MEMORĀBILE DICTŪ
Nec sine tē nec tēcum vīvere possum.
“I can live neither without you nor with you.” (Ovid, Love Affairs, 3.11b.7)
A witty description of the emotional difficulties that love brings. Ovid dramatizes the eternal and irreconcilable conflicts typical of human love affairs. It emphasizes that physical beauty makes the beloved desirable not only to the lover, but to others as well; the beloved’s appearance, therefore, may also be a cause of anxiety. What is more, even if the behavior of the beloved causes resentment in the lover, it may also lead to greater desire, to the point where the lover feels subjected to the beloved, in a form of painful but welcome servitude. The reading in this chapter deals with one of the most celebrated and tragic love stories of all time.
From Latin for the New Millennium
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