Ovid: “Love, Myths and Other Stories” – XXVI
Mille modi veneris; simplex minimique laboris,
Cum iacet in dextrum semisupina latus.
[Ars III, 787 – 788]
“There’s a thousand ways to do it: simple and least effort, is just to lie there half-turned on your right side.”
Mirror cover decorated with erotic scene. The two naked protagonists, lying on a richly decorated bed, are making sex in an elegant alcove. They are engaged in one of the “mille modi veneris” - “the thousand positions of love” - that Ovid, as a good tutor, describes at the end of the 3rd book of his work "Ars Amatoria". Among the furnishings in the room, you can see, behind the two lovers, a panel decorated with a different example of the “mille modi veneris”.
Nota sibi sit quaeque: modos a corpore certos
Sumite: non omnes una figura decet.
Quae facie praesignis erit, resupina iaceto:
Spectentur tergo, quis sua terga placent.
Milanion umeris Atalantes crura ferebat: 775
Si bona sunt, hoc sunt accipienda modo.
Parva vehatur equo: quod erat longissima, numquam
Thebais Hectoreo nupta resedit equo.
Strata premat genibus, paulum cervice reflexa,
Femina per longum conspicienda latus. 780
Cui femur est iuvenale, carent quoque pectora menda,
Stet vir, in obliquo fusa sit ipsa toro.
Nec tibi turpe puta crinem, ut Phylleia mater,
Solvere, et effusis colla reflecte comis.
[Ars III, 773 – 782],
“Let each girl know herself: adopt a reliable posture for her body, one posture is not suitable for all. If a woman has a lovely face, let her lie upon her back: let her back be seen, she who’s back delights. Milanion bore Atalanta’s legs on his shoulders: if your legs are as beautiful as hers, put them in the same position. Let the small be carried by a horse: Andromache, his Theban bride, was too tall to straddle Hector’s horse. Let a woman noted for her length of body, press the bed with her knees, arch her neck slightly. She who has youthful thighs, and faultless breasts, the man might stand, she spread, with her body downwards. Don’t think it shameful to loosen your hair, like a Maenad, and throw back your head with its flowing tresses.”
Translation by A. S. Kline © 2001
Source: exhibition notes (Giulia Salvo)
Mirror cover
Bronze and lead, cast and embossed
Diameter 16,5 cm
End of the 1st Century BC
Rome, “Musei Capitolini”
Exhibition: “Ovidio: Loves, Myths & Other Stories”
Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome
Ovid: “Love, Myths and Other Stories” – XXVI
Mille modi veneris; simplex minimique laboris,
Cum iacet in dextrum semisupina latus.
[Ars III, 787 – 788]
“There’s a thousand ways to do it: simple and least effort, is just to lie there half-turned on your right side.”
Mirror cover decorated with erotic scene. The two naked protagonists, lying on a richly decorated bed, are making sex in an elegant alcove. They are engaged in one of the “mille modi veneris” - “the thousand positions of love” - that Ovid, as a good tutor, describes at the end of the 3rd book of his work "Ars Amatoria". Among the furnishings in the room, you can see, behind the two lovers, a panel decorated with a different example of the “mille modi veneris”.
Nota sibi sit quaeque: modos a corpore certos
Sumite: non omnes una figura decet.
Quae facie praesignis erit, resupina iaceto:
Spectentur tergo, quis sua terga placent.
Milanion umeris Atalantes crura ferebat: 775
Si bona sunt, hoc sunt accipienda modo.
Parva vehatur equo: quod erat longissima, numquam
Thebais Hectoreo nupta resedit equo.
Strata premat genibus, paulum cervice reflexa,
Femina per longum conspicienda latus. 780
Cui femur est iuvenale, carent quoque pectora menda,
Stet vir, in obliquo fusa sit ipsa toro.
Nec tibi turpe puta crinem, ut Phylleia mater,
Solvere, et effusis colla reflecte comis.
[Ars III, 773 – 782],
“Let each girl know herself: adopt a reliable posture for her body, one posture is not suitable for all. If a woman has a lovely face, let her lie upon her back: let her back be seen, she who’s back delights. Milanion bore Atalanta’s legs on his shoulders: if your legs are as beautiful as hers, put them in the same position. Let the small be carried by a horse: Andromache, his Theban bride, was too tall to straddle Hector’s horse. Let a woman noted for her length of body, press the bed with her knees, arch her neck slightly. She who has youthful thighs, and faultless breasts, the man might stand, she spread, with her body downwards. Don’t think it shameful to loosen your hair, like a Maenad, and throw back your head with its flowing tresses.”
Translation by A. S. Kline © 2001
Source: exhibition notes (Giulia Salvo)
Mirror cover
Bronze and lead, cast and embossed
Diameter 16,5 cm
End of the 1st Century BC
Rome, “Musei Capitolini”
Exhibition: “Ovidio: Loves, Myths & Other Stories”
Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome