Remedia Amoris
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Remedia Amoris (Love's Remedy or The Cure for Love) is a 814 line poem in Latin by the Roman poet Ovid.
In this poem, Ovid offers advices and strategies to avoid being hurt by love feelings, or to fall out of love, with a stoic overtone. Such strategies include:
To leave your partner:
- Trying to quit loving before the feeling becomes too important
- Trying to be as busy as you can, e.g. with work
- Traveling and trying to avoid familiar places that remind you of your relationship
- Having many affairs, or at least another affair to forget the previous one
- Trying to have sex in an unpleasant way
- Focusing on the unpleasant body parts/physical flaws of the partner
- Trying to focus on all unfortunate things that happen because of the relationship, such as material issues
- Avoiding staying by yourself
- Avoiding places where you can see couples
After leaving your partner:
- Avoiding all contact with her and with her family and relatives
- When explaining why you broke up, avoiding giving details
- Trying to be as silent as you can on your relationship when it's over
- If you know you are going to see your ex-partner again, avoiding trying to look nice for the occasion
- Forgetting about any chances in the future for the relationship to start again
- Burning letters/portraits of your partner
- Avoiding theatre plays or poetries idealizing the concept of love
- Convincing yourself that you don't have any rival, to avoid jealousy. According to Ovid, jealousy is one of the main reason why people stay in love.
- Avoiding to stop in front of the door of your ex partner's house, and picturing it as an awful place bringing only misfortune.
- Avoiding certain kind of food
- Avoiding drinking alcohol in moderation. Instead, do not drink at all or drink abusively
The aim of the poem is to teach (mainly) young men how they can avoid idealizing the women they love and to procure assistance to them if love brings them despair and misfortune. Ovid states that suicides committed because of an unfortunate love feeling can be easily avoided by following these advices.
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