Free Relationship Advice from a Master

Put Down Roots I title this page "free relationship advice," some for men as lovers, other advice on relationships for women. Ovid, a Roman epicure of the illicit affair, so loved women that he threw caution to the wind to be with them - whenever, wherever, however.

He made little distinction between women married or single. He visited them sometimes within the cloisters of their villas under the very noses of husbands or fathers.

We include Ovid because, even with this bad behavior, he was a terrible romantic. His words are beautiful, so take the chaff with the wheat.

Love wakes the soul and gives it wings to fly

Free Relationship Advice (Set 1) for men: Where to meet women

"The Circus, too, is another place most favourable to love, for there you have to sit close, you cannot help it, and it's so easy to begin a conversation. Then, you arrange a cushion for her and find a place for her to rest her feet; a speck of dust lights on her bosom: you flick it off. And if it isn't there, you flick it off just the same.

Free Relationship Advice (Set 1) for men: What to say

Boldness is the essence of success. It's no use waiting for the woman to make the first advance. Enter the fray with a stout heart. Not one woman in a thousand will offer any serious resistance. She may put up a fight, but she'll be sorry if she wins, however pleased...Pay plenty of compliments, unlimited compliments, but don't start giving costly presents. That's an error, and you'll find there'll be no end to it. She'll have a birthday every time she wants you to buy her something.

Study the fine arts. Adorn your mind so that you may interest her with your conversation. In whatever you say or write to her, avoid the highbrow style. Don't talk to her like a professor, or as if you were addressing a meeting. That's fatal.

Keep on the best of terms with her husband. If, when the dice are thrown, chance crowns you monarch of the feast, take off your wreath and place it on his brow. Drink moderately, never overdo it. Simulate drunkenness, if you like, because that will afford you an excuse for saying things you would not dare to say when sober.

Free Relationship Advice (Set 1) for all:

If she treats you with hauteur, cool off a little. Don't let her think you too importunate. Above all suit the treatment to the case. Different women require different methods. Never fear, he says to those who would have it he was arming the enemy, women are not as black as they're painted. We must not condemn the whole sex for the crimes of a few. Helen, Clytemnestra, Eriphyle--these were certainly not shining examples; but look at Penelope, look at Laodamia, look at Alcestis. No; Virtue is a woman both in vesture and in name.

*Note that Ovid was actually less misogynistic than most Romans of his day

*Note - the original bad girls whose "crimes" refer to Helen running away with Paris from her husband, Menelaus, and starting the Trojan War in the process. Clytemnestra killing her hubby in the bath with an axe, and Eriphyle betraying her husband's hiding place to get a necklace.

Free Relationship Advice (Set 1) for Her: Dressing up and demeanor

Good looks are a fine thing, but they're rare. But a careful toilet will make a woman attractive, and without it the loveliest faces lose their charm.

Learn how to walk, how to laugh, and even how to weep, for there's a right and a wrong way of doing everything. Above all, if you want to keep your good looks, keep your temper. A woman is never so ugly as when she's in a rage. If your lover's getting lukewarm, let him scent a rival. Don't let him think he's the only pebble on the beach.

Free Relationship Advice (Set 1) for how to break up

The Remedia [Ovid wrote this] Amoris contains a variety of precepts too sound to admit of any other conclusion than that the physician had himself suffered from the disease in its most acute form. If you can take it in time, he says, before it has got a hold on you, cut it out. If you can't, wait a little until the attack has spent its force. Then drink deep of the cup of love. Drink to satiety. Drink till you're sick. And find work to occupy your mind: love thrives on idleness.

Take up farming, gardening, shooting, fishing. Above all, go away. There's nothing like a long journey and change of scene to remove 'this something-settled matter in the heart.' If you've got to stay on in town willy-nilly, don't go near the places where you used to meet her; cut her friends, burn her letters, destroy her portrait and--get another mistress. And remember, if you can go on long enough pretending you're cured, you'll be cured indeed.

Free Relationship Advice (Set 1) for her: play hard to get

I am none of those who love a hundred women at a time; I am no fickle philanderer. Thou and only thou, believe me, wilt ever be beloved by me. Whatsoever the tale of years the fates may spin for me, I will pass them at thy side, and, dying, be lamented by thee. Be not over-exacting whilst thou art spreading thy nets, for fear lest the prey should escape thee; but once he is in thy power, fleece him as thou wilt. Simulated love is often no bad thing. Let him think thou lovest. But see thou love not for nothing.

Sometimes withhold thy favours. As for a pretext, why, maybe thy head doth ache, or else the festival of Isis compels thee to abstain; but hold not thyself too long aloof, lest he grow used to the lack of thee, or lest love, by dint of being rebuffed, at length grow cold.

Let the laments of the rejected reach the ears of the favoured lover. If thou woundest thy lover, be wroth with him as if he had hurt thee first. Forestall his upbraidings with thine own; but indulge not over-long thine anger. Anger too far prolonged hath oft engendered hate. Let thine eyes learn the secret of shedding tears at will and moistening thy cheek.

Above all, never let thy lover think that he hath no rival; love, without rivalry, endureth not.

Free Relationship Advice (Set 1): Does age matter in a guy? Keeping fit is important.

A fig for an elderly soldier! A fig for an elderly lover! The age which generals demand in a brave soldier is the age which a fair young woman demands in the possessor of her charms.

Who but a soldier or a lover will brave the chill nights and the torrents of mingled snow and rain? The one is sent forward as a scout towards the enemy; the other keepeth watch upon his rival as upon a foe. The one lays siege to warlike cities, the other to the dwelling of his inexorable mistress. One beats down gates, the other doors. Then her tresses were soft as down. How often, alas, have I seen them put to the torture, compelled patiently to endure both iron and fire, to make them stay in little rounded curls. ’Tis a crime, I cried, a crime to scorch that hair of thine; it falls beautifully of its own accord. Cruel one, have mercy on thine own head. Away with such violent treatment. This is not the sort of hair to scorch.

*Note - Ovid's opinion about curling irons!

Free Relationship Advice (Set 1): How all women are beautiful in their own way

It is not any particular type of beauty that sets my heart on fire. A hundred motives compel me to be always in love.

Here is a girl that drops her gaze demurely. That is enough, my heart catches fire and her modesty is the lure that ensnares me.

And here is one that is out for booty. To her I fall a willing victim because she is no novice and because she bids fair to be keen and enterprising on a downy couch.

And then, if I see one with an expression that recalls to me the Sabine dames, I forthwith tell myself that she has longings but knows how to conceal them.

Are you a learned lady? I fall in love with your rare accomplishments. Unlearned? Your naïveté enthralls me.

This one finds Callimachus a sorry poet compared with me. I please her, and lo, straightway she pleases me. This one finds fault with my verses and tells me I am no poet. Despite her strictures I fain would have her in my arms.

This one walks languorously. Her gait enchants me. This one is prim. Peradventure, if she had a lover 'twould soften her. This one sings delightfully, and breathes from her soft throat the most melodious strains. I long to steal a kiss from her parted lips.

Another lightly fingers the trembling chords of her lyre; where is he who could help adoring such skilful fingers?

Here is one that wins me with her dancing. I feast my eyes on her seductive poses, on the rhythmic movements of her arms, on the swaying of her whole body as she moves in time to the music. But never mind me, whom anyone can set on fire. Let Hippolytus see her; even he would become a Priapus.

You, my tall beauty, recall the heroines of olden days and the bed is not a whit too long for you. And you, my dainty little treasure; I love you, too, just as much. Both are enchanting. Tall and short, I love them both.

Here is one that wears no finery; I muse how jewels would enhance her beauty. Here is one tricked out with gems; how dazzling are her charms.

Of fair and dark I am alike the slave; white-skinned or sunburnt, I adore them all. Black tresses flutter on a snowy neck? Leda's loveliness lay in her raven hair. Is she fair, the girl I see yonder? Why, ’twas to her golden hair Aurora owed her beauty.

Everywhere history helps me to justify my love. A young woman delights me, an older one enthralls me. The one has the beauty of her body, the other experience and richness of mind, to recommend her. In a word, of all the beauties they rave about in Rome, there's none whose lover I am not fain to be.

Free Relationship Advice (Set 1) on making haste while there is time

Foul fall the man who can slumber the whole night through and thinks so much of sleep. Fool! What is sleep but the image of cold Death. Thou shalt sleep long enough one of these days.

Free Relationship Advice (Set 1) on what to say to a man

As for me, I would that my mistress should sometimes cheat me with lying promises. The anticipation of bliss I hold to be a boon in itself; I would have her sometimes caress, sometimes upbraid me. I like her to surrender often, and often to resist.

Free Relationship Advice (Set 1) on juggling two relationships

TWAS thou, oh, yes, I mind me well, ’twas thou, Græcinus, who wast wont to say a man could never love two women at a time. ’Tis, then, through thee that I have been deceivèd, through thee that, all defenceless and unarmed, I've fallen into the snare, for here in me--oh, scoundrel that I am--thou dost behold a man in love with two fair charmers at a time. Lovely are both and both in love with dress. In artifice I scarcely know which one the other doth surpass. Now doth the first the second one outshine, and now the second doth eclipse the first; yes, sometimes one, and then, anon, the other, taketh my fancy most. My heart, like to a barque tossed by opposing winds, veers sometimes hither, sometimes thither, between these rival loves.

Howbeit 'twere better so, than live a loveless life. The life that scorns delights and lives laborious days I'll leave my enemies. Let them sleep soundly in their lonely beds, lie in the middle and stretch themselves to their heart's content.

As for myself, I'd liefer cruel love should break my downy slumbers; I would not be my bed's sole burden, no, not I. Let my mistress, without let or hindrance, ease me of love's pangs if she alone be equal to the task. If she be not, then I'll have two of them. My body's thin, but strong; it lacks not strength, but flesh. Besides, Love's joys my prowess will sustain. Never a woman have I disappointed yet, and often after battling all the night, the morn hath found me ready to renew the fray.

Be it my lot softly to fade away doing Love's service, to die in the very crisis of the fray. And may some gentle soul, shedding a tear upon my grave, exclaim in sooth thy death did well become thy life.

I, gazing seawards from the shore, shall be the first to see thy vessel dear, and I shall cry, That barque brings home my heaven. I'll fold thee in my arms, and with a riot of wild kisses smother thee; the victim, consecrate to thy return, shall slaughtered be; the sands of the shore I'll fashion like a couch, and any mound will serve us for a table. There, with the wine beside us, thou shalt all thy tale narrate; thou shalt tell me how thy vessel almost foundered mid the waves; thou shalt tell how, in hastening home to me, thou didst not fear the cold, dark nights, no, nor the stormy southern gales. They may be travellers' tales, yet I'll believe them, every one.

Bulls I have seen fighting for a snow-white heifer, which, looking on at the fray, stirred them to fresh exploits. Me too, as others oft before me, hath Cupid bidden march to battle under his banners, but mine was a bloodless victory.

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