Ovid’s poem 3.11b is about a narrator falling in love with a beautiful women who is a bit infidelitous. Despite often trying to leave her for her disloyalty, he can’t help but be drawn back in by her looks and her charm. Between the imagery and the language used in this poem, I could not help but relate this to the song Take Me or Leave Me from Rent. In this song, Joanne is engaged to be married to Maureen. However, similar to Ovid’s narrator and his mystery lover, Maureen is unfaithful to Joanne and now Joanne is unsure of what to do. In both works, the leaving party uses similar language when talking about their behavior. The narrator from Ovid’s poem uses the phrase “I flee your depravity, but your body drags me back from flight” whereas in the musical/movie Joanne establishes this by singing “I hate mess but I love you” while embracing Maureen. Also, Ovid’s narrator admits that “can’t live with or without you” while Joanne also echoes the same sentiment with “can’t live with them or without them”.
The main difference between these two works is that Ovid’s poem only shows the narrator’s side of the story. In this, we only see the narrator accusing his lover of being unfaithful as well as him professing his love for her. In Rent, however, we get both Maureen and Joanne’s sides of the story. We get to hear from Maureen about how she’s “just having fun” and from Joanne about how much she loves Maureen in return. So in this case, Ovid’s work would be considered slightly unreliable given that we only get one side of the story whereas in the case of Rent we know for sure that Maureen is being unfaithful and that Joanne loves her.
Ovid 3.11b
Lines 1-6
Bing and Cohen
Love and hate are wrestling, pulling my weak heart
this way and that; but love is winning, I think.
I flee your depravity; your beauty drags me back from flight.
I recoil from your vices, your body I love.
So that I can’t live with you or without you
and seem to have forgotten what I swore.