Ovid’s poem describes how people always want things and people they can’t have, such as a girl who belongs to someone else. Similarly, Rick Springfield writes a song about how he wants his friend’s girl and wants to “make her mine”. Both Ovid and Springfield express the idea that a person who is already taken and is unavailable is even more attractive to them. Ovid instructs the reader to guard his girl because it is foolish for him not to think someone else wants her, and goes on further to say that he would “love her more” if she was protected better. This emphasizes his desire for a girl that is hard-to-get. Rick Springfield uses imagery to convey how Jessie’s girl is loving Jessie “with that body” and watching him “with those eyes”. He is talking about the girl using descriptions of her loving his friend, which shows how he too is more attracted to this girl because she is in a relationship with his friend.
Interestingly, Ovid emphasizes that men should guard their women more in his poem, while Springfield just seems to want to take his friend’s girl. Ovid likes to play the game, and tells the readers that when women are guarded, it makes him more obsessed with them. However, Springfield says that “I know he’s been a good friend” about Jessie, as if he feels guilty about wanting his girl. To Springfield, his desire for this girl is intense and he knows that Jessie hasn’t wronged him in any way, so wanting her is wrong. Ovid simply wants what he can’t have and doesn’t care about the implications his feelings may have.
Ovid
Page 267, Poem 2.19, lines 1-5
If you feel no need to guard your girl, fool,
guard her for my sake, so I’ll love her more.
If you can have it, who wants it; if you can’t, it burns hotter.
Only a man of iron loves what another lets him.
We lovers should fear as much as hope.