corinna

[constantine]

i don't care what the women say
they are fools and will always be so
i refuse to play ovid to their corinna -
they can write me poems
for a change, and i won't
even read them - no, not even one!
i've wasted my genius, my vital energies
for what? hamburger helper?
a seat at their vanity?
i've written elegies in their honor
blindfolded, i walked the high wire
back and forth,
and still got the treatment
i want to love them so badly, i really do
but it's impossible, they'll have none of it
and so i am reduced to writing poetry
about women that don't even exist

[stilltrucking]

Plastic or paper?
A tough choice
They are doing amazing things with plastic these days.

[constantine]

i like poly!

[stilltrucking]

I been thinking more about biodegradable

[constantine]

don't get me wrong - i'm big on organics.

[stilltrucking]

Don't get me wrong — I am big on Greek Lyric poetry


I had to Google Corrina
when I made the association to Ovid.
"I been sittin down studyin the art of love
I think it's going to fit me like a glove"


Good work dino
enjoyed reading it.

[constantine]

amores and the art of love have been the focus of our studies for the last few weeks. beautiful work - very engaging and slyly funny.

[stilltrucking]

One was Greek the Other Roman
and six hundred years apart

I never read Ovid, does he write about her? I almost bought Ted Hughes's translation of Ovid. I have heard that it is pretty good.

What course is this your are studying?

I just finished Reading a good short story about college life

Of This Time, Of That Place

Always grateful to have something good to read
thanks again dino

[constantine]

ovid was a roman poet who wrote in the time of augustus - he wrote love poetry in the elegiac form along with other roman poets - catullus, tibullus, propertius, and others - all roughly contemporary to one another. it was a short-lived genre whose repercussions resonate through the western tradition. corinna was the object of ovid's amores, after the amores he wrote his ars amatoria - the art of love, how to pick up roman women. - the work is divided into 3 parts - where and how to get a woman, then how to keep a woman, and then advice to women on how to play the game of love. he's witty and urbane - and very problematic. we don't know if there was a corinna; with the other elegiasts like catullus and propertius, we know the identities of the women - lesbia and cynthia, respectively. ovid appears to not only parodize his contemporaries, but also is something of a social commentator along the lines of wilde and voltaire. ovid was part of two courses i'm taking - sexuality in the greek and roman world and the final course in the classical civilzation sequence. oh yeah, i almost forgot - supposedly, ovid was exiled by augustus - presumably for ars amatoria

[stilltrucking]

Thank you Constantine
for the syllabus
Don't mind me I am living vicariously through your education

Going to check that out it is exactly what I wanted to know about Ovid and Corrina.

Strange how I read a poem and a name sticks in my mind than a week later I hear a song and hear the name again and it kicks off a train of thoughts.

Taj Mahal meets Bob Dylan meets Constantine.
A romance.

[constantine]

ovid reads contemporary - i don't want to sound egotistical (!), but he reminds me of me at times.

[SadLuckDame]

mr., this poem has interested me all week.
I don't even know how to begin to tell you what thoughts it conjured.
I wanted to know, who are these players? and that led me to having a look-see what wiki would say and etc.

Really liked your reply and to know more of this,
a treat to me to have read and continue thinking of.

[constantine]

thanks ms.
lucy in the sky with diamonds has your initials... just wondering!

penguin's edition: ovid - the erotic poems, translated by peter green is excellent.

[SadLuckDame]

He meant it as Stay Lonely Dame,
and because I've nothing more enticing, to distract me, then I just do,

it's some form of entertainment and to be in an involvement with those types of feelings, instead of the 'happier' set (which I could think more delusional and not too trustworthy, a fake sort of going at it, right...?).

But, it's not always melancholy, there's a certain joy to be gained and the most convincing... is the mystery to it, which keeps me wholly looking and somehow addicted. There's a lot of authentic and believability to the dreary.

I think he knew these games.

p.s. I read the one you'd suggested, omitted pages, but a lot of info in that introduction. Seems they hint at she being his first wife, and she'd not met up to his 'standards'...?

from wiki...

Book 3 has 15 poems. The opening piece depicts personified Tragedy and Elegy fighting over Ovid. 2 describes a visit to the races, 3 and 8 focus on Corinna's interest in other men, 10 is a complaint to Ceres because of her festival that requires abstinence, 13 is a poem on a festival of Juno, and 9 a lament for Tibullus. In poem 11 Ovid decides not to love Corinna any longer and regrets the poems he has written about her. The final poem is Ovid's farewell to the erotic muse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovid

[constantine]

an excellent mythographer too. complex fellow, that's for sure. yes, the game - the pursuit of love - has its moments, but it always seems to end badly. still...