Ricerc@Sapienza

Alla fine del terzo libro dell’Ars, Ovidio esorta le cultae lettrici a non dare spazio al sentimento della gelosia, estraneo all’adulterino mondo dell’elegia erotica, e introduce il mito dell’amore infelice di Cefalo e Procri (3, 683-746), exemplum ‘serio’ (non leve) delle nefaste conseguenze di un atteggiamento non moderato in amore.

Starting from the so-called Sabinus-elegy, Ovid’s Amores 2.18, this paper focuses on intratextual connections between the single love-letters, the fifteen fictional epistles imagined as written by female heroines lamenting abandon from the men they loved, Heroides 1-15, and the double epistles, letters from male heroes paired with replies from loved women, Heroides 16-21. It also argues that Helen (Her.