Knowing
my penchant for long-deceased authors and moldering books, I am
occasionally asked who I would like to have been, and what I would most
like to have written. Few authors of truly great works lived enviable lives: Who would want to be Milton, the supremely
cantankerous self-proclaimed "church of one," or the miasmic Plotinus,
rotting publically from the inside out, or, even worse, to be burned at
the stake, like Julian of Norwich when she dared suggest that God's love
was universal? It's a commonplace that authors live meager and brutish
lives, so much so that one wonders if it's worth it to be a Dostoevsky in
order to write a Brothers K.
But then there is that lucky group of writers whose lives were as
extraordinary as their work. Rimbaud set poetry on its heels before he
was twenty, then got bored and started running guns in North Africa.
Marlowe was the jewel of the pre-Shakespearean stage and his generation's
pre-eminent rake and ladies' man. The Earl of Rochester was so charming
and handsome that for more than a century after his death popular drama
in England was still modeling characters after him.
It is not, however, from among these fortunates that I would pick my
dream life. No, without a moment's hesitation, I would choose to be
Ovid, the Roman poet born forty years before Christ, author of, among
other works, the Metamorphoses and the Ars Amatoria (The
Art of Love). These two texts bespeak the glory of both the literary and
personal halves of Ovid's life, set in perfect harmony. The former work is one
of the great acts of imagination in the history of literature and has
been a deserved bestseller for two millenia. The latter is a raucous
love manual from someone who clearly knew women, loved women and spent
his life figuring out how to snare them. Though predominantly for men,
The Art of Love concludes with a section for the ladies, on how to
behave when caught. Elsewhere Ovid gives make-up tips and rules of
conduct, but here he advises on the vagaries of bedroom performance in
what reads like a head-on challenge to Cynthia Heimel.
* * *
From The Art of Love by Ovid
translated by Rolfe Humphries
We must come to the heart of the matter, so that my weary keel reaches
the haven at last . . . In our last lesson we deal with matters
peculiarly secret; Venus reminds us that here lies her most intimate
care. What a girl ought to know is herself, adapting her method, taking
advantage of the methods nature has equipped her to use. Lie on your
back if your face and all your features are pretty; if your posterior is
cute, better be seen from behind. Milanion used to bear Atalanta's legs
on his shoulders; if you have beautiful legs, let them be lifted like
hers. Little girls do all right if they sit on top, riding horseback;
Hector's Andromache knew she could not do this: too tall! Press the
couch with your knees and bend your neck backward a little if your view,
full-length, seems what a lover should crave. If the breasts and the
thighs are youthful and lovely to look at, let the man stand and the girl
lie on a slant on the bed. Let your hair come down, in the Laodamian
fashion. If your belly is lined, better be seen from behind. There are
a thousand ways: a simple one, never too tiring, is to lie on your back,
turning a bit to the right. My muse can give you the truth, more truth
than Apollo or Ammon; take it from me, what I know took many lessons to
learn.
Let the woman feel the act of love to her marrow, let the performance
bring equal delight to the two. Coax and flatter and tease, with
inarticulate murmurs, even with sexual words, in the excitement of play,
and if nature, alas, denies you the final sensation cry out as if you had
come, do your best to pretend. Really I pity the girl whose place, let
us say, cannot give her pleasure it gives to the man, pleasure she ought
to enjoy. So, if you have to pretend, be sure the pretense is effective,
do your best to convince, prove it by rolling your eyes, prove by your
motions, your moans, your sighs, what a pleasure it gives you.
So our sport has an end: our swans are tired of their harness. Time for
their labors to rest, time to step down from our car. As the young men
did, now let the girls, my disciples, write on the votive spoil, "Ovid
showed us the way."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jack Murnighan's stories appeared in the Best American Erotica editions of 1999, 2000 and 2001. His weekly column for Nerve, Jack's Naughty Bits, was collected and released as two books. He was the editor-in-chief of Nerve from 1999 to 2001, before retiring to write full time and take seriously the quest for love.
