Presented via the natural method by Hans Orberg, Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love") allows students to read lightly altered Latin texts. The text is a poem in three books by Ovid. The first two books consist of instructions to men on the wooing of women of easy virtue; the third, of instructions to woman on seduction of men. The work is full of humor and charm, and contains interesting glimpses of Roman life and manners-the circus, the theatre, the banquet. It was perhaps partly on account of its immorality that Augustus banished the poet to Tomi by the Black Sea. These poems can be read by students who have completed the first five chapters of Orberg's second-year text Roma Aeterna. (Lingua Latina Pars II), also available from Focus.

Author Biography

Hans Henning Orberg (1920-2010) received his MA in English, French, and Latin from the University of Copenhagen in 1946. He taught at various Danish high schools until 1963 and at the Grenaa Gymnasium until 1988. From 1953 to 1961 he served on the staff of the Nature Method Institute, Copenhagen. He is the author of the Latin course "Lingua Latina secundum naturae rationem explicata" (1955-56); the course was revised in 1990-91, with a number of supplements, under the title "Lingua Latina per se illustrata." His books were published by Domus Latina, a publishing house he founded in Denmark, and are distributed in the English speaking world by Focus Publishing.