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The Search for an "alter orbis" in Ovid's "Remedia Amoris"

1996; Classical Association of Canada; Volume: 50; Issue: 3/4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1192652

1929-4883

Mary H. T. Davisson,

Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

As PART OF HIS EFFORT to help the recovering lover avoid a relapse, the praeceptor of the Remedia Amoris warns his pupil to stay away from his former girlfriend: alter, sipossis, orbis habendus erit (630). In the immediate context, the alter orbis denotes a circle of friends that does not include the domina, which should be reasonably easy to find. However, if we remember that much of the poem tries to help the reader find a world where love does not hurt too much, the qualifying conditional becomes more significant. Ultimately, despite the attempts ofthepraeceptor to reassure his suffering pupil, the Remedia demonstrates in many ways that painful love may be very difficult or impossible to escape, especially for women, and that a cure may sometimes be more painful than the disease. This essay will concentrate on the poem's mythological exempla, which deserve closer critical attention than they have previously received,1 but will also survey the non-mythological evidence that a cure is rarelyfacile and sometimes not even utile or laudabile.2