RE-AIR: Conversations: When Ovid Invented Pick-up Artistry, the Ars Amatoria w/ Imogen Briscoe

This episode originally aired in February 2024. Liv is joined by Imogen Briscoe to talk Ovid's Ars Amatoria, the Art of Love, aka the first pick up artist playbook. Did Ovid create the 2000 years of misogyny we've had since? Nope, but he sure made it worse with this one! Read more from Imogen on Twitter https://twitter.com/imogen_briscoe?lang=en and at the Ekklesia Magazine https://linktr.ee/ekklesia_magazine. Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content! http://www.patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So, check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.

• 0:35Speaker 01

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• 1:31Liv Albert?

  Oh, hi, hello, and welcome to another episode of Let's Talk About Myth, baby! The show that examines how utterly garbage some men of the ancient world were.

• 1:44Liv Albert?

  I'm your host, Liv, she who is bound to hear not all men at least once after this episode airs. We'll see, maybe I'll keep a tally. Well, as if that didn't set it up well enough, I am here with a conver- Conversation with Imogen Briscoe, a PhD student studying Ovid's quote unquote, "love poetry."

• 2:04Liv Albert?

  Most of which is, I mean, we, we, we'll get into it. Uh, but a couple of years ago, maybe it was like only last year. I don't even remember. Uh, anyway, I covered some of Ovid's Ars Amatoria on the show. Because it is absolutely batshit fucking bananas. It is misogyny in a text. It is literally the original handbook to modern pick-up artistry. It is wild. And so when I heard from Imogen pitching this as a topic for a conversation, I nearly lost my mind with excitement. We recorded it a while ago, as you will hear for reasons. Um, and I was just so thrilled that it aired around Valentine's Day. Because apparently I'm, I'm fun for Valentine's Day.

• 2:45Liv Albert?

  It is, it's exactly as good as I expected it to, this conversation. Plus I got ranty. Um, so it's long enough without me dragging out the introduction. Just know, well, like, big trigger warnings, because for real, it's gross and entertaining, um, but gross. Uh, uh, there's talk about how men can best convince women to have sex with them, or worse, you know, force them. It, and it's, it's so, it's much more in that realm than the former. Um, yeah, so it is, it is very dark. It is pick-up artistry from the ancient world. But I do promise we have fun with it because it's the only way to speak about something like this without devolving into a pit of sadness that humanity has not come far at all in the intervening 2,000 years. Like, for, for real. It's a little, it's a little too on the nose.

• 3:31Liv Albert?

  But just beware.

• 3:46Liv Albert?

  Conversations when Ovid invented pick-up artistry. The Ars Amatoria with Imogen Briscoe.

• 4:09Liv Albert?

  I am, I'm so excited to talk about this because I just, the Ars Amatoria is, is so utterly wild. Uh, so as soon as I saw, you know, those, those words, uh, uh, next to your name in my little form, I was like, oh shit. No, like I'm so keen. Um, yeah. So, I mean, I don't even totally know where to begin, but maybe like, what drew you to be studying this baffling and also so deeply entertaining work? Like, what do you love about it? I don't know.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no, that's it's a really interesting question. Um, I think I kind of started with the Amores and then worked my way through to the Ars Amatoria. I mean, I I did the Amores as like translation at school, so the the slightly less racy parts of it. They kind of set you the nicer passages. Um, and then, yeah, I think it was, it wasn't until like my third year of my undergrad that I really looked at the Ars Amatoria properly. Um, and I remember being set this question of, uh, as like a seminar prep of like, can you think of any modern things that this reminds you of? Like, you're gonna read the whole Ars Amatoria, what can you think of?

• 5:16Speaker 02

  And I remember doing like a a short forum post about, um, the Dennis system from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and talking about his kind of pick-up artist systems and how Ovid is, you know, essentially doing the same thing. And I think that's kind of where it all came from, was this idea that like, we can see such a continuation from the ancient all the way through to the modern. And that's really what I look at now in my research. Um, so my thesis at the moment, I mean, I'm kind of coming to the end of my first year, starting my second year. Um, so I'm sure it will have changed by the time this podcast comes out, let alone, um, you know, in a couple of years. But at the moment, my focus is really on masculinity in Ovid's amatory works.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  So the Amores, Ars Amatoria, and the Remedia Amores as well, so like the the Cures for Love. Um, and yeah, this this idea of like the the links with pick-up artists in the modern day, I find really interesting. Um, and something that I think hasn't been touched on as much yet, which is what I'm hoping to do, is, um, the way that Ovid has been, I'd like to say co-opted, but I don't think he has necessarily been co-opted. I think he's been taken at his word by, um, modern incel groups as well. Um, so there's a lot of of relevance to the modern day. And I think that's what keeps me coming back to Ovid constantly, is is this idea that. He's always relevant somehow, no matter what's going on. There's just something about him that I,

• 6:46Speaker 02

  you know, you can keep relating to the modern day, but also that's just, I can't figure him out as a person. Like you said, of like the Ovid of it all.

• 6:54Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  He's completely baffling.

• 6:57Liv Albert?

  He really is. And like, so I joke about this a lot on the show, like, uh, uh, Rome is not my favorite. I'm all about Greece all the time, except that I love Ovid. Because like, one, most of what I read is Metamorphoses, which is just a beautiful, you know, way of capturing primarily Greek myths, hence why I'm able to love it. But what is so interesting to me about the Metamorphoses, it is like in complete contrast to the ours, which is that like, in the Metamorphoses, he seems to have a real sympathy for the plight of women who are assaulted by gods. That is what makes him quite unique amongst mythological sourcing is that like,

• 7:39Liv Albert?

  he cares. He says it's assault. He has empathy for the plight of these women and, you know, other people as well, who are, who are facing down the gods in this way. And then he goes and writes the Ars Amator, you know, which is like nasty in the most entertaining way.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:58Liv Albert?

  And yeah, like when I was reading it, I also just kept being like, wait, like, what am I reading? Like, it's like, when you know Ovid, you read it and you just think, okay, like, are, is this tongue in cheek? Are you playing with us? Is this serious? I think that it, it has such elements of both that I can only imagine that it would just be, yeah, like a wealth of, of information for you to piece through in your study because like, it's really baffling. Like, what, what do you think about how, like, what his intentions might have been with it?

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, I think, I mean, in terms of like my own writing, I try not to go down, I'm sure you've heard this before. I think even with like, you know, other people from Exeter doing Ovid who've come on and, you know, we talk about. Authorial intention is is difficult and I try not to go too far into it in my actual work because you know, that way lies madness essentially. But I I I like to think about of it as a person and and think about whether he's genuine or not. I think it's a fun thought exercise whether or not we can actually put it into our scholarship and then.

• 9:04Liv Albert?

  Yeah, we'll never have the answer, but like the theorizing can be there. Yeah.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I I mean, yeah, I look. I know you shouldn't meet your heroes, but I would love to meet him because I I almost want it confirmed that he's an asshole. I I know he is, but how much? Is he poking fun at the fact that he is or does he just not know? And and I think that he's he's clever and he's self-conscious. I think those are the two things that you can say from what we've got definitely is that. I don't think he ever does anything kind of um, yeah, accidentally. I think that throughout his work, he's he's putting forward, you know, arguably different narratorial personas. But that he's always making conscious decisions. I mean, something that I find really interesting in the Oz Amatoria is that he talks about, you know,

• 9:53Speaker 02

  this work being based on experience in the opening lines of Book One. And then you see little episodes of like, uh, almost, he he goes into this semi-autobiographical mode at points in the Oz. Where it links up with episodes from the Amores and that's something that I've always found really fascinating. He he has this, I mean, is getting into the kind of dark underbelly of it straight away. But he talks about one time I pulled my girl's hair and essentially he tells about a physical assault on his girlfriend.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Which he also covers, and I cannot remember which poem it is in the Amores, but he he talks about upsetting his girlfriend by kind of lashing out at her and pulling her hair. Um, but in the Oz, he basically says like, um, the moral of the story is if you're going to attack your girlfriend, try not to rip her clothes because this ended up costing me loads of money. Which is just absolutely insane.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  And yeah, just, just unlike um the metamorphoses, I think it's so interesting talking to people who come out of it from the Met almost because I've done it the other way around. So I mean, talking to other people who study of it as well and people who are just interested in him. And if you read the Met and then you come straight into the Rs, you're going to be absolutely baffled.

• 11:08Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Um, it made more of like a natural progression, the way that I read his works and kind of did bits and bobs of the metamorphoses, but never really read it cover to cover. Until much later, um, and now, you know, as, as part of like my teaching, I'm covering the metamorphoses with first and second year undergrads and hearing their thoughts on that. And, and like you said, talking about this sympathy that Ovid shows to women. You know, I'm really quite convinced by this idea that like some part of him is really interested in like the lived female experience.

• 11:38Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  And then I kind of struggled to reconcile what I'm talking to them about. And then I come back into my own work and I'm like, this is a dick.

• 11:45Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 11:48Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I mean, that, yeah, it's just, it's, it's fascinating. And I love that. It reminds me of what I love about mythology so much, which is that like it's all a contradiction. E- every bit of it is a contradiction. Big mostly i- i- in that case, it's because we've got like a thousand years worth of sources and regionality and everything in there. So it's like, well, that makes sense. Like that, it, that is rational, like why that everything is a contradiction in when it comes to Greek myth, but often it's like, no, it's just one guy. How can just one guy be so contradictory? And that is sort of like a different level of interesting, like, yeah, what, what is he doing that he wrote the Met? And then he wrote the Rs. And, and I wonder if it's like

• 12:32Liv Albert?

  this notion of mythological women being i- it better or not better, like in his mind that they are, they are more deserving of sympathy because he hasn't encountered them and like, because yeah, I mean, there's a major incel narrative running through the Rs that makes you think that like, okay, maybe he's got a thing against real women, but he likes fictional, like it may, maybe like. A good equivalent would be like women in video games versus real life women, you know, like this idea of of a false woman, like the guys who got angry when they made Lara Croft have smaller boobs, you know, like it it makes me think of that, like, okay, he can love the mythological, but he can't stand real.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, and almost, I mean, you know, in the Met, it's a, we have that with Pygmalion.

• 13:22Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Ovid aligns himself with Pygmalion quite, quite well, which is, I mean, he does it with a lot of the artist figures in the metamorphoses anyway, but yeah, Pygmalion, he he seems to have quite a lot of sympathy for his, you know, disgust at women and then his crafting of a perfect woman. And I guess that'd be a really, yeah, like a kind of almost depressing view of like why Ovid has this fascination with women is he's able to write them in a particular way that that suits him.

• 13:51Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. I like that idea. And Pygmalion is like so deeply one of the like grossest stories in the Met. And yeah, yeah, that feels right.

• 14:06Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's it's so interesting. So, I mean, I'm just trying to think back on on having read the Rs, because like, it's so, I mean, I guess just to remind my listeners, though, I will have also done that in the introduction, but like, it really is, I mean, it's called The Art of Love, but it really is like a a sort of step by step instructions on how to get a woman, only they're all horrifying.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So, um, it's it's kind of semi didactic, written in elegiac couplets. So in terms of, I mean, ancient genre, it's disputed what the Ars Amatoria is. Um, it is, yeah, written as if it's elegy, which leads some kind of meter purists to believe that it must be elegy. Um, but it's got a lot of didactic elements and it clearly takes inspiration from other didactic poems, um, like, you know, Virgil's didactic works and stuff like that. Um, yeah, it's it's kind of.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  It definitely is didactic in tone, whether or not, you know, we look at the the meter. And Ovid paints himself as the praecetor amoris, the the teacher of love. And he does that straight away, like in line sixteen of the first book, I'm pretty sure he's he's like. I am the praecetor amoris and he. It's probably the clearest persona he ever gives himself and he maintains that all the way through. He also ends uh book two and book three with the the words like uh naso magister. Erat, can't remember exactly the Latin, um and naso is like his middle name. So it's Ovid was my teacher, Ovid was my instructor, and that's what he wants his kind of students to go out into the world and say.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Um and obviously, we've got this this cheekiness of Ovid running through it, you know, how much of this is him actually wanting people to be walking efforts for his. Seduction school, we don't know. But yeah, it's um it's three books and book one and two are directed at men. Um and book three is aimed at women, which is, you know, part of what makes this as a group of three so interesting is that. He he kind of dedicates, book one is uh how to find a woman. You know, to aim your affections at, which he covers pretty quickly. And then how to get that woman, and then book two is about how to keep the woman. Um and he kind of delineates quite quite clearly the the points where he's changing tack with the with the male centered books.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  And then book three, um. It's, yeah, it's kind of all in, it feels a bit more rushed, I guess, it's it's the same, pretty much the same length as the other two. Um and yeah, his his advice to women is is really interesting. A lot of it aligns pretty clearly with the first two books, um you get the equivalence. Um but there is this pretty convincing argument that. Book three isn't really directed at women, it's, you know, it's it's for entertainment purposes and that. Obviously, his male audience are going to be reading it too. Um we get this kind of idea, especially in in certain scholarship of. The men are kind of, kind of just off stage right, essentially.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  And Ovid's making little kind of winks and nudges towards them throughout book three. Um, and even if you're not convinced by that and you take him at his words that he is talking to women in book three. His advice is a lot more focused on looks, um. You know, how to, how to not be disgusting seems to be a large thing. You know, he, he, he uses words like disgusting quite a lot. Um, I mean, I'd be interested in, you know, the actual split between the books. Um, and then, yeah, at, at the end of book three, has this kind of catalogue of sexual positions that women should consider based off of how they look. So it's like, it's like, if you've got stretch marks, you're better viewed from behind, like, things like that.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  It's really quite rude in terms of, you know, explicit for Ovid. He's not normally that explicit, but also quite nasty, talking about, um, you know, so about petite women should ride horse, women with longer legs should have them over their shoulders. It's, it's really quite full on. Um, and, and he's kind of aiming this at women as if he's saying like, I'm interested in your pleasure. But what he's saying is here's how to look best for your male sexual partner.

• 18:32Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  So we've still got a hugely, um, a huge kind of interest in appeasing his male audience throughout the third book. So I'm not hugely convinced that it's actually aimed at women. And even if it is, the advice lines up pretty well with, with keeping the men happy.

• 18:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, that doesn't sound like it's really for women.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:56Liv Albert?

  I just, yeah, I mean, my biggest memory of reading that for the first time was just purely like, what on earth am I reading? Like, what is happening here in the most enjoyable way? Because I think that's the only way, that's like, I mean, it's, you know, the, the way to stay sane is to read something like that and laugh at it because it's utterly absurd. But that's how I feel about, you know, modern pick up artists and stuff too. Like, obviously they are also inherently dangerous. But you still, like, I think, have to laugh at a lot of the nonsense that, that men are being led to believe is like, how to get a woman. I'm trying to think of the name of that guy. I think he's British American and he started that like enormous YouTube channel of like,

• 19:38Liv Albert?

  how to get women and also get rich. I listened to a podcast episode about him. Do you know who I'm talking about? He moved to like Eastern Europe to escape. Like the prosecution. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's he's a big one at the moment, especially with with um, with the kind of incel, the rise of incels as well.

• 20:00Liv Albert?

  Exactly. Yeah, like it just screams all of his work from what I know, which is just listening to like, uh, Behind the Bastards podcast episode about him. I had like never heard of him before and I was like, oh, my God, I can't stop listening to this. It's horrifying.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:16Liv Albert?

  Yeah, this idea that like, I mean, it's just the the the idea that even 2000 years ago, there were people being like, so you just have to nag a woman, like tell her she's ugly. That's that's gonna turn her to to your, you know, advances like, I just, yeah, I mean, it's it's incredible and and the amount that does line up with the modern ideas. Um, so I didn't originally intend to like jump straight into that, but you you look at that too, right? Like this, the stuff that lines up, like I would love to hear more about that because it's wild that 2000 years passed and it's still just as absurd.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And I think the main thing to say about that is we we kind of, I don't know, I feel like especially people who study of it, there's there's this inclination to try and like, almost defend the people that you're studying. Um, and I think I I try really hard not to do that because I think he probably was, you know, like I say, just a bad, a bit of a bad person, even if he was funny and a bit emotional and interesting. I think he's still, you know, a product of his time. Whether at the time he would be considered a bad person or not, we have to remember that for all his kind of posturing and his posing as, you know, a victim of his girlfriend and a slave to love.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  He was an, you know, a a Roman man of the equestrian class who was educated in rhetoric and, you know, turned down the chance to be a lawyer essentially. So he's pretty, he's doing pretty well for himself.

• 21:48Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Also able to, yeah, able to write poetry as a career, which isn't something that's usually open to other people, as much as he likes the whole, you know, tortured, poor artist.

• 21:59Liv Albert?

  Yeah, he's got some privilege.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, definitely.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think we really just like to say that certain people have, they haven't read him properly, and that's why they've, you know, adopted him or co-opted him, or however you want to phrase it. And I think what we're defining as reading properly is something that I'm quite interested in, because I'm like, the words are there.

• 22:23Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Whether, you know, we can't say that they're not for everyone. I would encourage people who want to read Ovid to take him with a pinch of salt and to try and get a bit more context and read the whole ours, rather than just the passages where, you know, he endorses rape and says all these other horrible things. But certain people have almost cherry picked quotes from Ovid's work that that they use to push their own particularly masculineist agendas.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  So, yeah, the pick-up artist link is relatively well established, and I think Donna Zuckerberg is the main scholar who's really worked on this. And Mark Zuckerberg's sister, kind of unfortunately. But yeah, she she did a really good book called Not All Dead White Men.

• 23:07Liv Albert?

  I have that, I've never read it. I need to.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I haven't, to be honest, haven't read the whole text, but the the chapter on Ovid is is really instructive for looking at pick-up artists. That's from twenty eighteen, so only five years ago. Yeah, and she talks about a particular pick-up artist. I know his surname is Strauss, I believe he's called Neil Strauss, and he's the guy who wrote The Game, like the big pick-up artist manual that made it into the mainstream. And he literally calls Ovid like the father of modern pick-up artistry.

• 23:37Liv Albert?

  Does he really?

• 23:40Speaker 02

  So there are people endorsing Ovid as someone to look back to and saying like, look, our, what we're doing is right because it has a precedent of, you know, two thousand years, people have been doing this. And they do really use him to push that.

• 23:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  And yeah, I think I think with the pick up artists, that there's a couple of people, but yeah, Donna Zuckerberg's chapter on it is is brilliant and very informative. And then with the incels, I feel like it's something that hasn't been as touched on. And the thing that kind of clued me onto the direct link rather than me just reading through and thinking. This seems a bit incel-y. It screams incel, yeah. Um, there was a blog post on the Pharos Doing Justice to the Classics website, uh, only came out this year. Um, and it was about of its, well, the presence of ancient authors on the incel wiki. So from what I can gather, the incels have their own Wikipedia page, but we're getting frustrated with Wikipedia's like rules.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  Um, for what you could post and the moderation. And so they created their own Wikipedia. Which is terrifying. Like I've been on it, um, and I'm I'm quite scared that the university is going to take away my computer access at some point because my my history is just not looking great at the moment. Like it's research, it's research. Yeah, just like clicking through the incel wiki very happily. Um, well, obviously not happily, it's it's just awful. But yeah, they you and it functions in the same way as Wikipedia where like you hover over. Um, a hyperlink and it brings up the start of the article about that personal thing, but it'll be an entry that they've written. So they have um, a list of what they call proto-cells.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  So people who weren't, who were around before incels were like a thing. Um, you know, a recognized group and they claim, uh, they claim people like Charles Bukowski as an as a proto-cell. Uh, they claim Jesus Christ as a proto-cell.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Like, it's just insane. They just have this list of people that they've decided were incels. But if you then click on the hyperlink, it takes you to a page that they have written about that person.

• 25:58Liv Albert?

  Right. About how, how exactly that person. Oh my god.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, that's where, like, the, the Ovid things come, come in. They, they use Ovid on their incel wiki page. Um, yeah, they, they have a page called timeless quotes about women. And they have about five quotes from Ovid on there and no, no referencing, no links to the translation that they've used, not even which book it's from. One of them just says the art of love. But yeah, it's, it's stuff about women being gold diggers, uh, women enjoying forceful sex. Like, they've really picked what they want to put across. Yeah. And that, that was where I got that, like, the real interest in it from, because I realized that not, not only,

• 26:43Speaker 02

  uh, is there like this sense of incel-ish line of thought throughout Ovid's work, well, at least in places. Um, but, but they are using his work to further their ideology.

• 26:58Liv Albert?

  See, that I wouldn't have guessed. I guess I should have. But the idea that they're actually directly using him in that way just feels, I think it's just because I have such a poor opinion of them, obviously, where I'm like, you don't read somebody like Ovid. You're ridiculous.

• 27:10Liv Albert?

  Not least because I just have to say, like, the more, like, I don't, I don't think about incels often, thankfully. Um, but even just like talking about them this much, it just makes me wanna like, I mean, I know that, like, obviously you can't expect them to make sense, but I ju- like, i- if you are building your entire personality around this concept and building an entire Wikipedia page, or Wikipedia-like concept around this, like, can't you also recognize that the term involuntary then no longer applies? Like, this is clearly very fucking voluntary.

• 27:43Liv Albert?

  Call yourself an involuntary celibate when you've dedicated your life to being this guy.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:49Liv Albert?

  It's now voluntary. Anyway, just like.

• 27:53Liv Albert?

  It's truly, truly wild.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:56Liv Albert?

  Uh, but yeah, oh my god, the idea of like, cause I mean, the thing about even like, you know, like you're saying, like he was, you know, it it seems likely, maybe he was a bit of an asshole amongst being also very talented. That's fine, you know? People can be talented and also misogynist assholes. Um, but like, it it reading the, reading the ours too, like there is so much that is seemingly intentionally comedic as well. Like, do you think that that was also the point? Like, a lot of these things seem to be like so ridiculous as to be intentionally comedic.

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I think, I think he's,

• 28:36Speaker 02

  he can be quite like, yeah, just, just overblown in the way that he talks. And he's, he's very conscious about as well, kind of, um, picking his audience. I think he's, he's aware of his context and that especially in the book towards women, he kind of says like, you know, only certain women should read my texts. And then kind of midway through or just past the middle point of book three, he starts saying like, I wasn't going to talk about how to evade your husband because, you know, it's not right to encourage adultery. But anyway, here's a list of things that you can do. So obviously there's, there's deliberate humor in it because he knows what he's doing and he knows that it's silly and subversive.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  And, you know, I, I think that that's something that makes it kind of fun and enjoyable to read. And also it's what makes these episodes that are quite troubling, all the more shocking. Is, is that it's kind of within this, what seems quite a lighthearted text, you know, this idea of like the art of love or, I mean, there's, there's debate about how to translate ours amatoria as well, because ours is more like skill.

• 29:42Liv Albert?

  Hmm, interesting.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  So it's, it's more to do with, um, It is, it is pretty much a manual. It's like a, the skill of the lover as well. Amatoria is more, it's the person, the amator.

• 29:55Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  So yeah, it's like the skill of the lover. And obviously Ovid is the lover supreme.

• 30:01Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  And I, I'm, I'm really fond of this idea that although he delineates his persona in the hours as the pro capitor amoris, which we don't really, he is never explicit in the amores. I like this idea that it is the same, we're meant to read it as the same guy, but just a bit more grown up.

• 30:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Um, cause it was, I think, well, I'm not, you know, confident on the dating in terms of, you know, how we do the dating and, and it's not something that really comes up in my research that much. But I know that there's at least kind of ten or fifteen years between the amores and the hours.

• 30:36Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  So we do get this idea that the amores is the kind of, um, almost like, just like the horny nonsense of like a twenty year old guy.

• 30:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  And then when he's a bit more, you know, a bit older and a bit more mature, he's kind of like, right, I've learnt my lessons and I'm ready to share that with, with everyone else. I quite like this idea of a continuation between the two. Uh, cause we do, we always put them together into one volume of translation, pretty much, you know.

• 31:01Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  The one I've got is like, it's just called the erotic poems and it includes all of them.

• 31:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 31:21Liv Albert?

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• 32:04Liv Albert?

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• 33:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, and e- even the Amores, some of them are very off the topic of love.

• 33:59Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I haven't read them.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  They're worth, they're worth a read, they're worth a read. Um, I mean, Book Two in particular is the main one I've studied. And in that, you, you have, um, a couple of like diptychs, pairs of poems where there's one where he's saying to his mistress, you know, I, I swear on my life and on all the gods that I haven't cheated on you with your hairdresser, who would have been a slave woman. And then the next poem is him being directed to the slave woman, being like, how, how could you give it away, you idiot? Like really laying into her. And you know, it's, it's just utter silliness. But then once you actually read it, you know, again and again, he then goes into quite, he like explicitly threatens her at the end.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  And there's this underlying awareness of his higher status, as much as he kind of pretends that he's at the mercy of these two women. He's actually, you know, by the end of those two poems, he's got them both kind of under his thumb. Um, and in the middle of, yeah.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  In the middle of Book Two of the Amores, um, we have another diptych where his, his mistress Corinna has an abortion. And he gets really angry at her because of how ill it makes her. Um, and then we get the sense in the second poem that she's feeling a bit better now and he's ready to go on a moral tirade at her. About how it's unnatural, she's deprived the world of the potential for more of it, is actually quite a large part of the argument. So yeah, we, we call them love poems. And I mean, some of them are more straightforward, but yeah. It's anything to do with relationship poems, basically. Rather than just like, you know, typical love poetry.

• 35:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I think we need to remove the word love, uh, from that. That's, that's horrifying. Don't make me hate you completely, Ovid. My god.

• 35:52Liv Albert?

  No, it's, that's, that's fascinating and dark. Having really primarily read The Met, I just think it's so interesting to see it this way because I really, I do love The Met, and so I really have notoriously talked about loving Ovid. Um, and I think even probably when I read The Ars, I was just like, I don't know, I kind of have to trust and hope that he's being tongue in cheek and being satirical. Um, but hearing about the Amores, I feel like maybe, maybe it's pretty legit. Like that seems like kind of how he thinks.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  I mean, obviously like, and it is worth, you know, noted that I'm picking out the, the

• 36:26Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  fun or inflammatory ones. He, he does have some nice stuff in there as well. Um,

• 36:31Liv Albert?

  For sure, but it's like, well, he still said the bad.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  The horrible stuff as well.

• 36:35Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. And does it, does it, you know, the fact that large parts of it are more straightforward and, and nice love poetry, does that actually kind of forgive Ovid of, of the bits where he's talking about beating his girlfriend or cheating on her with her slave girl and stuff like that?

• 36:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's the thing. It does not. Uh, and so it's really okay to cherry pick the bad stuff for a conversation like this, but also because like, yeah, I mean, I think, I think there's a, a, a very strong mindset from certain groups of people that might suggest that like, oh, you can't judge somebody by only like one section of their work or whatever, but it's like, and that's fine too, but you also can't pretend that they didn't say that.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 37:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:17Liv Albert?

  He still said all of this, so here we are.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And, and it, you know, it's part of what makes him kind of such an interesting guy to, to look at, such a, you know, an interesting writer and an interesting historical figure is trying to work out, like you said, I, I do believe that the Ars, the Ars reads largely as, as kind of tongue in cheek. And that's the way that like, like you said, like I like to read it.

• 37:44Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Uh, I kind of, I, I always want these more hopeful readings of these things. And that's why I, I have really enjoyed turning back to The Met this term whilst teaching it is because I'm able to see Ovid in a nicer light than what I normally do. And remember that like, not only is he one of the most talented, you know, writers. In the Latin language, he also has a s- some inexplicable understanding of lived. Like female experience, lived experience of victims and of people of kind of um. In the metamorphoses, the the figures whose gender is kind of confused by the narrative. Or or who kind of either changed their gender or have it changed for them, it's.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  You know, he's he's got some really interesting insight into these things. I'd love to know what was going on there. Um, equally, there's an argument that he's just a bit of a deviant and just wants to talk about anything to do with sex. And and that's kind of what we get through his love poetry, I guess.

• 38:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  And yeah, there's something that I was thinking about is, do we call it love poetry? Because I mean, the Oz Amatoria, I would argue, is more sex poetry. It's about. How to attain kind of casual affairs for the most part. I mean, he talks about keeping a lover. Um, in in book two, but largely it's it's based off of, you know, maintaining access to the girl. Keeping her interested, um, you know, leading her on a bit with. False promises, promising her gifts but never actually delivering them, because once you've given her the gift, she can just run off with it. So you have to keep stringing her along. Um, equally, you know, let her know that she's got potential rivals that you're wanted around town.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  But not, don't ever let her catch you in the act, you know, he he kind of prescribes this very, walking a very fine line. Um, which I just don't believe is the way that you would treat someone that you were like actually courting, I guess.

• 39:44Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:45Speaker 02

  Or you'd like to think again.

• 39:48Liv Albert?

  No, and I think that that's, yeah, again, what's what like screams modern pick-up artist. You know, is it like, it's not about finding affection and like a relationship. It is about like, I don't want to say tricking, but it is, you know, ultimately, a lot of it is like tricking a woman, but it's but it's also just that like. It's about control, right? Like, it is about, it's about a man having control over not only a woman, but like the situation entirely. Like his, yeah, I I I mean. It's misogynistic at its like core, right? It's about subjugating women, but like specifically for sex.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's, there's a really interesting kind of string of argument um in scholarship that um that the arts amatoria isn't so much about finding a girlfriend, it's about uh being able to have sex with prostitutes without paying.

• 40:45Liv Albert?

  Oh my god.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  Which again, you know, so some of these arguments are more illustrative of the, the wide range of things we've got. I'm not sure how convinced I am by it, but it does kind of make sense. He has, he has a lot of focus on money. He talks a lot about gifts and exchange of kind of sex for goods, sex for money. Um, don't ever meet up with your girlfriend on her birthday because you'll end up having to buy her a present, like stuff like that. There's, he's really fixated on this idea of kind of exchange, I guess.

• 41:18Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Which is just, yeah, absolutely fascinating.

• 41:23Liv Albert?

  Wow.

• 41:26Liv Albert?

  It's, yeah, oh my god, I, it really, yeah, it, it screams not even just modern pick up artists, but like a, a very large subset of modern dating.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:39Liv Albert?

  Like, just dating and like, I think, you know, that rightfully says how dark it, it can be to, to date in the 21st century.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:48Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it really just kind of generally screams sort of

• 41:53Liv Albert?

  a, a certain type of, of man and like the way they might just talk to their friends. Just even just that, that really specific thing of not seeing a girl on her birthday.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:04Liv Albert?

  Oh my god, bending over backwards to like not do one tiny nice thing. Like, it's what a mentality, it's wild.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, he he lists um he lists a few a few days when yeah where you shouldn't see her and it's various feasts and and festivals as well where

• 42:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  you would be expected to spend money. And then he suggests in particular taking her on a walk through town or the market on like the Sabbath where a lot of the shops will be closed and things like that like he's he's really picky. It's I think, you know, whether whether you buy into the idea that this is actually about how to exploit prostitutes, which is a much more serious reading, or whether you think it is more just about you know, women in general. I think that the crux of it is is it's about how to get as much by giving as little. And that is the kind of overarching theme throughout the Ars Amatoria. Um, which interestingly, I I'm a struggle to find as such a strain in book three aimed at the women, I guess, interestingly, but unsurprisingly.

• 43:07Speaker 02

  Um, his, yeah, his advice to women seems to be a lot more kind of surface level. Whereas for the men, there's a lot more, I don't know, deception involved, but then also a lot of talking about women as deceptive.

• 43:21Liv Albert?

  Right. So it's their it's their fault. Yeah.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:25Liv Albert?

  Of course, obviously, obviously, it's women's fault. Yeah, I mean, it just makes me think of like, even just the number of of TV shows that, I mean, I think probably not so much recently, but I'm old enough to remember the nineties and the two thousands and like the early two thousands were a very dark time. And, you know, like, the number of TV shows that would just make a joke about like, oh, well, like it's too close to Valentine's Day to get a girlfriend. Like, you've got to wait until after. And it's like, if you really break that down, it's like why? Like, okay, you're you just, if you like a girl, you really want that badly not to like buy her something like I just

• 44:04Liv Albert?

  it's utterly wild to me. And yeah, it just screams this idea that like, we've just really been dealing with this for so long. And it's so absurd. It's

• 44:17Liv Albert?

  I'm just blown away that the world continues to exist in the way that it does. How are we still here?

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's it's just one of those texts that, I mean, I almost hope that that one day we won't relate to it as much.

• 44:34Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  That there's something, something about the way that Ovid writes as well, whether he's being, you know, in in texts where he's more serious than where he is. And, you know, this one, I I do kind of see the argument that this is a bit of a parody of more serious didactic poetry and that he is kind of just poking fun. He's like, well, if I'm gonna write a didactic poem, I'm gonna do it in elegiac meter because that's what I'm comfortable in. And I'm going to, you know, talk about love because that's what I'm comfortable talking about. Um, and and either way, I think Ovid as a as a writer throughout all of his work, just there's something very human about him, which is what I think, and I know it's probably just a bit like wishy washy, but like, that's what I think

• 45:15Speaker 02

  gives him such an enduring influence, I guess, why we keep coming back to him and people are interested in all the different types of his poetry and and interested in in him for completely different reasons. Um, and yeah, mine just happened to be, I guess, kind of a dark fascination with with whatever's going on in his strange little brain.

• 45:36Liv Albert?

  I mean, yeah, I'm equally interested. It's like, it's one of those things that I would much more, I would enjoy much more fully if it, you know, wasn't so relevant. Like, I would love to look back and be like, oh, wow. Like, man, people used to think that way. That's crazy. I'd love to read up about it. And instead, I'm like, oh, my God, people still think this way. Holy shit. And like, doesn't change how interesting it is from the Ovid perspective, but it makes it a lot more frustrating.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:03Liv Albert?

  But I would love to know more about, um, part three, like, uh, book three, when he's like directing stuff to women because, I mean, what little you've said is wild. Uh, so yeah, I'd love, I'd love to hear more about what wacky things he tells us to do.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, he he opens it, um, By kind of saying, I've armed, it talks about um the Amazons, I think it's I've armed Greeks against Amazons. And now it's time to arm you against Penthelesaia. It's, I think I've said that right. Um. So again, love is, love is warfare, love is a game, you know, this is, these are really common things. I mean, love as war is, is common all the way throughout. I'm just finding, yeah. I've armed Greeks against Amazons, now I must fashion weapons for Penthelesaia and her girls. A well-matched fight is best with victory granted through the favour of kind Venus and Venus, Venus's earth girdling son.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  So he's basically saying it's, it's not fair for women to go into this battle unarmed. So, you know, he's gonna do them the favour of, of giving them some tips. How nice of him. Yeah, he's just lovely. Yeah. He kind of immediately talks about like, he, he then suggests that there's this kind of aside or interruption of like, why would you do that? Either from, I think it's from the other men.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I hear you ask, so why, basically, why betray a fold of sheep to the she-wolf, I hear you ask, like, you know, there's a lot of hunter and hunted, uh, prey and predator analogies, yeah, yeah. Um. And he's basically saying like, don't, don't base your judgement of all women on certain women. And he gives the example of people like Clytemnestra, um, and then basically does like maybe a few lines, uh, like less than a dozen lines on good women, like Penelope. Then, um, goes, you know, men are more often deceivers than women. But here's a list of women who were deceivers, and then just goes off on this kind of tangent, so talks about Medea and people like that. Um, so yeah, it's.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  It's pretty clear right from the start that, I mean, to me, I believe that the men are either the intended audience secretly, or that they're meant to be there listening as well. Yeah. You know, yeah, and so he, what does he talk about? He largely keeps on with these kind of um lovers war and lovers a game metaphors, that he is making it fair by by doing this. So kind of him. Very much of it. Yeah. The main thing that I've drawn out through just like skimming back through the books in preparation for this is that the amount of focus on how to present yourself is astounding in book three compared to book one and book two. I mean, and I think it's in book one where he has maybe like

• 49:04Speaker 02

  ten or twenty lines about like um don't over prune yourself, this directed at the men. Um, he talks about don't pummel your legs until they're smooth, don't curl your hair. Do you think that Theseus would have done that? You know? Just, just all of this stuff about like, no one wants a man who's over pruned, but equally uh make sure that um that you don't have nose hairs and bad breath. And like, these are literally the things that he lists um of kind of and he talks about a male stench, which I just think is hilarious.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  And and that's kind of the extent of of the advice towards men about about how to present themselves. He he has a little bit about, yeah, make make sure your shoes fit and your toga fits. You know, so you don't look like a slop. Uh equally, don't overdo it. So, yeah, do the basics, be hygienic, wear clothes that fit you. And that's about it for blokes. And then, yeah, we we look at the women and it's just, it's just constant. Yeah. Um, yeah, he's he has a lot of kind of nature metaphors as well about women are plants, or not women are plants, but you know, um he says about taking care of yourself and and says that um you get the best vintage from well cared for grapes.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  And things like that, just like, take care of yourself and you're gonna produce the best. What, you know, appearance or the best sex, what, what is he actually getting at there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, he, he, um, he talks a lot. About, um, speci- speci- specifies hair, makeup, clothes. Um, and also not to let a man seeing you, see you kind of in the process of getting ready.

• 50:50Speaker 02

  Talks about how, um.

• 50:50Liv Albert?

  Well, sure, yeah, you can't give away the deception.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah, yeah. And he says, like, one time, he, he made the mistake of going into a girl's bedroom while she was putting her wig on. And she had it on backwards because she'd rushed and he, you know, couldn't ever look at her the same way. Things like that. He, he talks about, um, certain things that girls should train themselves to do well. So, um. Singing and dancing are all very charming. Um, talks about things to avoid. So, yeah, he's like. His kind of overarching advice to women is know yourself. But that's kind of meant in the sense of know your faults and avoid showing them. You know, things like if you've got big teeth, don't laugh really wide.

• 51:36Speaker 02

  And just like really nasty stuff like that. Um. I'm trying to find the other bits, please go.

• 51:43Liv Albert?

  Horrifying, like.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:46Liv Albert?

  I also love him using the idea, the, the example of Theseus as like.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:52Liv Albert?

  The correct manly man, like of all the heroes, like I think you did something really specific by selecting that one.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Um, and so towards the end of book three, he goes on, he has like a short. Kind of mythological, um, I guess aside, um, where he tells the story of Procris and Cephalus.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  And then once he's finished that, he then goes into the list of the sex positions. So it's all a bit like, it it's sometimes in the Rs, it feels like he's just either trying to meet like a word count. Or really wanting to show what he can do, you know, here's here's a story as I would tell it in the metamorphoses, but this time it's in elegiacs. And he'll just do a hundred lines of like a mythological disgusts, basically. Um, I mean, there's some quite convincing arguments, but they're not actually like meant to be read as. Bits outside of the text, that they are actually informative to the text, they are important. But kind of for the purposes of of something like this, it's easy to just skip over them.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  And then, yeah, after he's done kind of telling their story, which the moral is um to him. Is to uh try not to fall too quickly into distrust of your male partner.

• 53:16Liv Albert?

  Oh, so it's progress's fault.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, and and then it just, yeah. Goes straight into, uh, how many lines do we have here, like thirty lines of. If you look this way, you're better viewed this way during sex. If you if you look this way, you're better doing this. Gives some mythological examples, which is always helpful, you know.

• 53:39Liv Albert?

  Oh my god.

• 53:40Speaker 02

  He imagines um Andromache and people like that in bed. And then um ends it by saying, uh, after the pleasures of sex, like, don't. Kind of rush too quickly to ask for a gift. Because it'll it'll just scare him off. And then equally, don't open the bedroom bedroom windows. Much of your body is better left unseen. And that's how he kind of ends it. So, I mean, there's this constant, I think. We don't get like really any advice to neg women in book one and book two. It's all about how to take women's faults and turn them into something really like.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  It says something about like if she's skeletal, call her svelte. If she's a bit chubby, call her like, I don't know, it said like. Bouncing or something like that, like use use nice synonyms essentially.

• 54:34Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  But then in book three, which, you know, what would a female reader make of this? And what do we as modern female readers make of this that like? He's kind of just saying like, your body's not great, here's how to do the best with it. Do we think that?

• 54:47Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 54:48Speaker 02

  Book three is actually designed to further his kind of erotic project of book one and book two, which is the reading that I kind of subscribe to. Is that whilst I don't believe it's exclusively aimed at women, I believe that he wanted women to read this and that actually. He's making them more susceptible to the kind of tricks of the trade that he is advising to men in books one and book two.

• 55:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and it it almost sounds like he's also, you know, he wants them both to read it, but he also wants the women. Who are reading it because they should to know that the men are reading it too.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:25Liv Albert?

  Like it's clear that it's not like it's it it's not just for you because you know, the men are obviously more important in this. Scenario. So like, you should know that I'm not telling you any secrets that they are not allowed to know.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, because I mean, within the first few lines of of this book, he's got that, you know. Why are you, why are you giving them secrets? And it says, you ask, like, who's this you? It's clearly not the women. It's it's the the men to whom he, yeah, to whom he directs the first couple of books. Um, and like, just go back to the start of book one, he opens it in quite an interesting way. It's like. If there's anyone in Rome who is not like adept in love, let him read my book and like results are guaranteed. And I just find that really interesting, this this kind of, I guess, the difference in the way that he directs it towards the men and the women. Book two, we don't get it as much because it's seen as quite a continuation of book one. He's kind of like, right, now on to the next topic, just picks up where he left off.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  But yeah, book three, he has to re-figure it and it's very clear that the men are there. He's not hiding the fact that his his male audience is still present.

• 56:32Liv Albert?

  Yeah, no, it's important that the women know the men know because.

• 56:38Liv Albert?

  I mean, it's just, yeah, it adds to the level of gross where it's like, okay, well, I'm telling you to do this stuff, but the men know that I've told you this, which means you're at fault. If, you know, you are look a certain way and you don't position yourself in that ascribed way, because they know that I've told you.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:59Liv Albert?

  So it's like, yeah, like this extra level of horror.

• 57:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:05Liv Albert?

  Just like, no, no, like you best listen to me because the men are watching like.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Yes, kind of do, do as you're told, essentially.

• 57:15Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 57:15Speaker 02

  It's, it's really interesting because, yeah, he frames it with the, you know, with all these kind of war metaphors at the start as like, almost empowering the women, he's giving them equal arms as the men. But I mean, arguably, he, they've got like half as many lines dedicated to them. Nowhere near as in depth, it's, it's a lot more about how to kind of present yourself in kind of a sexy way and, and an attractive, desirable way. Um, and how not to be gross, whereas for the men, it's, it's a lot more specific. Um, and there are a couple of points in the first couple of books that I, I wanted to draw on because we're kind of, I felt like we've like,

• 57:55Speaker 02

  talked about the grossness of the first couple of books. Um, but yeah, if it's okay, I wanted to get into just a couple of those episodes, just to really like, make it clear what we're talking about when we're saying that it's gross and it's horrible. So, um, I mean, the first one that I picked up on is, is very quick in book one. Um, and it's probably the most like commonly known bit of grossness in the Ars Amatoria is, um, he starts to talk about where to find a girl. So how to find a girl that suits your fancy. And he's like, you won't, you won't, you know, be remiss in Rome, there's plenty of girls. Talks about all the different ages and types of girls that you can find in Rome.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  And then, um, says, here are some places you can meet girls and his main place that he prescribes is the theater.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  And his example of why the theatre is a great place to pick up women is the Rape of the Sabine Women. Where Romulus put on this um like fake, well like a spectacle to. Uh I think the the a kind of, I don't know, the the surface level idea of it was. Um to get the Sabines down to Rome and and create some kind of peace with them. Um but obviously there was this secret plan that they would kill all of the Sabine men. And rape all of the Sabine women and take them as wives because, you know, they'd set up this wonderful city of Rome, um but they didn't have any women or not enough women.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  So they decided to just steal some from the neighbouring tribes. Um and I think the the backstory is that they'd had like um. They tried to create some kind of marriage treaty and the Sabines had turned it down. And so they were like, oh, okay, as recompense, come along to these games that we're gonna put on. And yeah, Ovid just then he says the theatre is a great place to meet women. Um and, you know, Romulus set this precedent. When he gave the secret signal and then describes, he just goes into this kind of. Yeah, this this is not even the side. He he goes through quite a. Almost metamorphoses-esque description of the Rape of the Sabine Women. Wow. Talks about um.

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  You know, all of the different ways that they showed their their panic and their fear, and he's very aware of their fear. The same way that he is in the Metamorphoses. Yeah. Um but and he then talks about how um many of them managed to make panic like sexy. He thinks that he just, he discusses them having like, some of them went pale, some of them blushed, some of them ripped their hair and it went all frenzied and that was really attractive. So he he's kind of. Touching on the the real severity and the horror of the rape of the Sabine women.

• 1:00:44Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  But then being like, and that's why the theatre is a great place to meet women. And then you just move on.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  It it's insane. Yeah.

• 1:00:52Liv Albert?

  I just, I mean, one, I know if this is a podcast, but I need everyone to know that my face uh looks absurd for a long time, but. I just, like, for one, it never ceases to amaze me that Rome wrote that into their founding mythology. And I think.

• 1:01:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:08Liv Albert?

  As a as a lover of Greece, I think it says a lot. Uh, like, for all Theseus was a piece of shit. Uh, they did not write a story like that into their mythology. Um, but aside from that, like, that is wild. That is.

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:25Liv Albert?

  Especially compared compared to the Met.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Liv Albert?

  We feel for the women in that.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:32Liv Albert?

  It's making me not so much.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And it's just, it's just a baffling kind of like editorial choice to be like, you know. Because he doesn't give many examples for the others. He doesn't give historical precedence for the other places that he says are great for meeting women, you know, the promenades and. He he specifies like um a few different like landmarks that are great places to pick up women. And they're all landmarks dedicated to Augustus's family. So people read that as a bit of a dig, um, you know, I'll meet them at like, um. Oh, like, it's like Octavia's Colonnade or whatever. Um. And that's kind of it. And then he does the theatre, goes off on this like fifty page, fifty line.

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  You know, excursus about.

• 1:02:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  The rape of the Sabine women in extreme detail. And then he goes, don't forget the races. The races are also a great place to pick up women. Um, but with the races, he talks about how the seating is really confined and it's a, you know.

• 1:02:32Liv Albert?

  This is what I remember.

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  They they can't escape. Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, you know, it it facilitates um physical contact and you think like, okay, if you left it there. Arguably a bit creepy, but maybe okay. And he's like, because she can't get away.

• 1:02:46Speaker 02

  And it just, yeah. But you're not helping yourself of it.

• 1:02:51Liv Albert?

  No. Okay, this, I meant to ask this earlier, but you've really set it up now with the Augustus reference. Where does this fall in his exile? Yeah, because he was exiled by Augustus, right? And so there's, I know there's a lot of debate about like, whether even the Met is written kind of as a dig to Augustus and like, kind of how he felt about him. So do you know where, where these poems like, fall into that timeline?

• 1:03:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it's, it's definitely pre-exile. Um, the dating is, it's around like zero between like, 2 BCE and 2 CE essentially, from, from what I know. Um, yeah, so, so we've got that before his exile. I think the Met is usually dated to around like, 8 CE. Um, so this, this kind of predates that. Although, that's not to say that he wasn't working on the Met at the same time, because it's, I mean, it's 15 books long. It probably took him a very long time. Um, and you know, arguably, you could see like, the, the beginnings of the Met here with these mythological excursences that he goes on. Um, so yeah, the, the big thing

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  about Ovid's exile, um, in the Tristia, I believe, or Ex pontis, one of his pieces of exile poetry, he claims that he was exiled for what he calls a carmen et error, so a poem and a mistake. Um, and people take the carmen usually to be the Ars Amatoria. Um, they believe that, you know, with Augustus's moral laws about adultery and the protection of the family, Ovid's kind of prescribing casual sex, promoting adultery, all of this stuff is, it just doesn't sit well with what Augustus is trying to put forward. Um, you know, really trying to protect the

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  Roman family and ensure that the elites were reproducing at the right rate. Um, Ovid is essentially sticking his fingers up to that, whether on purpose or not. So yeah, I think, I think, like you say, it's very debated, um, what he was exiled for. We don't know what the error was either, the mistake. Um. There's a suggestion, which I find quite convincing, that he got himself involved with someone in the Julian family. And, you know, maybe was involved in some kind of adultery within the imperial family. So that, that would be a pretty good reason to exile him. Yeah. But as far as I know, his wife goes with him to exile as well. So who knows? Um, not to say that he wouldn't cheat on his wife, you know, from his poetry.

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  Sounds like he would. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, that's, that's kind of the, the general consensus, if we can call it a consensus, is that. Right. Um, usually it's argued that the, if there is a Carmen, a so, a poem which was responsible for his exile, it's got to be the Ozamatoria. And if there was a mistake, it's likely to be something that would be a personal slight to Augustus. Um, you know, how much truth there is in that, we, we don't know. And again, it comes from Ovid's own kind of autobiographical, in inverted commas, writing. So how much he, he would, yeah, exaggerate or try and, you know, it would, it would be a really good self-promotion technique to say. Yeah.

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  Cause he, it maybe he just made a mistake and then was like, I'm going to say it was one of my poems as well. And then people are going to be fixated on it for two thousand years. Cause he was the type of poet who thought forward and, you know, the metamorphoses, he's like, I've sealed myself into the literary canon now. And obviously he's lucky that. And he's not wrong. Yeah.

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• 1:07:31Speaker 02

  He's lucky that, you know, his work got preserved in manuscripts. I mean, we've lost his Medea, which is really tragic, but most of his work survives.

• 1:07:39Liv Albert?

  I was just gonna say, like, just even hearing you reference Medea earlier, I mean, I've always been fascinated by the fact that he had a Medea that we don't have and like, what was that like? But, you know, from my love of the Met, I've always been drawn towards the idea that his Medea could be, you know, in the vein of, I mean, of the others, right? The ones that do survive because both Euripides and Seneca tend to be fairly sympathetic to her plight.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:11Liv Albert?

  And now I wonder, now I wonder if it would just be like, this like massive pro-Jason, like, Creusa didn't deserve it, kind of. Like, I'm so curious.

• 1:08:22Speaker 02

  I know. It's such a travesty. It's one of those things that you hope will just show up one day in one of these old, you know, rubbish dumps where they just discover stuff. But yeah.

• 1:08:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:32Speaker 02

  I mean, again, I'd like to think that, yeah, that that he would, you know, be part of the, like, justice for Medea team.

• 1:08:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:41Speaker 02

  I think that, yeah, the, the poetry like that where arguably he's taking it more seriously. So, you know, that would be a, I guess, a play of sorts.

• 1:08:53Speaker 02

  Or even if he was telling it in the same way as the Met, I do believe that he has a more serious tone in those, even though he's still himself and he's still a bit jovial. And he is always, you know, got a bit of tongue in cheek. I think that he's capable of being a serious writer. And I like to think that in Medea, he probably would do that. I think that The Isles is the example, the biggest example we have of this just absolute absurdity. I feel like I keep calling it silliness, which is quite reductive. It's just a word that comes to mind. But yeah, it's absolutely absurd.

• 1:09:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's

• 1:09:27Liv Albert?

  It is kind of comforting to call it silly, though, too.

• 1:09:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:31Liv Albert?

  Like, I think we have to be reductive because that's like, I think that's actually almost important.

• 1:09:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:38Liv Albert?

  Because make it shouldn't be taken seriously at all. It is silly. Like, that's, I think, a good thing to emphasize.

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:46Liv Albert?

  But, yeah, like what you're saying, like, he can be very serious in the Met. I mean, particularly in the Medea episodes of the Met, he's quite serious. Makes me think of Prochny and Philomela.

• 1:09:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57Liv Albert?

  Where he is incredibly serious, like, that is a traumatic story and he tells it like a horror show.

• 1:10:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:04Liv Albert?

  So it is so interesting, then, to to turn to this work and and see sort of this other side. Because, yeah, I mean, he was he was very capable of serious poetry and serious storytelling.

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's interesting that you bring up, yeah, Prochny and Philomela, because it's it's one that I've been doing in these lessons with about the Met. And well, about about kind of women in ancient literature. And the example from the Met that we've used is that story. And teaching that is really interesting. Um, but people come at it from completely different angles as well. Like, um, some people read it as purely just horrific. And that's because he's a man and he's taking pleasure in showing this horrible event. And others see him as really, really sympathetic towards Philomela. And and, you know, I mean, through this, it's not the type of poem or kind of episode that I think I would have revisited of my own accord, really.

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  And actually, going back through it and really thinking about her, I think that she is such an interesting character. And of its portrayal of her is really interesting because she kind of maintains her femininity throughout everything that happens to her. A lot of his, especially his rape victims, um, well, barely any of them get revenge at all. Most of them are metamorphosed as part of like a a way of saving them in inverted commas. Um. And yeah, the fact that she she gets revenge revenge, but arguably isn't really masculinised in her strength. She still maintains this real femininity. And that was something that a lot of people have like, you know, talking about it that that they've resonated with is like.

• 1:11:41Speaker 02

  Rarely do you get ancient women who are strong without also being kind of masculine. If you think of like.

• 1:11:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Atalanta and figures like that who are like, I'm gonna remain virginal. In a way where I compete with men so that they can't like win me over. Um, yeah, she's she's a really interesting character and it's it's so difficult to, yeah, to reconcile Ovid in episodes like that. And Ovid, the Ovid that's written this this piece where, yeah, he's talking about the Sabine rape and saying like. That's why you should go to the theatre and, you know, this is funny. And and I mean, I, you can see the same kind of. Seriousness and understanding of the horror of these assaults in that short passage about the Sabine rape.

• 1:12:28Speaker 02

  But the context that he sits it in is completely just, it's just, yeah, a huge juxtaposition. Um, and he does, yeah, the, I think book one is the the most rife with this kind of stuff. So a bit later on, um. He he says, it's all right to use force. Force of that sort goes down well with the girls. They love to yield what um what they'd love to yield, they'd often rather have stolen. So this is one of the quotes that, again, you know, we talk about him being kind of absurd and that as kind of. I guess I don't want to draw too much of a distinction between like learned readers and like layman readers.

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  Because I I believe that everyone should be able to access this poetry and understand it. But like, surely you have to have some kind of deliberate blinkers on. To read that and be like, cool, I'm gonna apply that to my life now. But that's what's happening. And that's why these texts are so important to keep going back to is because. Someone has read that and gone, right, so forceful sex is okay, especially to the point where it's basically rape. Although I don't believe he uses the word rape. The translation I have um says. Yeah, the audacity of near rape is a compliment.

• 1:13:40Liv Albert?

  Well, that sounds like he is picking, I don't even know what the word I want, but he is, yeah, picking and choosing what he's calling rape, because literally, if you, I mean, you've just described rape. You can't just then call it near rape and say, well, I didn't, I didn't say rape. Like, well, if you describe non-consensual sex, I'm sorry to tell you, that's what it is.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:14:01Liv Albert?

  Reminds me of, like, obviously, the point of my podcast is to talk about how most of Greek mythology involves assault, and we've not been taught that it is assault for like, the last hundreds of years. But the number of times that I have been told that like, you know, because, say, the story of, you know what, I'll say the story of,

• 1:14:24Liv Albert?

  of say Europa, right? Like, I don't think that one's, I think, no, it is often described as the rape of Europa.

• 1:14:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:30Liv Albert?

  You know, like, these, these stories that we, we call that, we call it the rape of a woman. But that, obviously, that terminology, you know, has been used for hundreds of years. And so people will come to me and they'll say like, oh, no, no, that's just an old word that meant abduction. And I just look at, like, I mean, obviously, I've never looked at these people, it's always online, but I just want to look them dead in the eye and be like, why do you think that is? Why do you think that the word for abduction used to be rape? Is it because that was the intention of the abduction? Like, get a grip.

• 1:15:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:07Liv Albert?

  That, that's the whole point. Like, you can't just say it wasn't rape just because you want it to not be. When you described it, what you described was a rape, what can I tell you? Like,

• 1:15:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:18Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's, oh, that's so, yeah.

• 1:15:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, that the only other point I had on, on this type of stuff that I just really wanted to draw out is a bit, a bit away from that side of things. Still in a similar vein, but not as explicitly about raping women, I guess. Something that he kind of preaches throughout is, is this idea of like, I guess, like a meritocracy of like, work hard enough at your pickup, pickup artistry and, you know, or work hard enough at your seduction, whatever we want to call it, you know, it's essentially. The same stuff that is in modern pick up artistry. Um, yeah, work hard enough and you will be able to win over any woman.

• 1:16:04Speaker 02

  And I think that that is like a really, I think this is actually almost the crux of the issue is that that is such a dangerous precedent. That Ovid is saying any woman can be won over. And this is what's dangerous about pick up artistry and how it links into incels is. People feel like they have a right. And that this is, you know, the, the, being told no means try again later.

• 1:16:28Liv Albert?

  That's exactly what I was just gonna say. Yeah, the no means try harder, like.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, and that this is what it is, they're saying like, he literally is like, be persistent. Uh, if she, if she says no, just try again another time or keep, keep persisting. Um, and he literally does prescribe just work harder, work hard enough and you can have any woman. And he talks about um, women's libidos being much stronger than men's. Um, which is a, a very interesting thing that I think has persisted quite. A lot through history and especially like female medicine as well, it's quite dangerous, this idea that like. Women, women are really lustful. Um, so yeah, he, he talks about the female libido being strong. Then talks about it being like equivalent to a kind of Minad style frenzy.

• 1:17:17Liv Albert?

  Oh my god.

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  And talks about his examples of female lust are all examples of incest and bestiality.

• 1:17:24Liv Albert?

  Oh, good.

• 1:17:24Speaker 02

  So he, he talks about like episodes from the Met, which is why I'm like really hesitant to talk about the dating because it's. It's just something that I'm not sure of and I feel like he's either written part of the Met at this point or is like. Published bits of it, I, I really don't know on that side of things.

• 1:17:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:41Speaker 02

  Um, but yeah, he's, he's talking about um, mirror. And her wanting to sleep with her father, he has another example of incest. Um, he talks about Passifay. And looking at the bull and being just overwhelmed with lust and like.

• 1:17:56Liv Albert?

  Oh god.

• 1:17:56Speaker 02

  He, he describes female lust, it, it perpetuates this idea which you still see today of like. Not only, it's it's kind of this use of um like kind of feminism against itself where they're like. Women have sexual agency, um but they're they're told not to talk about it by the patriarchy and that's bad. So what we have to do is decide for them what they want. And that's the level that's kind of been reached today. And actually, it's interesting to see this with Ovid, that he. He has a similar thing, but obviously just not quite as as conscious of itself, I guess, where he's saying, yeah, women are.

• 1:18:35Speaker 02

  Inherently lustful and sex crazed and therefore they will go for you if you try hard enough, like of course they will. No idea about exclusively lesbian women. I mean, I know that homosexuality wasn't conceived of in the same way in the ancient world, but like.

• 1:18:50Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  There would have been women who only wanted to sleep with women. There would have been asexual women.

• 1:18:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:55Speaker 02

  There's there's just this, yeah, this concept that like they must want you somehow. And I think, yeah, that's like, I guess, like the main point that I wanted to make about the kind of the dangers here. It's not all just. Cherry picking certain aspects of the text and putting it into this modern context, which is a huge issue. It's also, there is this rhetoric here, which I I believe has been continued. I don't believe that all of these people are using Ovid as. A direct source. I think that it's a continuation over, you know, thousands of years of this idea that, yeah. If you work hard enough, you'll be able to get what you want. And there's, yeah, no. Kind of concept of a a woman's right to say no and.

• 1:19:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:40Speaker 02

  A woman's, just the idea that women might not want to sleep with you, which is why you then get these disillusioned men. Who believe that they are involuntarily celibate because they're like, well, I'm trying.

• 1:19:51Liv Albert?

  Assholes.

• 1:19:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:53Liv Albert?

  Don't be an asshole. That's that's a number one solution for incels. Be not gross, like, god.

• 1:20:01Liv Albert?

  It reminds me of so much rhetoric from today where you know that these people aren't reading Ovid in most cases. It's just that this persists, like the idea of, you know, the guy who's mad because he's a nice guy and the girl keeps going for someone else. And it's like, hey dude, maybe you're not the fucking nice guy. Like you're not the arbiter of that. And then also this idea that like, now it makes me like, I, I watch a lot of like TikToks from like women who are happily proclaiming that they're single and child free because that is what I am and it's nice to like not be alone. And, and like the number of times that they'll reply to a man's comment where it's like, oh, you're gonna end up a, an old cat lady.

• 1:20:46Liv Albert?

  And the women are like, great. Do you think that's a threat? Like if the, if the decision is between, and it's, I, I realize I didn't even register the fact that I'm sitting here with my cat on my lap.

• 1:20:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:59Liv Albert?

  Had to pause that sentence. Pausing that sentence to deal with the fact that my cat won't leave me alone. But, but yeah, like this, it's like, okay, if I have to choose between a shitty man who, who is just gonna make my life more difficult or the complete freedom of living on my own with a loving little cat, like, oh, I'm so sorry. Like, yeah, I'm gonna be sad for the rest of my life because I don't have you at this asshole like in my life. Like it's this, this bizarre mentality that, that all women must, like, or just for, sure, like all straight women, let's even just go that far.

• 1:21:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:36Liv Albert?

  Like all straight women must want a man. That's the ultimate goal. And eventually they will get so tired of being single that they'll settle for a piece of shit. And it's like, I don't know how to tell you that being single is like, pretty great. Like, I don't answer to anybody and I do not need that to change unless the guy is amazing.

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:55Liv Albert?

  And guess what? They're mostly not and that's fine too.

• 1:21:59Speaker 02

  You know, it it really reminds me, it's literally something I saw today. Um, there's, you know, around this time of year in particular, I don't know if they do it in like, you know, North America as well, but in the UK, we have these reclaim the night marches where, um, especially as it starts to get darker because of uh like daylight savings. Women will all gather and just walk through the town and it's about, you know, we should feel safe walking at night.

• 1:22:21Liv Albert?

  Um, I wish we had that, but we don't.

• 1:22:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Um, there's one happening in Exeter at the end of this month, which is why it's kind of fresh in my mind. And they shared this, it was just a Twitter exchange. Um, and it was this guy saying, reasons why women are single. They walk too fast, they have their headphones on, they're rude when I try and talk to them. And it was like, someone had replied to it basically saying like, the three main ways that women present, like protect themselves from unwanted attention is by walking fast and wearing headphones and being abrupt.

• 1:22:52Liv Albert?

  So, so we're doing that on purpose.

• 1:22:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:54Liv Albert?

  That is intentional because we do not want to talk to you. I don't know how to tell you, like, that's not an accident.

• 1:23:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:04Liv Albert?

  But I really think that that's such a, it's such a good like way of understanding their mentality. Like a lot of the time, like obviously we're generalizing, obviously, but like. But again, like, I mean, if there's a, if there's a dude listening to my show of all shows who thinks that when I say this, I mean him specifically, then you know what? Probably I do. Because the good ones realize that I'm talking about the shitty ones.

• 1:23:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:25Liv Albert?

  Um.

• 1:23:26Speaker 02

  We're gonna get loads of not all men in the comments.

• 1:23:29Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine. It's like my entire show. Like, it's fine. This is not new. But like, yeah, this, this mentality that like, we must want a man and it is because, like, the, the reasons why we're single are stuff like that, walking too fast with headphones, like, oh, you must, you need to stop doing that because you want a man. It's like, that, yeah, they, they can't fathom that that's on purpose.

• 1:23:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:57Liv Albert?

  That's the whole point.

• 1:23:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:59Liv Albert?

  I walk with headphones on, so no one talks to me.

• 1:24:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:03Liv Albert?

  Like I hundred percent do that.

• 1:24:04Speaker 02

  Safety thing. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:05Liv Albert?

  Yes. Yeah. And also just like, I mean, safety, yes, absolutely. It's safety. Like, you know, uh, uh, I, I think it's so important that we like are so open about all the different things that women do to protect ourselves from men. But like, in addition to, it's also that, you know, nine times out of 10, if a dude talks to you on the street, he's being a creep. So even if I'm not feeling like explicitly unsafe, you know, like it's, it's light out, I'm in a crowd of people, whatever, like, I still want to avoid a creepy dude talking to me.

• 1:24:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:38Liv Albert?

  You know, like, that's still the point. Like, I think, you know, one of the last times that, that I had a guy try to like, you know, I'm walking around with my headphones in and, and like, you know, they like make a motion to you to like, take them out or whatever. And it's like, for me, which is not visible on this call, but like, for me, one of the, the things that men do most is to like, they think they're complimenting, like I'm covered in tattoos and, and they just like think they're complimenting and they're always fucking weird. And it's like, there, it's such a, it's a kind of similar mindset specifically tied to, I think, women with tattoos that like, the idea that, that I, that I got them and I, and I want men to talk to me about them. And like, that's

• 1:25:21Liv Albert?

  why I got tattoos. And I'm like, I can't assure you enough that like, these are not for you. I don't want to talk to you about them. I don't want you to compliment my ink. Like, you're always going to sound like a dumb ass. And it, and it's always dudes who aren't tattooed, because dudes who are tattooed get it. And you're like, I just, yeah, I find it, it's so entertaining to kind of navigate.

• 1:25:40Speaker 02

  You didn't go through hours of needles stabbing your skin and pay, you know, hundreds and potentially thousands of dollars to get this stuff on you for a guy to stop you in the street and be like, mm, cool ink.

• 1:25:53Liv Albert?

  Like honestly, and it was just the word tat. I just fucking hate the word tat more than anything.

• 1:25:58Speaker 02

  Oh, it's horrible.

• 1:25:59Liv Albert?

  Anyway, yeah, it's oh, I just the ways that this is just still so relevant is. I mean, I I knew, but it's still, my god, it's horrifying.

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, just to like, I guess, bring it back into a little bit, this is, you know, if we're talking about women out on the street. I don't know how much of that, you know, will end up on the on the cutting room floor, but the idea of like being able to walk around and not be bothered. Um, he he does talk about in his advice about, you know, how to how to get a woman. Approach her when she's out in her litter. So like her little walking group with her her kind of companions, the little guards that are keeping her safe. Um, make sure that you vary her pace so that sometimes you're ahead of her, sometimes you're behind her. Um, make sure that like whenever you can, you brush your hand against hers. And and that just reads as like stalkerish and and he he says like literally follow her down the promenades.

• 1:26:52Speaker 02

  If she goes for walks, make sure you know where her walking spots are, like stuff like this. It's just like, it's it's. Literally follow women, but also rub up against them as much as possible without seeing if they actually want that like. I think as a woman reading these texts, you're kind of just like, that really isn't good advice, because I mean, to not to give him credit, but I guess like. Certain bits of it are just interesting or seem to be about forming good relationships. It's, you know, it is like. Take care of her when she's ill, and then he'll finish that off with the seeds that you've sown will reap you a big reward in the future.

• 1:27:28Liv Albert?

  So you can't even be nice about this one nice thing.

• 1:27:31Speaker 02

  I was trying to give an example of him being nice and I just backed up, I just realized that wasn't a good example, but. There are there are bits and pieces where he gives advice that would actually be relatively useful. And obviously, those are ones that I haven't touched on because they're not as fun as well and as interesting and just inflammatory, you know. Um, but I I would never advise anyone to read this book and actually take any of it as advice. Because there is this undercurrent all the way through of. Just just persist and get access to the women at any at any cost essentially.

• 1:28:05Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I mean, that's true of all like of modern pick up artistry too, where it's like, this is not going to work. You have been conned into thinking that this will work.

• 1:28:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:14Liv Albert?

  And and that's simply not the case. It's horrific advice. What are you doing?

• 1:28:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And and with modern pick up artistry as well, there's this uh kind of even clearer idea to bring it back to like the the meritocracy and like if you work hard enough, you you get what you want. Not only is that in Ovid's work, it's more just like a dangerous precedent to set. But in modern pick up artistry, they will make them keep paying to come back. It's it's not only exploitative of the women that they approach, it's exploitative of the men who take part in these things. There's a really good piece um by, it's kind of a sociological text uh by Rachel O'Neill uh called Seduction, and she basically immersed herself in pick up artists' cultures in or like kind of

• 1:29:00Speaker 02

  seduction groups in London. Um so this book came out, I think, in twenty eighteen, so it was like for a couple of years before that. And she talks about like the the money side of it, that like they just they just keep paying to come back. And a lot of them end up really disillusioned by the end of it. And I think that that's where like pick up artistry on its own is pretty dangerous and creepy and weird. But once you then get these disillusioned guys who have had their heads filled with ideas about what they deserve because they've worked so hard and paid so much money, that's where I think that the real danger lies in all of this and that, yeah.

• 1:29:38Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:29:38Speaker 02

  That they can take an ancient text that certainly does have these elements in it and just present snippets of it as as evidence. It really gives people the the idea that what they're doing is right as well. Which is why I think it's it's so important to talk about these poems, especially as people who are reading them in a wider context, understanding the context that they were written in. And, you know, knowing that Ovid is rarely serious in in his love poetry, um and that, you know. Whether you, whether you, you know, buy into him just being like a fun little prankster or not, I think. There's this idea that people who aren't familiar with the context are just taking it for their own means.

• 1:30:22Speaker 02

  And yeah, that's, that's why I think it's really important that we, we keep talking about them. There's this suggestion that like. Should we teach the arts amatoria? It's like absolutely, we need to content warning loads of it. But I think it's really important that we are talking about it and understanding where these thought processes come from.

• 1:30:40Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. No, I mean, it makes me think of like the, the number of times that I have been told. That like I need to just stick to the mythology and not talk about the treatment of women. And I'm like. That's literally what I'm doing. It's that the mythology treats women like shit. And if we keep, yeah, like i- i- if we keep. Only taking in these, these versions that have been retold to. Wash over all of that and pretend as though all these women actually loved Zeus, even when he was the fucking swan like.

• 1:31:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:11Liv Albert?

  Like, like, that's what's ridiculous. Like what I'm doing is literally talking about the ancient sources exactly as they exist.

• 1:31:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:18Liv Albert?

  I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable. Like, that's how it is. And, and yeah, I mean, i- it is very applicable to Ovid. And yeah, I mean, for, for all that like. Yeah, I think it's pretty safe to say that he recognizes the absurdity in a lot of the hours. Like he is still saying it. It does still exist. Like, we can absolutely still talk about it. And it's the same, you know, like a lot of people hear me and they think that I, they're like, why do you talk about this if you hate mythology? And I'm like, I fucking love mythology. I just am still gonna talk about how it was awful to women. It's like, I'll still love Ovid and his Met and like. Be fascinated by him and register that the hours is gross and dangerous, especially today. But like. Yeah, I mean, we, we can have both.

• 1:32:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And like, we don't know what he was like as a person. And you know, I mean. I, I feel like it's kind of echoing what, um, I know you had, uh, Freddie Kimpton come on here. And something that he said really kind of resonated with me because I mean, we've. Studied together and we talk about Ovid quite a lot and we, we come at Ovid's work from completely opposite points of view as well in terms of. He's focusing on different poems to me. And I think, um, the, the thing that Freddie said that's really. Just important for the Rs as well as like all we have is the words. So, so, you know, uh, in terms of if we are to just reduce it to what we have written down.

• 1:32:40Speaker 02

  What we have written down is difficult and worth talking about. And that's kind of the, the crux of it, I guess, is just that.

• 1:32:49Speaker 02

  No matter whether we read it as meant to be kind of tongue in cheek, meant to be taken seriously. These words still have effect and it's, you know, a different reader can interpret them differently. And there are readers out there who are taking this at face value. And, and going out into the world and behaving in the way that Ovid says to behave. Which just, yeah, isn't the type of world that I kind of feel safe in, I guess.

• 1:33:15Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, and what you said earlier, um, you know, about how, uh, like one, yeah, like I, modern pickup artistry is a full, like they're scam artists. In the exact same breath that they are misogynist assholes, like.

• 1:33:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:28Liv Albert?

  Well, they're doing it dangerous for women, but it is also scamming men, like they are talented in their, or be just generally being horrific. But also like, uh, yeah, the, the mentality that it, um, that imbues that it, that it, that men think they deserve.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:43Liv Albert?

  Women and sex, like that's, that's the danger. And yeah, like, you know, if, if, if examining and talking about this ancient work. Can also like, you know, draw light on, on that that's still happening, that, that these, you know, ideas still exist and they're still disgusting and we, you know, still can like. Break down kind of what, what is going on there or, or, or just like enlighten people who, who aren't like that. You know, uh, about these works and, and like, allow them to kind of see it, um, for what it is, both absurd and, you know, and dark and twisted and. You know, like, I mean, uh, yeah, it's still, it, it's absolutely still valid also to, to, to study problematic works.

• 1:34:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:24Liv Albert?

  Like, as long as you recognize that they're problematic, like.

• 1:34:26Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah.

• 1:34:27Liv Albert?

  Like, uh, this isn't entirely the same, but I fucking love Madea. Like, I'm fine when she kills her children, because it's fictional and it's. And it's twenty five hundred years old and like, I can just still enjoy it, you know?

• 1:34:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:39Liv Albert?

  It, yeah, it's, I don't know, it's, it's interesting when, whenever. Any kind of ancient work comes under fire like that, or think about it in the opposite respect where where like the right wing conservatives are like, they're trying to cancel Homer. And you're like, oh, my God, get a fucking grip. Like, the the closest thing to ever even remotely attempting to like, stop studying something would be something that is outright dangerous like the ours. And even still, like, I think we should still study it.

• 1:35:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:04Liv Albert?

  Like, I mean, God, the idea that anyone's trying to cancel Homer, get a grip.

• 1:35:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's it is ridiculous. I think, yeah, with with the whole, you know, if if we were never to study texts that were problematic, classics and ancient history as a discipline would be dead. It would be gone.

• 1:35:19Liv Albert?

  All literature would be dead.

• 1:35:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:21Liv Albert?

  Like, I have an English degree, did a double major. I can tell you that studying English Lit is just as problematic as studying classics.

• 1:35:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You find out, you know, that the guys that were writing all of these amazing pieces of literature are just absolute dicks in their personal lives.

• 1:35:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:35:44Liv Albert?

  Oh, it's just, yeah, oh, my God, this, I knew this conversation would be good, but it's fucking fascinating. It's so gross. Like, I do love, though, to to laugh at it in this way and to point out the absurdity. I do think, like you're saying, like, it is so beneficial, but also deeply enjoyable.

• 1:36:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Really, really fun to just like, yeah, to have a bit of time to talk about it in this way, because it's it's difficult when you're studying something like the ours to to get across this kind of, I mean, you know, I I feel like in terms of scholarly views, I have sat very much on the fence throughout this whole thing. And that is where I am at the moment is like, I'm not sure whether I read of it as sincere or tongue in cheek. And that's the really good kind of thing about, I guess, this format is that I don't need to know. I I haven't really written all that much about the ours because I just struggle with it too much. I'm like, I'm going to disagree with myself in two years' time. So, yeah, it's it's really nice to have the opportunity to just to just chat about it and talk about how absolutely fucking insane it is.

• 1:36:48Liv Albert?

  Well, yeah, because like, yeah, I mean, no matter which side you fall on. Of that question, it's still fucking absurd. So this conversation is just as valid regardless of of what opinion you might form or then change two years later or whatever, because the, like you said, or like Freddie said on my that past episode, like, the words are what we have. And the words are absurd and silly in that way, where I think it is kind of nice to be reductive, because it is so just over the top ridiculous.

• 1:37:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:20Liv Albert?

  But yeah, I mean, regardless of what Ovid did or did not mean, or of whether he was a cool guy, or a piece of shit, or somewhere in the middle, like regardless of any of that, he wrote this, and here we are. So this is what he's got.

• 1:37:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, absolutely.

• 1:37:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's just, I, I love it. But clearly, like, you could talk about it forever, but we won't. But is there, do you want to share anything with my listeners in terms of reading more from you or following you anywhere? It's also fine if that's not something you want.

• 1:37:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I'm relatively active on, I was gonna say Twitter, X, Twitter, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, I feel like it's, yeah, it's like a form of protest to keep calling it Twitter.

• 1:38:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Exactly. Speaking of men who are pieces of shit, we're just gonna keep calling it Twitter.

• 1:38:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:13Liv Albert?

  So, yeah.

• 1:38:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I have, yeah, like, public Twitter and Instagram, both are Imogen underscore Briscoe. I mean, I'm not massively active on either in terms of posting, but I repost things that are to do with my work. So that's helpful. And I co-edit a magazine, which is free to access online. It's currently on a free version of WordPress. We're hoping we might be able to get some money together to, you know, make it ad-free eventually. But yeah, it's called Ekklesia Magazine. The kind of the idea behind it is it's something that myself and it was, well, one of my friends from my MA came up with this idea, kind of post MA.

• 1:38:53Speaker 02

  Because he was out of classics and missed it so much that he wanted to still be writing about it and still be involved in that world.

• 1:38:59Liv Albert?

  I know that feeling.

• 1:39:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:01Liv Albert?

  Why I have a podcast.

• 1:39:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. The, the, the whole ethos of it is like accessibility. So, um, it's always gonna be free to access, even if that means that it's on a bit of a, a, you know, an ad ridden platform at the moment. Um, also, we accept submissions from anyone regardless of level of, you know, academic achievement. We're, we're not looking for exclusively, you know, doctors, PhDs, things like that. We've got a couple on there just because obviously that's my kind of work circle. Um, but yeah, we publish on anything to do with the ancient world. So I've written a couple of pieces for that. Um, I've written one on a poet from Devon called Fiona Benson, who's done a book, um,

• 1:39:45Speaker 02

  it's, it's a lovely poetry anthology, but really hard hitting in places, um, where she kind of refigures a lot of stories from the Met and she recast Zeus as like a modern rapist. So in places, I mean, it's called Zeus, obviously it's Jupiter in the Met, but a lot of her sources are taken from the Met. So she has a, a kind of a Daphne episode and I O, um, and she kind of, it's kind of timeless, but like recontextualizes it a bit more modern. So basically the, the premise is that Zeus is on trial. Um, and we're seeing different pieces of evidence against him. It's, it's a brilliant, brilliant piece of work.

• 1:40:21Liv Albert?

  I don't know how I haven't heard of this.

• 1:40:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:22Liv Albert?

  This is like everything I want. Oh my God.

• 1:40:24Speaker 02

  So we, we've actually got two pieces published on that one piece of work because a couple of us are just absolutely obsessed with it. So yeah, I wrote something about, um, kind of this idea of timelessness in victimhood and mainly focusing on Fiona Benson. But I think that that idea is really applicable to the Met as well. Um, so yeah, that, that's the main thing to push is, you know, Elysia Magazine. We worked very hard on it. We've only been doing it for like seven months, so it's still a bit of a baby, but you know, any readership is, is brilliant for us. And then, yeah, we're, we're always looking for secondary editors, people to write for us, stuff like that. So, um, let me just double check what, because our hand. are different on Instagram and Twitter at the moment.

• 1:41:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, Ekklesia underscore magazine. So Ekklesia is in the Greek word for like a gathering, not ecclesiastical churches.

• 1:41:14Liv Albert?

  Great.

• 1:41:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then, yeah, on, on Twitter, it's Ekklesia underscore mag, just mag rather than magazine. Yeah, that's the main thing to promo. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:25Liv Albert?

  No, I'm so glad you have heard about that. I will. Yeah, I'll link to everything in the episode's description so people can find it, but I'm also just gonna go and follow.

• 1:41:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41:34Liv Albert?

  I will. This is exciting. I love learning about new things too, but I'm also always happy to, to promote that stuff. So.

• 1:41:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you so much. That's really lovely.

• 1:41:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah. No, I love that that exists. That's so great. Well, thank you so much for doing this. This was ridiculous amounts of fun.

• 1:41:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Like I said, it's just so nice to be able to, yeah, just, just talk about the absolute absurdity of this text and not in a kind of a lower pressure context, I'm not having to come to any big conclusions. It's lovely.

• 1:42:02Liv Albert?

  It's my favorite thing about this show. We're just gonna rant and ramble about the ancient world and like, and everyone loves to listen. So it's perfect.

• 1:42:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:42:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:27Liv Albert?

  Ha, nerds. Thank you so much for listening. As always, enormous thanks to Imogen for having this conversation. Like, not only is it a topic I so wanted to talk about more, but we just had so much fun, um, which is hard when you're talking about something utterly horrifying. But we did great together and I appreciate it. I can't tell you enough how horrifying some of the Ars Amatoria is, not least because of the ways it has inspired modern dangerous men.

• 1:42:58Liv Albert?

  Uh huh. But fortunately, when something is so utterly absurd, it's also seriously fun to make fun of. Just like the entire incel mentality. Maybe just don't be an asshole. Have you ever thought of that? Anyway, this episode was long enough, so I will just leave you by saying that you can find links to Imogen's social media that she mentioned in the episode's description, as well as the Ecclesia magazine, which seems very wonderful and cool. The more accessible ancient content, the better. So find links to everything in the description there. Let's talk about Myths Baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians, better known as the Assistant Producer. Laura Smith is

• 1:43:39Liv Albert?

  the Production Assistant and Audio Engineer. The podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Help me continue bringing you the world of Greek mythology and the ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron, where you will get to bonus episodes and more. And, and current patrons, I, I promise you will hear from me soon. It's been a time. Um, visit patreon.com/mysbaby or click the link in this episode's description. A reminder about my Patreon, it is primarily considered to be helping me with the free podcast. You do not get a lot of bonus content, and I will not pretend otherwise. I do not have the time. I am, I am perpetually drowning. But there is a lot of backed up bonus content, and if you want to help, you would be just

• 1:44:20Liv Albert?

  helping me produce, you know, two free episodes a week. I am Liv, and I love this shit.

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