Masculinity In Ovid's Amores Characters

The value of any given man in ancient Roman society was dictated by how masculine he was. The narrator of Ovid’s Amores 3.7 recounts and reflects on a prior experience of impotence which occurred while attempting intercourse with a “beautiful… elegant girl… often the subject of my prayers,” (lines 1-2). Examining this elegy offers modern readers an opportunity to both broaden their understanding of societal norms relating to a man’s sexual ability and unearth the relationship between said ability and his masculinity. Craig Williams (1999, 28) describes “softness” as the “antithesis of masculinity,” and states that it was, therefore, considered a shameful trait in Roman society; though Williams refers to the concept as a mental or emotional

Throughout the elegy, however, Ovid consistently displays a lack of these two traits as demonstrated through the descriptions of his penis as a separate entity over which he had no control. “[A]s if struck by icy hemlock, my member would not budge, deserted my desire,” (lines 13-14). The italicized phrase casts Ovid and his body as two opposing forces in a disagreement which ends with Ovid failing to compel his body to act according to his desires. Further personification and implied autonomy are found in lines 65-66, which center on the topic of shame: “my member, as if it were about to die, lay, / shamefully, limper than yesterday’s rosebuds.” Here, Ovid describes his member as laying both shamefully and limply, thereby equally attributing those characteristics to the body part. This shame, though related to, appears to be an entity distinct from his own shame. These differing shames symbolize the masculinity-softness dichotomy and its relation to sexual performance, whereby the visible, literal softness of his member implicates Ovid as possessing an inner, figurative softness. This connection is referenced further in the following excerpt: “And now here it is, inopportunely vigorous and strong. / Now it wants action, wants to go straight to the front,” (lines 67-68); “You failed your master; disarmed by you,

“I wanted to be let in; I was let in; / take kisses, I took them; be next to her, I was. / But where did such great luck get me? What’s a kingdom you can’t use? / So did I hold that treasure like a wealthy miser?” (lines 47-50). These four lines contain Ovid’s discussion on the implications of achieving one’s desires yet finding oneself unable to benefit from and/or appreciate them, and Ovid applies this theme to his own experience of impotence, wherein he casts his masculinity as the inaccessible, unusable possession. “What good does it do for Phemius to sing to deaf ears? / What good’s a painting to Thamyras?” (lines 61-62). In this later passage, Ovid no longer focusses on one’s ability to access a given talent or possession, but rather questions the value of a talent or skill if others do not recognize it as such (a deaf man cannot hear Phemius sing, nor can the blind Thamyras see a painting). Furthermore, the sentence structure replicates that found in lines 17-20 wherein Ovid first made note of the importance of an observer’s views of one’s masculinity: “What will my old age be like, if it ever comes, / if my youth isn’t up to the task. / I’m ashamed of my age: what good are manhood and youth, / if my girlfriend didn’t feel