Remedia Amoris
Encyclopedia
Remedia Amoris is a 814 line poem in Latin by the Roman
poet Ovid
.
In this poem, Ovid
offers advices and strategies to avoid being hurt by love
feelings, or to fall out of love, with a stoic
overtone. Such strategies include:
To leave your partner:
After leaving your partner:
The aim of the poem is to teach (mainly) young men how they can avoid idealizing the women they love and to procure assistance to them if love brings them despair and misfortune. Ovid states that suicides committed because of an unfortunate love feeling can be easily avoided by following these advices.
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
poet Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
.
In this poem, Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
offers advices and strategies to avoid being hurt by love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
feelings, or to fall out of love, with a stoic
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...
overtone. Such strategies include:
To leave your partner:
- Trying to quit loving before the feelingFeelingFeeling is the nominalization of the verb to feel. The word was first used in the English language to describe the physical sensation of touch through either experience or perception. The word is also used to describe experiences, other than the physical sensation of touch, such as "a feeling of...
becomes too important - Trying to be as busy as you can, e.g. with workWage labourWage labour is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer, where the worker sells their labour under a formal or informal employment contract. These transactions usually occur in a labour market where wages are market determined...
- Traveling and trying to avoid familiar places that remind you of your relationshipIntimate relationshipAn intimate relationship is a particularly close interpersonal relationship that involves physical or emotional intimacy. Physical intimacy is characterized by romantic or passionate love and attachment, or sexual activity. The term is also sometimes used euphemistically for a sexual...
- Having many affairs, or at least another affair to forget the previous one
- Trying to have sexSexIn biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
in an unpleasant way - Focusing on the unpleasant body parts/physical flaws of the partner
- Trying to focus on all unfortunate things that happen because of the relationship, such as material issues
- Avoiding staying by yourself
- Avoiding places where you can see couples
After leaving your partner:
- Avoiding all contact with her and with her familyFamilyIn human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
and relatives - When explaining why you broke up, avoiding giving details
- Trying to be as silent as you can on your relationship when it's over
- If you know you are going to see your ex-partner again, avoiding trying to look nice for the occasion
- Forgetting about any chances in the future for the relationship to start again
- Burning letters/portraits of your partner
- Avoiding theatreTheatreTheatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
plays or poetries idealizing the concept of love - Convincing yourself that you don't have any rival, to avoid jealousyJealousyJealousy is a second emotion and typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, particularly in reference to a human connection. Jealousy often consists of a combination of presenting emotions...
. According to Ovid, jealousy is one of the main reason why people stay in love. - Avoiding to stop in front of the door of your ex partner's house, and picturing it as an awful place bringing only misfortune.
- Avoiding certain kind of foodFoodFood is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
- Avoiding drinking alcoholAlcoholIn chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
in moderation. Instead, do not drink at all or drink abusively
The aim of the poem is to teach (mainly) young men how they can avoid idealizing the women they love and to procure assistance to them if love brings them despair and misfortune. Ovid states that suicides committed because of an unfortunate love feeling can be easily avoided by following these advices.