Love as a War or Battlefield

Ovid and Pat Benatar both recount the difficult, emotionally challenging nature of love, with both metaphorically comparing love to a military battlefield or war. Both clearly acknowledge that love is not for the faint or heart, with Ovid stating it is “no assignment for cowards” and Benatar proclaiming “we are strong”, showing that emotional fortitude and endurance is required to live through the battle of love. This emotional fortitude is needed because of “grief and excessive fatigue” according to Ovid and “heartache” according to Benatar. Therefore, the battle, no matter how hard fought, will often result in a broken heart. Despite knowing the dangers and difficulties of the battle for love ahead, the writer and songstress both compare love to being held in bondage, trapped, and chained, showing that they cannot leave the metaphorical war or battle even if they want to. They are emotionally and cognitively imprisoned to their lover.

Despite these many similarities, both passages take on different subjects overall. Benatar’s song focuses on the carelessness and arrogance of young love, with the narrator proclaiming “we are young” and “no one can tell us we’re wrong”. In contrast, Ovid’s text does not mention young love but instead advises the young man to take dangerous actions to impress his lover. Therefore, both passages start very similarly in their descriptions of love as a war or battlefield often resulting in hardship, grief, and heartache, but they diverge in topic when examined in the works’ larger contexts (such as the text before and after the selected passage or the song lyrics in their entirety).

Ars Amatoria Book II, pp. 137

Love is a kind of war, and no assignment for cowards. Where those banners fly, heroes are always on guard. Soft, those barracks? They know long marches, terrible weather, Night and winter and storm, grief and excessive fatigue…Put off your pride, young man; enter the bondage of love.