Ovid was a profound observer and psychologist, and had a most subtle knowledge of contemporary feminine nature; Although the principal object of his _Ars Amoris_ is to teach men how to out-trump the natural cunning of women, yet he does not forget his feminine readers, but gives them numerous hints regarding the best way of fascinating fickle men. In the _Remedia Amoris_ he describes various remedies for healing Cupid’s wounds, most of which are approved to the present day; and the _Elegies_ and _Heroides_, too, are full of pretty modern touches and flashes of insight. A few of these points may be briefly alluded to. Coyness, although often manifested by the Roman women in almost as crude a manner as among savages, does not appear to have been appreciated by all of them at its full value; so the poet frequently counsels them as to the more subtle ways of exercising it; one of his rules for women being, that if they have offended an admirer, the best way to make him forget it is to pretend to be offended themselves, which will restore the equilibrium. How the consciousness of being beautiful makes a woman courageous, coy, and cruel is shown in another place. That eyes have a language plainer than speech is not a modern discovery; and that a short absence favours, long absence kills, passion was also known to Ovid. He warns men against the danger of feigning love, because this may end in arousing genuine passion. Men are informed that courage and confidence in one’s ability to win a woman are half the battle. And disappointed lovers are assured that failure sometimes turns into an advantage, for it may arouse pity, and love enter in the guise of friendship. The emotional hyperbole and mixed feelings of Love are not strangers to Ovid. He compares the tortures of Love to the berries on the trees in number, to the shells on the sea-beach; for true Love, he says, always creates anguish and pain; and “the sweetest torment on earth is woman.” Among the companions of Cupid are “flattery and illusion.” But “even if the beloved deceives me with false words, hope itself will yield me great enjoyment,” could only have been written by one who realised the imaginative side of love. And in another passage the poet directly enjoins the necessity of intellectual culture to take the place of the faded charms of youth.