The Art of Love

Only she is chaste whom none has invited

Let your mistress’s birthday be one of great terror to you: that’s a black day when anything has to be given. However much you avoid it, she’ll still win: it’s a woman’s skill, to strip wealth from an ardent lover. A loose-robed pedlar comes to your lady: she likes to buy: and explains his prices while you’re sitting there. She’ll ask you to look, because you know what to look for: then kiss you: then ask you to buy her something there. She swears that she’ll be happy with it, for years, but she needs it now, now the price is right. If you say you haven’t the money in the house, she’ll ask for a note of hand – and you’re sorry you learnt to write. Why - she asks doesn’t she for money as if it’s her birthday, just for the cake, and how often it is her birthday, if she’s in need? Why - she weeps doesn’t she, mournfully, for a sham loss, that imaginary gem that fell from her pierced ear? They many times ask for gifts, they never give in return: you lose, and you’ll get no thanks for your loss. And ten mouths with as many tongues wouldn’t be enough for me to describe the wicked tricks of whores.

And when wine has soaked Cupid’s drunken wings, he’s stayed, weighed down, a captive of the place. ... Wine rouses courage and is fit for passion: care flies, and deep drinking dilutes it. ... Don’t trust the treacherous lamplight overmuch: night and wine can harm your view of beauty. Paris saw the goddesses in the light, a cloudless heaven, when he said to Venus: ‘Venus, you win, over them both.’ Faults are hidden at night: every blemish is forgiven, and the hour makes whichever girl you like beautiful. Judge jewellery, and fabric stained with purple, judge a face, or a figure, in the light.

Agamemnon escaped with his life From land battles and sea storms, then fell to his wife.

Ten en cuenta que si regalas algo a tu amante antes de haberla poseído, es muy fácil que te quedes sin regalo y sin amante.

Should anyone here in Rome lack finesse at love-making, Let him Try me - read my book, and the results are guaranteed! Technique is the secret. Charioteer, sailor, oarsman, All need it. Technique can control Love himself.

Eis os únicos barcos que temos para voltar a nossa pátria; eis nosso único meio de escapar de Minos. Ele, que fechou todas as outras saídas, não pode fechar o ar para nós; resta-nos o ar; fenda-o graças a minha invenção. Mas não é para a virgem de Tégia, nem para o companheiro de Boótes, que é preciso olhar, mas para Orião, armado com uma clava; é por mim que você deve orientar sua marcha com as asas que eu lhe darei; irei na frente para mostrar o caminho; preocupe-se somente em me seguir; guiado por mim você estará seguro, se através das camadas do éter, nós nos aproximarmos do sol, a cera não poderá suportar o calor; se, descendo, agitarmos as asas muito perto do mar, nossas plumas, batendo, serão molhadas pelas águas marinhas. Voe entre os dois. Preste atenção também nos ventos, meu filho; onde seu sopro o guiar, deixe-se levar em suas asas." (Conselhos de Dédalo a Ícaro - em A Arte de Amar)

You ask perhaps if one should take the maid herself? Such a plan brings the greatest risk with it. In one case, fresh from bed, she’ll get busy, in another be tardy, in one case you’re a prize for her mistress, in the other herself. There’s chance in it: even if it favours the idea, my advice nevertheless is to abstain. I don’t pick my way over sharp peaks and precipices, no youth will be caught out being lead by me. Still, while she’s giving and taking messages, if her body pleases you as much as her zeal, make the lady your first priority, her companion the next: Love should never be begun with a servant.

O que se dá com facilidade, a custo sustenta um amor duradouro; há que misturar, de vez em quando, uma recusa com alegres folguedos. Que fique pregado diante da porta; que lhe chame "porta cruel"; e muitas hão-de ser as suas súplicas, muitas as suas ameaças. Doçuras, não as toleramos; é um xarope amargo que tem de revigorar-nos. (...) Tanto melhor corre o cavalo fogoso, quando se abre a cavariça, quanto mais tiver outros que corram atrás de si e outros a quem persiga. Por mais esmorecida que esteja a chama, a ofensa atiça-a.

Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an orientation of character which determinates the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not toward one object of love. If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism. Yet, most people believe that love is constituted by the object, not by the faculty. In fact, they even believe that it is a proof of the intensity of their love when they do not love anybody expect the loved person. This is the same fallacy which we have already mentioned above. Because one foes not see that love is an activity, a power of the soul, one believes that all that is necessary to find is the right object - and that everything goes by itself afterward. This attitude can be compared to that of a man who wants to paint but who, instead of learning the art, claims that he has just to wait for the right object, and that he will paint beautifully when he finds it. If I truly love one person I love all persons, I love the world, I love life. If I can say to someone else, I love you, I must be able to say, I love you in everyone, I love though you the world, I love in you also myself. Saying that love is an orientation which refers to all and not to one does not imply, however, the idea that there are no differences between various types of love, which depend on the kind of object which is loved. Brotherly love Motherly love Erotic love Self-Love Love of God