48 "Love is a kind of war . . .

. . . and no assignment for cowards." 

Thus is Ovid's opening of the Ars Amatoria translated in Solomon and Higgins The Philosophy of (Erotic) Love.

Today in philosophy I talked about Publius Ovidius Naso and the context of love and marriage in early imperial Rome.  We also covered St. Paul's writings on marriage in First Corinthians, both the harsh and the beautiful. By harsh I mean his idea that people should be like him, celibate, and avoid any kind of sex (1 Corinthians 7).  By beautiful I mean first, his insistence that husbands and wives are equal in the giving and taking of sex (1 Corinthians 7).  And second, of course, I mean 1 Corinthians 13 which I can't read aloud without crying.  I said as much and a young man volunteered to finish the reading after I started to tear up.

Reading Ovid again made me think about my high school second and third year Latin teacher, Mr. Barrans.  I had such a huge crush on him, though as a youngster I did not perceive him as being a particularly good teacher.  He let people chatter in class and didn't keep us focused and task oriented.  I much preferred the tougher profs in those days.  But for some reason I became wild about him.  I can remember sitting next to him at an all school event in the gym and allowing the edge of my sandal to just barely touch the "waist" of his heavy black Oxford.  I became so turned on that I thought my head would explode.

Did he know I had a crush on him?  I don't remember whether or not I ever actually told him before I left school.  I do remember he gave me special assignments in translation.  He had me translating Catullus my junior year.  Did he say, "These might interest you?"  And that year he also occasionally let me have brief access to his classroom immediately after school so I could make-out with my senior class boyfriend for a few minutes in a "private" space.  During my own senior year, there was no actual fourth year Latin but I do remember taking a stab at both Ovid sexy poems and Virgil's Georgics and then finally giving up Latin.

Was it "right" for my Latin teacher to have me translating poems such as the one below?  As an old teacher now, I would say, "no."  But then I'm the kind of person who doesn't have personal relationships with students. Perhaps he thought he was reaching out to a trouble youth in the only "language" she knew.

Catullus 5

Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.