- Source
- Ovid. P. Ovidius Naso, Volume 1: Amores, Epistulae, Medicamina faciei femineae, Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris. Ehwald, Rudolf; Merkel, Rudolph; editors. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1907.
- Translation
- AI-generated (gemini-3.5-flash) — machine translation; may contain errors
- Languages
- 日本語 · English · 简体中文 · 한국어
- CTS URN
- urn:cts:latinLit:phi0959.phi001.humanitext-lat2:3.11b.1-3.11b.52
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-10-28
The poet expresses his inner conflict between love and hatred, torn between his lover's outstanding beauty and her wicked character, and finally begs to love her willingly rather than by force.
Luctantur1 pectusque leve in contraria tendunt
Love and hatred fight, and pull my fickle heart in opposite directions;
Hac amor hac odium, sed, puto, vincit amor.
here is love, there is hatred, but, I think, love wins.
Odero, si potero; si non, invitus amabo.
I will hate, if I can; if not, I will love against my will.
Nec iuga taurus amat; quae tamen odit, habet.
Nor does the bull love the yoke; yet what he hates, he bears.
Nequitiam fugio — fugientem forma reducit;
I flee from your wickedness — but your beauty brings me back as I flee;
Aversor morum crimina — corpus amo.
I shrink from the sins of your character — but I love your body.
Sic ego nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum,
Thus I can live neither without you nor with you,
Et videor voti nescius esse mei.
and I seem not to know my own wish.
Aut formosa fores minus, aut minus inproba, vellem;2
I wish that you were either less beautiful, or less wicked;
Non facit ad mores tam bona forma malos.
such a fine beauty does not suit bad morals.
Facta merent odium, facies exorat amorem —
Your deeds deserve hatred, your face pleads for love —
Me miserum, vitiis plus valet illa suis!3
miserable me, that face is more powerful than its own vices!
Parce, per o lecti socialia iura, per omnis
Spare me, oh, by the shared laws of our bed, by all the gods
Qui dant fallendos se4 tibi saepe deos,
who so often offer themselves to be falsely sworn by you,
Perque tuam faciem, magni mihi numinis instar,
and by your face, which is to me like a great deity,
Perque tuos oculos, qui rapuere meos!
and by your eyes, which have captured mine!
Quidquid eris, mea semper eris; tu selige tantum,
Whatever you will be, you will always be mine; only you choose,
Me quoque velle velis, anne coactus amem!
whether you want me to want you too, or whether I should love you under compulsion!
Lintea dem potius ventisque ferentibus utar,
I would rather set my sails and use the favoring winds,
Ut, quam, si nolim, cogar amare, velim.5
so that I may willingly love her whom, even if I were unwilling, I should be forced to love.
- 3.11b.1Luctantur
The subject of the plural verbs Luctantur and tendunt is amor (love) and odium (hatred) which appear in the following line.
- 3.11b.41vellem
vellem is in the imperfect subjunctive, expressing an unachievable present wish ('I wish that...'). The verb in the dependent clause, fores (= esses), is also in the imperfect subjunctive.
- 3.11b.44vitiis ... suis
vitiis is an ablative of comparison used with the comparative plus ('more'), meaning 'than her own vices'. illa (she, referring to her beauty) is the subject.
- 3.11b.46dant fallendos se
The verb dant combined with the reflexive pronoun se and the gerundive fallendos means 'they offer themselves to be deceived [by you]'.
- 3.11b.52ut, quam, si nolim, cogar amare, velim
The main verb of the clause introduced by ut ('so that') is velim ('I may wish to love'). quam is a relative pronoun with an omitted antecedent (the woman), functioning as the object of velim and amare. si nolim ('even if I were unwilling') is a conditional clause, and cogar amare ('I should be forced to love [her]') is the predicate of the relative clause.