Remedia Amoris

Remedia Amoris ('Love's Remedy' or 'The Cure for Love') is an 814-line poem in Latin by Roman poet Ovid, dated to about 2 AD.

If any lover has delight in his love, ... let him rejoice and sail on with favouring wind.

Love yields to business: be busy, and you will be safe.

In this companion poem to Ars Amatoria ('The Art of Love'), Ovid offers advice and strategies to avoid being hurt by love feelings, or to fall out of love, with a stoic overtone.

Quotes

• Siquis amat quod amare iuvat, feliciter ardens
    Gaudeat, et vento naviget ille suo.
  At siquis male fert indignae regna puellae,
    Ne pereat, nostrae sentiat artis opem.
  • Let him who loves, where love success may find,
    Spread all his sails before the prosp'rous wind;
    But let poor youths who female scorn endure,
    And hopeless burn, repair to me for cure.
    • Lines 13-16 (tr. Nahum Tate)
  • Variant translation: "If any lover has delight in his love, blest is his passion: let him rejoice and sail on with favouring wind. But if any endures the tyranny of an unworthy mistress, let him not perish, but learn the help my art can give." (J. H. Mozley)

• Principiis obsta; sero medicina paratur
  Cum mala per longas convaluere moras.
  • Resist beginnings; too late is the medicine prepared, when the disease has gained strength by long delay.
    • Lines 91–92 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

• Qui finem quaeris amoris,
  Cedit amor rebus; res age, tutus eris.
  • Love yields to business: be busy, and you will be safe.
    • Lines 143–144 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

• Auferimur cultu; gemmis auroque teguntur
    Omnia; pars minima est ipsa puella sui.
  • We are won by dress; all is concealed by gems and gold; a woman is the least part of herself.
    • Lines 343–344 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

• Successore novo vincitur omnis amor.
  • All love is vanquished by a succeeding love.
    • Line 462 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

• Qui nimium multis 'non amo' dicit, amat.
  • He who says o'er much "I love not" is in love.
    • Line 648 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

Classical and Foreign Quotations

W. Francis H. King, ed. Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904), nos. 273, 602, 817, 875, 2152, 2172, 2308, 2343, 2474, 2648, 2712, 2778, 2844, 2888

• Centum solatia curæ
  Et rus, et comites et via longa dabunt.
  • A hundred ways you'll find to soothe your care;
    Travel, companions, fields and country air.
    • 241.

• Dura aliquis præcepta vocet mea; dura fatemur
  Esse; sed, ut valeas, multa dolenda feres.
  • Hard precepts these, one says; I own they are:
    But health to gain much hardship must you bear.
    • 225.

• Forsitan hæc aliquis, nam sunt quoque, parva vocabit:
  Sed, que non prosunt singula, multa juvant.
  • Some perhaps will call these slight matters, and so they are; yet what is of little use by itself, when multiplied effects much,
    • 419. Power of small things. From the second line has been formed the Law Maxim—Quæ non valeant singula, juncta juvant, i.e., “Words which are inoperative, in the interpretation of deeds and instruments, when taken by themselves, become effective when taken conjointly.”

• Hæc sunt jucundi causa cibusque mali.
  • These things are at once the cause and food of the agreeable malady (Love).
    • 138.

• Principiis obsta: sero medicina paratur
  Quum mala per longas convaluere moras.
  • Check the first symptoms: medicine’s thrown away
    When sickness has grown stronger by delay.
    • 91.

• Proximus a tectis ignis defenditur ægre.
  • It is difficult to keep off a fire when next door is in flames.
    • 625.

• Qui non est hodie, cras minus aptus erit.
  • He who is not ready to-day, will be less ready to-morrow.
    • 94.

• Quod non es, simula.
  • Feign to be that which you are not.
    • 497.

• Sed tu Ingenio verbis concipe plura meis.
  • You must please to understand more than is expressed by my words.
    • 360. The reader is to read between the lines.

• Summa petit livor: perflant altissima venti.
  • Envy aims high: great summits feel the wind.
    • 369.

• Temporis ars medicina fere est; data tempore prosunt,
  Et data non apto tempore vina nocent.
  • Medicine must have its hours: a glass of port
    Does good at proper times; but else, does hurt.
    • 131.

• Tristis eris, si solus eris.
  • You will be sad if you live alone.
    • 583.

• Urticæ proxima sæpe rosa est.
  • Oft is the nettle near the rose.
    • 46.

• Verba dat omnis amor.
  • Love (or a Lover) always deceives.
    • 95.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922), pp. 65, 227, 240, 475, 623, 685, 797, 815

• Principiis obsta: sero medicina paratur,
  Cum mala per longas convaluere moras.
  • Resist beginnings: it is too late to employ medicine when the evil has grown strong by inveterate habit.
    • XCI.

• Ingenium magni detractat livor Homeri.
  • Envy depreciates the genius of the great Homer.
    • CCCLXV.

• Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.
  • There are a thousand forms of evil; there will be a thousand remedies.
    • V. 26.

• Otia si tollas, periere cupidinis arcus.
  • If you give up your quiet life, the bow of Cupid will lose its power.
    • CXXXIX.

• Qui finem quæris amoris,
  (Cedit amor rebus) res age; tutus eris.
  • If thou wishest to put an end to love, attend to business (love yields to employment); then thou wilt be safe.
    • CXLIII.

• A cane non magno sæpe tenetur aper.
  • The wild boar is often held by a small dog.
    • 422.

• Est aliquid valida sceptra tenere manu.
  • It is something to hold the scepter with a firm hand.
    • 480.

• Temporis ars medicina fere est.
  • Time is generally the best medicine.
    • 131.

• De multis grandis acervus erit.
  • Out of many things a great heap will be formed.
    • 424.