallowing, moaning spirit, addicted to an irresistible sorrow.
Ego sum praeceptor Amoris
6But there is an elegiac poet who overturns all this. It is Ovid. By taking risks, the consequences of which we know only too well, in an erotic culture in which the Augustan laws on marriage, procreation and adultery are imposed, this true philosopher of love breaks the paradigm of blame.25 It is a theoretical turn. Let us outline its general premises, before showing how the semantic field of ludere is reinterpreted in the Art of Love.
7Ovid’s Art of love invite the audience to think differently. What is at stake, in this ars, is not merely a contrarian epidictic prowess, as if the purpose of the poem were to praise a topic that others keep blaming. This is not a paradoxical praise either, namely the laudatory exaltation of a matter usually considered as trivial. It is even less the use of the topic, namely love, a pretext to theorize something else, poetry and rhetoric.26 Rather, the poem takes up the challenge of love, this all-important motor of social and individual life, recognizing it for what it is and what it can be as an experience to be embraced, but also for who he is, this god who, according to the elegiacs, is so formidable. The poem carves the pedantic penchant out of elegy, in order to make it into a grand program: the entire carmen will teach its readers how best to love.
8It is Ovid himself who, in the Tristia, offers to Augustus the genealogy of his own erotodidactic:
Tibullus admits teaching her (Delia) how to deceive her guard, saying that he is now in his wretchedness overcome by his own ruse […] and he teaches what lotions cause to vanish from the body the bruises which are often caused by the mouth’s imprint […] He gives teachings of many sorts for such an intrigue, teaching brides by what arts they can deceive their husbands (multaque dat furti talis praecepta docetque qua nuptae possint fallere ab arte viros). This did not injure him, for Tibullus is still read with favour; he was famous when thou wert first called prince. Thou wilt find the same teachings in alluring Propertius; yet not the least shame has touched him (invenies eadem blandi praecepta Properti: destrictus minima nec tamen ille nota est). I was their successor (his ego successi).27
9So far, there seems to be a seamless continuity with elegy. But the “successor” knows that he is unique. Whereas other poets have been writing precepts about love, he goes on to say, but also manuals for teaching board games, outdoor games, performances and make-up–and all this with impunity–, he is the only one (unus) to have been ruined by his muse.28 This all-important “auto-bibliography,” places the Art of Love in a tradition of technical literature, the examples of which are all about ludere. Naively, the poet believed that he too could take the liberty to play (non tristia carmina feci), but he was wrong: his ioci (nostros… iocos), his lusus, have been punished.29
10Beyond this self-defence, disingenuously addressed to the Prince, what Ovid has actually done is utterly novel. For in his own lusus and his own ioci–the Art of Love–, he has done nothing less than take seriously the experience of amorous pleasure. Instead of handing down a bunch of clever tricks, Ovid’s poem opens up the prospect of happiness.30 Instead of deducing the need for instruction from blame, Ovid’s poem starts from the premise of a fundamental “yes” to amor. Desire is not insatiable. Pleasure is indeed possible. Success is in our purview. Setbacks may well occur, but they are remediable. Let me tell you, young men and young women, how to build, maintain and, if necessary, break up a durable relationship. Trust me, trust Love and trust yourself. The three books of the Ars, followed by the Remedia, deliver a project, not a lamentation. The feasibility of the project is the point of the art as such. Erotic expertise is indeed useful knowledge, not the chatter of a bogus teacher.31 The querela is over.32 No more accusation, no more fault-finding. We are here to create voluptas and to forestall pain, in a situation of amiability.
11In this recantation of love, Ovid dares to smash a broken record or, to put it more academically, to operate a paradigm shift. This is a sweeping discontinuity. In the Art of Love, Ovid never ceases to respond to Lucretius, Gallus, Propertius, Tibullus and Virgil, but, far from engaging in a competition of ingenium, his “responses” reorient the discourse about love in a new direction. Irony is not enough to describe this novelty. Meta-literary intentions, even less so. Of course, all these strategies are part of the picture. But there is much more.
12Ovid ventures into fearless provocations. On the one hand, the Ars upsets metaphorical habits. Love is a wound, certainly, but, far from hurting, tormenting or worsening into an inveterate rottenness, even a vulnus can contribute to seduction. More to the point, wounds are the very experience that grounds the knowledge of love. So much so that lovers should fake them: est tibi agendus amans imitanda vulnera verbis.33 Love is fire, of course, but warmth is to be longed-for. In the intermittence of passion, the flame of desire must be “rekindled” with tactical absences.34 Love is servitium, to be sure, but it is the lover who endeavours to occupy that position in order to captivate the domina.35 On the other hand, Ovid appropriates the usual reasons for resenting love–lies, illusions and flattery–in order to reveal their merits. Paradoxically, it is these apparent faults that come most useful to a lover. Love leads one to speak with admiration about the object of desire–and to that person–, of course, but this alleged “blindness” (Lucretius) should be welcomed as the most precious resource of all. People are indeed imperfect: either too short or too tall, perhaps tiny or fat. But this is a good reason for putting language to work. Onwards and upwards! Do not skimp on metamorphic compliments: nominibus mollire licet mala.36 Courtship requires praise, which is disproportionate amplification, of course, but here is the miracle: by dint of speaking, you end up believing your own words and then fiet amor verus qui modo falsus erat.37 Jealousy creeps in at every glance (everyone agrees), of course, but one should be thankful for a jealousy scene, for this is a show of attachment and an occasion for arousal.38 Even erotic anger is salvageable, therefore, along with the wound, the burn, the servitude, the deception, the blindness. Everything is recyclable. Love is sustainable energy. Over time, thanks to language and change, you can succeed.
13Time, language, metamorphosis. The erotic situation requires a liquid ontology. Ovid theorizes such an ontology. The idea of transformation is the key to his theory of love. A “wound” is objectively painful when it happens, but it can become an effective endearment. “Fire” burns, but the metaphorical blister can become a timely intensification of the relationship. Jealousy is not funny. Nobody likes to be lied to. Amplification is ridiculous. We all agree. But all this pain can be adapted, adjusted, accommodated, repaired and ultimately converted into pleasure. There can be a good reuse of the worst features of love. It is possible. And this is, once again, a transformation. Now, this premise explains the argumentative strategy of the poem. Ovid, I argue, could simply object to the elegists: no, love is not painful, it is pleasurable; no, love is not deceptive, it is truthful. But the new philosopher does not say “no” to elegy: he rather says “but”. He proceeds not by denying eristically the negative features of love, but by treasuring and re-claiming them. Not by flatly contradicting the elegiac poets and proving Lucretius wrong, but by taking their commonplaces literally at first, and then by fiddling with those defects in such a way that they become qualities. The poet thinks precisely like an educated lover: as a lover should work through the imperfections of a beloved, the praeceptor amoris takes the time to process the blame of love, in order to discover the silver lining of its flaws.
14The dialogue between Ovid and his predecessors is deceptively complicit. Without embarking in any open controversy, but in a gracious tone, Naso operates a total make-over of love. We have seen the logic of blame: love is immensely improbus, therefore I warn you: just run away! The ars overturns this perspective. Please, do read my poem! First learn, and then love!39 I encourage you, young man: go out and “work hard” (labora) to encounter a beloved!40 Instead of moving away, one has to walk confidently towards the places where an affair can begin. I urge you, young women, reach the spots where men can be “fished”.41 The spatial trajectory of the Ovidian lover is the exact contrary of the movement recommended to the elegiac and the Lucretian addressees. The temporal experience is also inverted: whereas a plaintive poet threatens that the worst has yet to come, Naso guarantees more and more felicitous developments. The future is open ended, for the best.
15I agree with Gian Biagio Conte on the ironic subversion of the elegiac genre, by a poet who, already while writing the Amores, modifies conventions and expectations.42 But irony is not enough. Ovid argues with his predecessors–and with his previous, elegiac self–in a manner that is as socially friendly as it is theoretically damning. Ultimately, the ars exposes not only the impasse of a lifestyle reduced to one dimension–love, and nothing else–, but also the ignorance, the ineptitude and the ingratitude of the elegists and also of “sublime” Lucretius, vis-à-vis Love. They all have missed the second move. They all have failed to understand what could be done–next. They have remained myopically stuck in the impossible here and now. Worst, they have had the nerve of teaching the vanity of teaching.
16Ovid starts precisely by upturning the self-deprecating theme of vana magisteria.43 If an art of love is at all possible, it is because love can be taught, learned and practiced–successfully. If a handbook of that art can be written, the very first lines must rule out a misunderstanding and lay out a program: simply by reading the poem itself, a lover will be sure, no doubt, to acquire valuable knowledge. And then, let him love! Doctus amet!44 It all starts with an enthusiastic, euphoric, optimistic exhortation to embrace–not to escape–love. And if this didactic mission can be so hopeful, it is because Amor himself is just a child. The poem hangs on this simple fact.
17The paradigms of the poet’s role as artifex are Tiphys, master of Automedon and Chiron, the centaur who was able brilliantly to tutor as intractable a boy as Achilles. “I am Love’s teacher” (ego sum praeceptor Amoris).45 These upbeat opening lines give the tone to the poem. Ars is the savoir-faire that allows us to “rule” (regere) Love. Ruling means subduing and leading the pupil as well as improving him to perfection (perficere), in a step-by-step program that will be detailed in the three books to follow.46 And the poetic ego trusts himself as an effective praeceptor amoris, capable of benefitting even the most recalcitrant students. Venus in person has placed him in that position. Love is teachable. Naso knows how to bring the teaching to fruition. Yes, he has learned at his own expense, but this will only make him stronger:
To me Love shall yield (et mihi cedet Amor), though he wounded my breast with his bow, and whirl aloft his brandished torch. The more violently Love has pierced and scorched me, the better shall I avenge the wound that he has made (quo me fixit Amor, quo me violentius ussit, hoc melior facti vulneris ultor ero).47
18Yes, he should listen to his own lessons better than he sometimes does, but nowhere does he cast himself as a phony teacher.48 This praeceptor amoris never regrets his useless artes, never whimpers that he cannot find a remedy, never invites his addressees to avert love. In contrast with the elegiac advisor, Naso is proud, self-confident and optimistic. Time is on his side. He looks up. And it is this attitude that sets Ovid’s didactic project on its trajectory. This is the overall momentum of the poem.
Sed puer est!
19These preliminary considerations about the argumentative strategy of the Art of Love help us understand the importance of ludere as the paradigm of the amorous experience.
20The Ovidian palinode of Amor begins with the passage quoted above. A crucial little phrase can be taken as a pivotal moment in the text: “But he's a child”! Sed puer est! Let us read it again: “Wild indeed is he, and apt often to fight against me; but he is a boy, tender his age and liable to be ruled” (ille quidem ferus est et qui mihi saepe repugnet: sed puer est, aetas mollis et apta regi).49 These two verses resonate with a parallel sentence that comes a few lines later, when Naso goes on to compare little Amor and baby Achilles. “Both boys are cruel, both are born from a goddess. But, nevertheless, even the neck of a bull bears the weight of the plough” (saevus uterque puer, natus uterque dea. Sed tamen et tauri cervix oneratur aratro).50 Here, we can see in full light, the strategy of “but”, which I have mentioned earlier.
21Sed is a coordinating as well as an adversative conjunction. I have argued that Ovid’s dialogical distancing from his predecessors follows such a tactful, and yet critical, line of argument. This tact is in order also because Ovid himself has espoused that idiom, namely in the two first poem in the Amores.51 These claims may well be true, but should be understood differently. Let us briefly look at the semantics of contrastive discourse better to clarify this manner of thinking. Contemporary semantics distinguishes different kinds of “but”: counterexpectational, corrective and oppositional. In the first kind, the clause introduced by “but” disallows an anticipation that was obviously implied in a previous proposition.52 More precisely, the expectation is based on the conversational context, and on the “question under discussion”.53 If we now apply this to Ovid’s views about love, Amor is “wild” (ferus), and we usually expect that a wild creature should be feral, fierce and ferocious, but he is a child (puer), meaning that his age is tender and susceptible to be ruled (aetas mollis et apta regi). Amor is “cruel” (saevus), and we usually expect from a cruel creature that they should be headstrong and intractable, but even as formidable a beast as a bull can be tamed.
22Ovid is engaging in an anthropological debate about childhood.54 In this context, the question under discussion is precisely the nature of a child. Wild or teachable? Wild, and yet teachable? The god is a little boy, no doubt about that. The poet introduces him as Venus’ son, thus alluding to a well-known iconographic and mythological tradition. Amor is a puer, for sure, and this word may take different attributes, including ferus “wild” and saevus, “cruel”. He is equipped with a torch and with dangerous weapons. Fine. But this is not all. A puer is also tenerus and, therefore, malleable. The phrase “but he is a child” does not correct a mistaken representation of the god. It rather extends metalinguistically the meaning of puer. Amor is indeed ferus, but savagery is compatible with tenderness. He may well be saevus, but cruelty does not preclude the imposition of a yoke. The distinctive treat of infancy is plasticity–let us be mindful of what a tender little being can become over time, at the hands of a good teacher.
23In the Roman cultural context, the positive attributes of puerility prevail. A child can be seen from the standpoint of its malleability in the educational process. In De senectute, Cicero distinguishes a puer from a iuvenis, an adult and an old man on account of his weakness (infirmitas).55 But infirmitas is compatible with a keen cognitive ability: children, “in learning a difficult art so quickly lay hold upon innumerable things (cum artis difficilis discant, ita celeriter res innumerabilis arripiant) that they seem not to be then taking them in (accipere) for the first time, but to be recalling and remembering them”.56 Children’s special capacity to absorb knowledge and to retain it forever is also crucial for Horace.57 Quintilian, in turn, will emphasize the importance of choosing good nurses, for their speech impregnates the receptive soul of a child.58 Children grasp things more easily, “and, just as the body can only be trained to flex the limbs in certain ways when it is young and tender, so the acquisition of strength itself makes the mind also more resistant to many kinds of learning.”59 Ovid agrees. Puerility is good. Although a puer can be catastrophically disobedient like Icarus or Phaeton in the Metamorphoses, the Art of Love relies upon the precious advantage of being soft.60 This supposedly ferocious and over-powerful god is just a kid, ready for school. Puerility means to be receptive, yielding, therefore easily teachable.
A Wondrous Skill
24The Art of Love is set to offer a recantation of love. In order to accomplish this mission, the poet’s first move is to bring back to its true size a childlike deity whose powers have been vastly exaggerated. This re-description has to be subtle, because Amor has always been a boy in a long, Greek and Roman tradition. No need to invent a new iconography. The specific question is: what kind of small person is this divine boy? Is he essentially naughty, overbearing, sadistic? The answer is no. By reminding the addressees of what a puer also is, Naso brings to the fore the merits of suppleness. By discussing the salient features of early youth, we have said, he takes a stand in favour of the virtues of infirmitas, with Cicero and Horace. Let us now look at how these competing attributes of childhood–wildness or docility–apply to Eros and Amor.
25As Propertius used to repeat, Amor is a puer. He is, more precisely, a little devil, whose body says it all: equipped with arrows and a bow, he acts as an enemy (hostis) who inflicts inescapable wounds. His wings make us toss and turn, while he refuses to fly away when we would want to be left alone. This boy is a naughty one. His puerility is senselessness. “Whoever he was who painted Love as a boy (puerum), think you not that he had wondrous skill?“61
26Ovid engages in a counterexpectational joust precisely with the elegiac poets. He does so also with Virgil, whose pastoral poetry never ceases to deplore the hardness of love. “Now I know what love is” (nunc scio quid sit Amor), “the shepherd Damon flatters himself.”62 He is a child. But what kind of child? He is saevus, crudelis, improbus.63 For the Virgilian expert, the cruelty of the god is perfectly compatible with a prolonged state of puerility, for it is the most inaccessible, the most unshakeable and the least hospitable mountains that must have given birth, on bare stone, to this “child who belongs neither to our kind nor to our blood” (nec generis nostri puerum nec sanguinis).64 As baby as it is, Amor is hard. He was born like that, from the very rock. Knowing his origin is understanding his character. On the contrary, Ovid uses his own expertise to attribute a very different identity to the god. Naso innocents a boy who, because he never grew up, has remained at a “tender age” (aetas mollis), “apt to be ruled” (apta regi).65
27This reversal of hardness into tenderness allows for the very possibility of an art of love. Love, I have argued, is teachable. At the same time, the puerility of Amor opens up the prospect of the infantile activity par excellence: play. In the Art of Love, loving is playing. If Amor is a child, in short, a love life is a ludus, a iocus.
28Once again, if we look at the context, we find that in Roman culture, as in so many others, children are supposed to enjoy playing. In his characterization of the types of behaviours typical of different ages, Horace highlights the pleasure of colludere. “The child, who by now can utter words and set firm step upon the ground, delights to play with his mates” (gestit paribus colludere).66 A freeborn boy may be unable to ride a horse and afraid of hunting, but “he is more skilled at games, whether you ask him to play with a Greek hoop or, if you prefer it, with the dice.”67
29If we circle back to the Hellenic tradition, we discover that Eros himself is no exception: like all children, this one takes pleasure in playing. Anacreon’s “Eros with golden hair” hits the poet “with a purple ball” (σφαίρῃ δηὖτέ με πορφυρέῃ βάλλων χρυσοκόμης Ἔρως), thus inviting the poet “to play together with a girl in the fancy sandals” (νήνι ποικιλοσαμβάλῳ συμπαίζειν προκαλεῖται).68 But to no avail. His “knucklebones” are “madness and uproar”.69 Even more dramatically, in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonauts, Aphrodite’s child basks in the joy of playing knucklebones, and disloyally so, with Ganymede. The boy shoots a tragic arrow toward Medea, in exchange for a present from his mother: a wondrous toy–a luminescent, star-like ball–once made for baby Zeus.70 In the epigrams of Meleager of Gadara, a contemporary of the Roman elegists who flourished in Tyro and Cos, the cheerful, laughing, flying pais with a snub nose is, once again, an avid player of knucklebones, with an unkind twist. “Love, the baby still in his mother’s lap, playing at dice in the morning, played my soul away” (ματρὸς ἔτ᾽ ἐν κόλποισιν ὁ νήπιος ὀρθρινὰ παίζων ἀστραγάλοις τοὐμὸν πνεῦμ᾽ ἐκύβευσεν Ἔρως).71 He is also a miniature footballer, throwing a ball that is nothing else than the very heart of the lover.72 All the ambivalence of Eros, the “bittersweet” transpires in this metaphors.73
30In Rome, we have seen that elegiac lovers spend time gambling idly, or teaching the cunny art of playing a lover fool. We have seen how Venus ludit amantes in On The Nature of Things. At odds with this ludere, either cruel entrapment or nihilistic amusement, Ovid reactivates the Greek memory of a spirited, naughty, but essentially pliable and ludic Love. For all his wickedness, Eros/Amor is a manageable little boy; amor is a sporty, aleatory and potentially successful game. Poets may well challenge him, but they do not complain. In his own paradoxical elegy, Ovid forgets even the sheer viciousness of throwing the heart and tossing a soul as if they were balls and dice. Lovers delight in playing, for good. Metaphorically, but also in the private arena and auditorium of the salon, I indulge in the pleasures of ludus and iocus.
Ludendo saepe paratur amor
31First of all, ludus is a social practice. The theatre and the circus are ludi, but they are also the most favourable places for encounters. Just as ants seek their food and bees “flutter on the tops of thyme and flowers”, so too “a brilliantly dressed woman runs to the famous shows” (sic ruit ad celebres cultissima femina ludos). Women come to see, and to be seen. Ludi are conducive to lucky strikes, but they also allow men to ludere. “You will find such beauty that will seduce you, such beauty that you can play with (quod ludere possis), such beauty that you will only touch, such beauty that you will want to keep”.74 It is not Venus who will make you a toy, as for Lucretius: it is you, young man, who will lead the game, if only you will know how to seize the opportunity. In this case, the ludere of a man who takes advantage of the ludi is a cruel game, as it was for the poets we have read. But there is more.
32Ludere becomes essential in a relationship of amiability. A lover wants to be loved. In order to make yourself lovable, you must accommodate, entertain, amuse. You shall please. Love is cultivated not in frustration, complaint or recrimination as it is the case for the elegists, but in complicity, in cheerfulness, in joy. The praeceptor amoris thus lingers on the merits of various games, which he strongly recommends to women. A docta puella must know how to dance. “Who would doubt that I want a woman to know how to dance” the poet asks.75 When wine is served, let her move her arms. On the stage, the artists are very successful when they swing, such is the charm of this movement (mobilitas) so easy.76 Let the puella show herself to her lover in this way. Let her make music like Orpheus, let her sing like the Sirens, let her display her literary culture, let her read poems.77 This is a small intimate theatre which, like the ludi scenici for the general public, offers a variety show. Likewise, a learned woman has to handle dice and board games skilfully. “I am ashamed to recommend such small things” (parva monere pudet), the tutor exclaims, but I want my student to know (sciat) how to roll the dice deftly. A young woman must be cunning (callida), cautious (cauta), because one should not play in a clumsy manner (non stulte). She must learn to calculate her movements.78
33On his side, a young man must adapt to cosy interiors. He has to know how to talk to women, and very softly so that he makes his friend happy when he visits her (adventu laeta sit illa tuo).79 He must join his beloved in a continuous mimesis: blaming what she blames, praising what she praises, repeating what she says, laughing, crying and feeling in unison.80 Above all, he must know how to play games. His skill will be cheating to let her win.81 A game, this joust between opponents who are determined to prevail, must become, on the contrary, an opportunity to allow women to have the upper hand. Ludere completes the protean flexibility of the lover who adapts to woman. And, finally, here is the normative punchline:
Play a thousand games: it is shameful for a young woman not to know how to play; for love often comes by playing (Mille facesse iocos; turpe est nescire puellam ludere: ludendo saepe paratur amor).82
34“Love often comes by playing:” let’s take the measure of this claim. Everything that takes place in a ludus–chance and rule, competition and complicity, skill and cheating, mimicry and creativity, staging and admiration, pleasure and pastime–first creates the right conditions for seduction, and then contributes to the long-term agreeableness of love. In a relationship, one never ceases to recreate oneself, to be entertained at some amusement, to occupy oneself with some game while cultivating a cheerful mood. More: love itself is a game. A loving interaction must indeed conform to the model of ludere and iocus. If the woman resists, young men, especially avoid anger, a shortcoming from which the poet himself may suffer. “Let there be war with the Parthians, but let there be peace with the refined friend; let there be play (iocus) and anything that can cause love” (cum culta pax sit amica, et iocus, et causas quicquid amoris habet).83 In this reversal of a war scenario, we will pursue the quest for anything that can nourish love. Iocus goes with obsequium, the patience that softens.84 The young Roman males, used to be trained to fight on the battlefield–and also to athletic and warlike ludi–have to demilitarize themselves, so to speak.85 Another moment of feminization. The dulces ioci of the feminine interiors are those, charming and peaceful, that are favoured by music, especially the psalterion.86
35More generally, the poet calls “joyful games” (laeti ioci) the conniving exchanges between lovers, while advising women smartly to disturb, with a zest of bitterness, an excessively honeyed atmosphere. “One must mix some rare refusals (Miscenda est laetis rara repulsa iocis) into these joyful games”.87 Men and women must therefore meet in a gendered reciprocity. Let the men give up their weapons; let the women take them. Young men, discover gentleness. Young women, toughen up. If a couple leads a life full of all sorts of ludi, with intermittent dates, entertaining performances and various board games, it will come as no surprise to discover that the most voluptuous and erotic activity there is–making love–is nothing but a iocus.88 But a very special game, whose rules are reversed. Instead of being one step ahead of the other, a man seeks the delight of being defeated together with the beloved. “Then will come the mingled complaints of a tender murmur, the soft groans, and his words, adapted to the game” (Et dulces gemitus aptaque uerba ioco).89 The advice offered to women resonates with this lesson. May the sweet voices and the joyful whispers never cease, may the daring words not dry up in the midst of games (Nec blandae voces iucundaque murmura cessent, Nec taceant mediis improba verba iocis).90 Making love, then, is indeed a form of iocus. Let the woman never stop talking, while the man, for his part, worries about the tempo. May both enjoy a “full pleasure” (plena voluptas), culminating in a shared defeat. Lovers do not fight with each other. They play. To make love is to play together. That is the difference with the zero-sum game that calls for a blame of the erotic.
Lusus habet finem
36A number of Ovidian scholars have read the Art of love in a “playful” key.91 The language of playfulness conveys a modern judgment on a discourse on love, which is ipso facto downplayed to frivolity and humour. The theatricality of amorous life in the Art of Love leads Élisabeth Gavoille to reconstruct Ovid’s “comedy of love”.92 The artistic creativity of the puella cannot be reduced to a “farce,” Gavoille argues, and I fully agree with this approach, but the focalization on Naso’s stage-directions may induce a reader to think that fiction is the trademark of an idiosyncratically ludicrous vision of love. Sharon James, for instance, sees comedy in the background of all elegiac poetry, as if Ovid’s mood contributed to a generic theme.93 My argument is different. I have tried to shed light on the semantic transformations of a number of key words, notably ludere, ludus, iocus, which travel from a love poetry that, notwithstanding comedy, is essentially plaintive, resentful, hopeless to one that affirms the possibility of pleasure–as seriously as a true Epicurean could do. An old vocabulary comes to mean something new. Ovid speaks the same language as Lucretius, Virgil and others, but in order to say something unheard of in Latin elegiac poetry. Ludite! Mille facesse iocos! This is the categorical imperative of the Art of Love.
37The last verses say it all: lusus habet finem.94 The whole poem, being an ars, was a lusus. And now it has come to an end. The poet is comfortable with that, but in the icy winters of Tomi, he will have to regret his lovely game. “I lie here, I the player of tender loves” (hic ego qui iaceo tenerorum lusor amorum).95
38It is his epitaph.
Bibliographie
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Notes de bas de page
1 This paper has benefitted from the discussions that took place during the conference “Éros en jeu/jeux d’Éros”, that Véronique Dasen organized in Fribourg, on December, 6, 2018, and from numerous exchanges with colleagues and friends. My contribution to the 2018 conference on ancient Play and games. Definition, Transmission, Reception is in press (Sissa 2021). I am grateful to Véronique Dasen, Marco Vespa, David Bouvier, Stephen Kidd, Michel Briand, Irene Han, Claude Calame, Gian Piero Rosati, Livio Rossetti, Marco Formisano and Lele Gragnolati for their questions, comments and advice.
2 For an anthropological approach to this normative thought, see Dupont [1989] 1994; Habinek 2005. On the salience of leisure in love poetry, see Keith 2008.
3 See, for instance, Tibullus, Elegies 1, 6; Propertius, Elegies 1, 1, 33-38; 2, 3, 47-50; 2, 4, 8-9. On the topical themes of elegy, Conte 1991; Wyke 2002; Fabre-Serris 2004; Gibson 2005; Farrell 2012; Keith 2008, 2012. I have discussed the elegiac blame of love in Sissa [2015] 2017 and Sissa 2021.
4 On elegy as lament Farrell 2012; Nelson 2019.
5 Kidd 2019, p. 13-14.
6 Tibullus, Elegies 1, 6, 1-9 (ed. J.P. Postgate, Cambridge, Loeb, 1913). See also: Tibullus, Elegies 1, 8, 71-78.
7 Ibid. 1, 6, 1-9.
8 Ibid. 1, 6, 8-10.
9 See, for instance, Tibullus, Elegies 1, 6, 1-10 (the poet is the teacher); 1, 4, 1-84 (Priapus, Venus and the poet are the teachers); Propertius, Elegies 1, 10, 15-18 (Cynthia, Amor and the poet are the teachers); 3, 15, 1-6 (Lycinna is the teacher); 1, 9, 7-8 (dolor and lacrimae are the teachers); Ovid, Amores 3, 1, 43-60 (Elegy is the teacher).
10 Propertius, Elegies 1, 1, 33-35 (ed. G.P. Goold, Loeb, 1990).
11 Ibid. 1, 9, 13-30.
12 Ibid. 1, 15, 41-42.
13 Ibid. 1, 1, 35-38; Lucretius, On The Nature of Things 4, 1073-74; 1063-1067 (ed. W.H.D. Rouse, Loeb, 1924). Landolfi 2013.
14 Lucretius, On The Nature of Things 4, 1073-1074.
15 Ibid. 4, 1054-1120.
16 Ibid. 4, 1121-1139.
17 Propertius, Elegies 3, 10, 27-28.
18 Ibid. 1, 9, 14-5; 2, 17, 5-10. Tibullus mentions Tantalus in the under-world (1, 3, 77-78). See Houghton 2007, p. 162-163.
19 Lucretius, On The Nature of Things 4, 1094-1104. On Venus’ whims, see also Horace, Odes 1, 33, 10-12.
20 See supra, note 9.
21 Tibullus, Elegies 1, 6, 1-9.
22 Ibid. 1, 4, 79-84.
23 Propertius, Elegies, 1, 1, 17; 1, 5, 27-28; 1, 15, 41-42; 2, 4, 7-13; 3, 11, 1-8. On the “bogus teacher”, Watson 2007.
24 Casali 1992.
25 On Augustan legislation on mores, Langland 2006.
26 Giusti 2019.
27 Ovid, Tristia 2, 447-467 (ed. A.L. Wheeler, G.P. Goold, Loeb, 1965).
28 Ibid. 2, 491-496.
29 Ibid. 2, 491-496. The Art of Love is a lusus (3, 809). Degl'Innocenti Pierini 2019, p. 38.
30 In the Amores 3, 1, 43-60, Elegy herself boasts about teaching this kind of minimalist art to Corinna. Through Elegy, Corinna has learned to elude her guardians and tamper with closed door, to slip away from her bed. Without her, Venus would be “rustic”. In the Art of Love, Elegia has finished her task, now the poet himself takes over, and it is entirely another music. Not the “elegiac” low-key tricks any longer, but a proper technique.
31 Watson 2007.
32 James 2003.
33 Ovid, Art of Love 1, 611.
34 Ibid. 2, 353-354.
35 Ibid., passim.
36 Ibid. 2, 657.
37 Ibid. 1, 618. I agree with Kennedy 2000, p. 166-167 that Ovid’s conception of truth must be understood in its own terms, namely as an effect of mimesis over time.
38 Ovid, Art of Love 2, 439-460. Sissa [2015] 2017.
39 Ibid. 1, 2.
40 Ibid. 1, 35.
41 Ibid. 3, 417-432.
42 Conte 1991.
43 This is how Tibullus (1, 4, 79-84) anticipates the failure of his teaching: “useless lectures”. On the intertextual cluster of Virgil, Propertius and Ovid on these topics, see Fabre-Serris 2004.
44 Ovid, Art of Love 1, 2.
45 Ibid. 1, 3-17.
46 Ibid. 1, 30-35.
47 Ibid. 1, 21-24.
48 For a reading of the Art of Love, in line with elegiac self-deprecation, see Watson 2007, p. 372. On the contrary, the argumentative strategy of the poem follows a direction in which self-confidence prevails.
49 Ovid, Art of Love 1, 9-10.
50 Ibid. 1, 18-19. See Horace, Epistles 1, 1, 38-40: “envious, irascible, lazy, drunkard, lustful—no one is so savage that he cannot be tamed, if only he lend to treatment a patient ear” invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator, nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit, si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem (ed. H. Rushton Fairclough, Loeb, 1926).
51 Ovid, Amores 1, 1, 5 (saeve puer); 1, 2, 6-8: “Or can it be that love cunningly works my harm with covered art (an subit et tecta callidus arte nocet)? Thus it must be; the subtle darts are planted in my heart, and wild (ferus) Love torments the breast where he reigns (et possessa ferus pectora versat Amor).” I am grateful to Gian Piero Rosati, for his discussion of this Ovidian intratextual connection, in a session of “Titubanti testi. Binomi di lettura”, a series of exchanges, organized by Marco Formisano on Google Meets, on July 14, 2020. Videau 2005, p. 6.
52 Toosarvandani 2013.
53 Toosarvandani 2014.
54 On this discussion among philosophers, see Vegetti [1983] 2018.
55 Cicero, De senectute 33.
56 Ibid. 78.
57 Horace, Epistles 1, 2, 64-70.
58 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 1, 1, 5. Bloomer 2011.
59 Ibid. 1, 1, 23.
60 Morgan 2003.
61 Propertius, Elegies 2, 12, 1-12. See also Eubulus in Athenaeus 13, 562C, τíς ἦν ὁ γρáψας πρῶτος ἀνθρώπων ἄρα / ἢ κηροπλαστήσας Ἔρωθ’ ὑπόπτερον; see also Seneca, Phaedra 274-295.
62 Virgil, Eclogues 8, 43.
63 Ibid. 8, 47-50.
64 Ibid. 8, 43-45.
65 Ovid, Art of Love 1, 10.
66 Horace, Ars poetica, 158-159.
67 Horace, Odes 3, 24, 54-58.
68 PMG 358 (ed. D. A. Campbell, Loeb, 1988). Anacreon’s poetry was known in Rome, see Horace, Odes 4, 9, 9 (nec, si quid olim lusit Anacreon, delevit aetas); Cicéron, Tusculanes 4, 71 (nam Anacreontis quidem tota poesis est amatoria). Urios-Aparisi 1993.
69 PMG 398 (ed. D. A. Campbell, Loeb, 1988): ἀστραγάλαι δ᾿ Ἔρωτός εἰσιν μανίαι τε καὶ κυδοιμοί. On Eros playing, Calame [1992] 1999, p. 15. On Eros as a mischievous child in later Anacreontic poems, Lambin 2002, chapter 8. PMG 500 (ed. D. A. Campbell, Loeb, 1988) emphasizes the combination of “tenderness” and power: “For I am eager to sing of tender Love, his head garlanded with luxuriant flowers: he is the ruler over gods, he is the subduer of mortals”. On habros, Kurke 1992.
70 Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonauts 3, 131-143. Pendergraft 1991 interprets the ball as an armillary sphere, representing the universe, in the wake of Aratos’ Phaenomena. For an interpretation that focusses on the significance of the ball in the amorous situation, see Gutzwiller 2010.
71 Palatine Anthology 12, 47. On the depiction of Eros in the Hellenistic epigram and in material culture, with a detailed attention to the attributes of childhood, including toys, see Gutzwiller 2010, paragraphs 18-19.
72 Palatine Anthology, 5, 214. Gutzwiller 2010, paragraphs 20-21.
73 Sappho’s canonical oxymoron gives its title to Carson [1986] 2014.
74 Ovid, Art of Love 1, 90-95. On the salience of the theatre as a propitious place for amorous encounters, see Gavoille 2009; Kennedy 2012.
75 Ovid, Art of Love 3, 349.
76 Ibid. 3, 349-352.
77 Ibid. 3, 250-352.
78 Ibid. 3, 353-360. Delbey 2003, p. 141, on this praise of control, and the “strange” paradox of a « wise eroticism ». This appears to be « strange », only if we underestimate Ovid’s theoretical project.
79 Ovid, Art of Love 2, 159-160.
80 Ibid. 2, 199-202.
81 Ibid. 2, 203-208.
82 Ibid. 3, 367-368.
83 Ibid. 2, 175-176.
84 Ibid. 1, 183-197.
85 Ibid. 3, 380-385.
86 Ibid. 3, 320-329
87 Ibid. 3, 580-589.
88 Which agrees, once again, with the ancient conception of play as pleasure, as Kidd 2019 has argued.
89 Ovid, Art of Love 2, 720-729.
90 Ibid. 3, 795.
91 Myerowitz 1985; Romano 1972; Girod 2017; Gray 2018; Sanna 2019.
92 Gavoille 2009.
93 See in particular James 2012. On mime and elegy, see McKeown 1979.
94 Ovid, Art of Love 3, 809.
95 Ovid, Tristia 3, 3, 73-76.
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