Amores 1.6: A Poetic Analysis

We have all been, at some point in our lives, locked out. You may take that statement as metaphorically as you please, but what I am incredibly confident in is that, even if it was merely because you forgot the keys, everyone reading this has felt, at some time, outcast from somewhere they were desperate to be. Yet I also assume that many of us have also felt emotionally barred from someone or something. Whether you were locked out from the guarded emotional experiences of someone you yearned to know better, or denied access to the thoughts of a former friend or lover you once deemed your principal confidant, this loss nearly always feels the same: heartbreaking. To be entrusted with someone's feelings-- given access to the inner turmoil, excitement, and passion they often keep out of view-- is to be trusted on the deepest level one can be. And losing that trust is enough to make us all stand outside this person's metaphorical door, begging to be let in again.

If it provides any solace, this experience is not a modern phenomenon. Although most definitely predating even Ovid himself, his Amores 1.6 provides one of the earliest detailings of this universal heartbreak. Inebriated and in love, Ovid's poem details him moments after stumbling to the doorstep of his mistress, desperate for her doorkeeper to let him inside. Rather than a dialogue between Ovid and the doorkeeper, this poem is instead one long, rambling soliloquy in which Ovid explains his intense longing to be in his lover's arms. She never hears him, and the doorkeeper similarly never graces Ovid with a response. Yet as he remains both physically and emotionally locked out of his mistress's intimate thoughts and actions, this experience allows Ovid himself to unlock his own and grapple with how to move on from heartbreak (hint: the first step, the hardest for Ovid to realize, is to go home and get some sleep).

The Poem Itself

*English translation by A.S. Kline, chief translator of "Poetry in Translation"

Latin Text

ianitor (indignum) dura religate catena,

difficilem moto cardine pande forem.

quod precor, exiguum est: aditu fac ianua parvo

obliquum capiat semiadaperta latus.

longus amor tales corpus tenuavit in usus

aptaque subducto pondere membra dedit;

ille per excubias custodum leniter ire

monstrat: inoffensos derigit ille pedes.

at quondam noctem simulacraque vana timebam;

mirabar, tenebris quisquis iturus erat:

risit, ut audirem, tenera cum matre Cupido

et leviter 'fies tu quoque fortis' ait.

nec mora, venit amor: non umbras nocte volantis,

non timeo strictas in mea fata manus;

te nimium lentum timeo, tibi blandior uni:

tu, me quo possis perdere, fulmen habes.

adspice (uti videas, inmitia claustra relaxa)

uda sit ut lacrimis ianua facta meis.

certe ego, cum posita stares ad verbera veste,

ad dominam pro te verba tremente tuli.

ergo quae valuit pro te quoque gratia quondam,

heu facinus! pro me nunc valet illa parum?

redde vicem meritis! grato licet esse quod optas.

tempora noctis eunt; excute poste seram.

excute: sic, inquam, longa relevere catena,

nec tibi perpetuo serva bibatur aqua.

ferreus orantem nequiquam, ianitor, audis:

roboribus duris ianua fulta riget.

urbibus obsessis clausae munimina portae

prosunt; in media pace quid arma times?

quid facies hosti, qui sic excludis amantem?

tempora noctis eunt; excute poste seram.

non ego militibus venio comitatus et armis:

solus eram, si non saevus adesset Amor;

hunc ego, si cupiam, nusquam dimittere possum:

ante vel a membris dividar ipse meis.

ergo Amor et modicum circa mea tempora vinum

mecum est et madidis lapsa corona comis.

arma quis haec timeat? quis non eat obvius illis?

tempora noctis eunt; excute poste seram.

lentus es: an somnus, qui te male perdat, amantis

verba dat in ventos aure repulsa tua?

at, memini, primo, cum te celare volebam,

pervigil in mediae sidera noctis eras.

forsitan et tecum tua nunc requiescit amica:

heu, melior quanto sors tua sorte mea!

dummodo sic, in me durae transite catenae.

tempora noctis eunt; excute poste seram.

fallimur, an verso sonuerunt cardine postes

raucaque concussae signa dedere fores?

fallimur—inpulsa est animoso ianua vento.

ei mihi, quam longe spem tulit aura meam!

si satis es raptae, Borea, memor Orithyiae,

huc ades et surdas flamine tunde foris.

urbe silent tota, vitreoque madentia rore

tempora noctis eunt; excute poste seram,

aut ego iam ferroque ignique paratior ipse,

quem face sustineo, tecta superba petam.

nox et Amor vinumque nihil moderabile suadent:

illa pudore vacat, Liber Amorque metu.

omnia consumpsi, nec te precibusque minisque

movimus, o foribus durior ipse tuis.

non te formosae decuit servare puellae

limina, sollicito carcere dignus eras.

iamque pruinosus molitur Lucifer axes,

inque suum miseros excitat ales opus.

at tu, non laetis detracta corona capillis,

dura super tota limina nocte iace;

tu dominae, cum te proiectam mane videbit,

temporis absumpti tam male testis eris.

qualiscumque vale sentique abeuntis honorem,

lente nec admisso turpis amante, vale.

vos quoque, crudeles rigido cum limine postes

duraque conservae ligna, valete, fores.

English Translation

Doorkeeper – shameful! – bound by a harsh chain,

open that door with the hinge that’s hard to move!

What I ask is nothing – make an entrance, a little crack

half-open, that a body gets through sideways.

Love has thinned my body with such long usage,

and given me limbs that lose weight.

He’ll show you how to go softly past watchful sentries:

he directs your inoffensive feet.

Now once I was scared of the night and vain phantoms:

I was amazed at anyone who went out in the dark.

Cupid laughed, so I heard, and his tender mother,

and said lightly, ‘You too can become brave.’

Without delay, love came – I don’t fear clutching hands

in my fate, or the flitting shadows of night.

You, so slow, you I fear: you’re the one to flatter:

you keep the bolt that can finish me off.

Look – you can see, then, undo the lock –

the doorway’s wet with my tears!

Surely, when you stood quivering, stripped for flogging,

I spoke words to your mistress on your behalf.

So isn’t the favour that you once valued – oh what a crime!

- not worth something of equal value to me, now?

Repay the service in kind! You’ll easily get what you want.

The night is passing: throw open the door!

Open! Then, I say, you’ll be eased of your long bondage,

and you won’t drink slave’s water for ever!

Like iron you listen uselessly to my prayers, doorkeeper,

the door’s barred solidly with tough wood.

Barred gates are of use to a city under siege:

what arms do you fear in the midst of peace?

What will you do to your enemies, who shut out lovers so?

The night’s passing: throw open the door!

I don’t come accompanied by armies and weapons:

I was alone till cruel Love arrived.

I couldn’t dismiss him even if I wanted:

I’d first have to separate myself from my limbs.

So Love, and a modicum of wine going round in my head,

is here with me, dew-drenched hair with a wreath askew.

Who’s afraid of an army like this? Who isn’t open to them?

The night is passing: throw open the door!

You’re slow: or asleep, do lovers who curse you,

throw words to the winds, lost to your ears?

But, I remember, when I wanted to hide from you,

you kept good vigil under the midnight stars.

Perhaps a little friend stays with you now –

alas, your fate is better than mine!

As long as it’s so, pass your harsh chains to me!

The night is passing: throw open the door!

Am I wrong, or didn’t the door resound with turning hinges,

giving out the strident noise of panels thrown back?

I am wrong – the entrance was struck by an airy blast.

Ah me, how the far-off breeze carries my hopes!

Boreas , if the memory of raped Orithyia, is enough,

come here and beat with your gale on these deaf posts!

All the city’s silent, and wet with glassy dewfall

the night is passing: throw open the door!

Or I’m ready now myself with the sword and fire

that I hold, to attack this proud house.

Night and desire and wine don’t urge moderation:

She quenches shame, Bacchus and Love the fear.

I’ve tried it all: neither threats nor prayers

move you, harder than your doors themselves.

It doesn’t suit you, guarding lovely girls’ thresholds,

you’re worthy of some securer prison.

Soon Lucifer moves day’s frosted axles,

and the birds rouse poor wretches to their work.

But you, garland removed from an unhappy brow,

lie there, all night, on the cruel threshold!

To my mistress, when she sees you thrown there at dawn,

you’ll bear witness of so many evil hours consumed.

Farewell, anyway, and know your duty’s over:

it’s no disgrace to admit lovers slowly, so goodbye!

You too, cruel doorposts with an inflexible threshold

and the tough wood of fellow-slaves, farewell, you doors!

Part I: Theme & Voice

On the surface, Amores 1.6 appears like yet another paraklausithyron, Greek terminology that directly translates to "poem at the closed door." This subgenre was exceedingly common in both Greek and Roman elegy, and nearly always dramatizes the (most often male) excluded lover desperate for entry into the home of his mistress. Emblematic of more than just a physical barrier, the locked door represents desire denied, and, in Amores 1.6, is weaponized to embellish Ovid's longing with a tinge of humor. By transferring military and civic metaphors into the erotic sphere, Ovid appears to be mocking the histrionic plights of lovers. Yet, there is a sincerity to his messaging that cannot be ignored. Oscillating between soldier, suppliant, and potential vandalizer, Ovid underscores the power that love denied has to drive those afflicted with it insane with longing.

With a voice that is simultaneously humorous and despairing, Ovid dramatizes his experience as the lover grappling with sleeplessness and despair, emotions powerful enough to precipitate an explosion of weaponized rhetoric. His repeated pleas fall on deaf ears, begging the question as to whether he is merely speaking to a silent doorkeeper or the poem is representative of his internal conflict. In either case, his overly emotive and distressed voice transforms Ovid into a tragicomic figure; he is the poet whose words echo endlessly, but never open the door he so desires to tear off the hinges. Blending pathos and parody, the voice of Amores 1.6 is unmistakably that of Ovid in his prime.

Part II: Meter

Amores 1.6, like all its counterparts, is written in elegiac couplets. This meter is the defining meter of Roman love poetry, with each unit balancing a rambling, forward-driving line of dactylic hexameter with a clipped and biting shorter line of pentameter. Perfectly suited to the poem's subject matter, the meter serves as a microcosm of the verse's themes. The hexameter represents the lover's bursts of energy-- in desperation, his voice quickens and his thoughts run from him. Yet the pentameter represents the other half of his internal conflict: the voice in the back of his head urging him to go home, rest, and leave the poor doorman and mistress alone. Indeed, the pentameter here illustrates both his own internal resistance and that of the door itself, inextricably linking the two and casting further doubt on whether or not this situation truly occurred. Whether or not it did, Ovid's internal dialectical conflict is clear; beneath every despairing lover is a voice that knows they must move on.

The rhythm also helps mirror the emotional trajectory of the poem. Within each couplet, the alternation between the swelling hexameter and the collapse of the pentameter foreshadows Ovid's own eventual collapse into frustration. However, the repetition of Ovid's refrain, in particular, which always returns in the truncated pentameter, creates an impression of circularity. Rather than the audience imagining this experience as an isolated event, they are forced to grapple with the cyclical nature of the lovers' plight. It becomes clear that Ovid has been here before: pacing outside, knocking on the door, begging pitifully for entrance, being denied, and then beginning once again. In this way, the elegiac couplet and the poem writ large serve as a rhetorical enactment of unfulfilled desire, illustrating the brutal condition of being perpetually suspended in longing.

Part III: Rhetoric

Illustrating Obsession: Refrain and Apostrophe

The most obvious rhetorical choice Ovid makes in Amores 1.6 is his repetition of a refrain throughout the piece. The line "tempora noctis eunt; excute poste seram," which can be idiomatically translated as "The night is passing: throw open the door!" is repeated five times, underscoring the dedication and desperation of the verse's subject. Yet this refrain serves a larger purpose, mirroring the obsessive nature of desire itself. The lover is stripped of their agency, seemingly trapped in an incessant cycle of begging and being rejected, compelled by love to continue putting themselves through this vicious experience. Indeed, each repetition symbolizes the further loss of the speaker's (Ovid himself) sanity. With increasing urgency each time, the refrain represents the growing irrationality of the lover. After all, once is understandable, but five times? Concerning.

This refrain, coupled with the incessant use of apostrophe throughout Amores 1.6, helps dramatize the action. The poem itself begins with a direct address of the doorkeeper, elevating him to the level of antagonist (although not one that ever entertains our protagonist. The line, "ianitor (indignum) dura religate catena," translated as "doorkeeper – shameful! – bound by a harsh chain," not only addresses the man guarding the door, but insults him with a needless invective. The painting of a man merely effectively doing his job as "bound by a chain," moreover, serves as a projection of the lover's own bondage. Ovid equates the plight of a lover slave to love's extremities and the experience of the slave guarding the door, a distateful claim illustrating the sheltered, cushy lives of Roman poets who never grappled with the true experience of bondage. Finally, the apostrophe helps create immediacy, forcefully dragging the reader into this scene of confrontation.

Illustrating the Scale of Suffering: Metaphor & Hyperbole

A hallmark of the Ovidian elegy is the conflation of love and war, and Amores 1.6 is no exception. The poem repeatedly employs military metaphors to exaggerate the emotional significance of love, contributing to the mocking yet sincere tone of the verse. For example, in the line "urbibus obsessis clausae munimina portae," translated as "barred gates are of use to a city under siege," Ovid equates himself, standing at a doorway, with that of an army attempting to break into a city. The doorkeeper becomes a soldier on duty, defending against an army only consisting of persistence and the stench of alcohol. Framing his exclusion as a soldier defending against a siege, Ovid highlights the futility of his endeavor: the Roman army was known for easily entering the cities they chose to capture, directly in contrast to this failed Roman lover. This juxtaposition helps underscore the theme central to the elegy: love brings with it endless frustration, not triumphant conquest.

Additionally, Ovid repeatedly exaggerates both his own condition and the power of the door to further dramatize the personal experience of love. In the line, “tu, me quo possis perdere, fulmen habes", translated as "you keep the bolt that can finish me off," Ovid gives the doorkeeper Jupiter's thunderbolt, magnifying his act of merely guarding the doorway into an act of divine alienation. By equating waiting outside in the cold with a death sentence, Ovid satirizes the impassioned lover who, in his irrationality, elevates a locked door to cosmic proportions. Via this hyperbole, Ovid reveals the concurrent depth and absurdity of passion, revealing the power of love to drive someone comically insane.

Representing Insanity: Personification

One of the most striking rhetorical choices in Amores 1.6 is the personification of inanimate barriers, namely the door itself. When stating "fallimur, an verso sonuerunt cardine postes/ raucaque concussae signa dedere fores?" (translated as "Am I wrong, or didn’t the door resound with turning hinges,/ giving out the strident noise of panels thrown back?"), Ovid gives the doorway characterization. The door itself is denying Ovid entry, intensifying his sense of cosmic betrayal: rather than just the doorkeeper locking him out, the physical architecture itself is also complicit in his exclusion. Not merely unlucky in love, the speaker appears to believe that the entire world is conspiring against him. While comedic to the onlooking audience, this sentiment, accentuated by the personification, reinforces the sheer strength unrequited love has.

Part IV: Audience Reception

For a Roman audience, Amores 1.6 would feel quite familiar. The motif of a lover waiting outside their beloved's door, only to be denied entry, was a popular subject matter for Greek and Roman poets. However, Ovid puts a unique spin on this idea, elevating the lover's struggle to that of military and cosmic proportions. His laying of the scene with martial and cosmic symbolisms would have surprised a Roman audience, as the conflation of love and war was still a new idea (pioneered by Ovid himself). They would no doubt laugh at the comic elevation of the lover's struggle. Still, they would hopefully recognize the sincerity beneath Ovid's hyperbolic poem, acknowledging that love truly is a force powerful enough (especially when coupled with alcohol) to drive a sane man out of his mind.

In Conclusion...

We have all felt locked out of another person's life. Hopefully, we have not literally stood outside their door, heart in hand, begging to be let in again, only to be turned away by the same person who once held us so close. But many of us have felt that same scene play out internally, with our own heart aching to once again feel love and trust reciprocated. It may have, just as it did Ovid, drive us temporarily insane. That is, indeed, the power that love (even the platonic type) can have. Yet I hope that, after reading Amores 1.6, you are dissuaded from acting on your longing, especially in the dead of night. It is, after all, nearly always a better course of action to return home, recover from the hangover, and take moving on one day at a time.